Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Rafa Exclusive in The Times


Randy Marsh
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 788
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I would have waited until the summer and even then, I would have only given him a new 2-year contract.

 

Even if he goes back to his beloved Madrid, he wouldn't get anything more than that.

 

I don't think the length of the contract is too much of a worry to be honest and i can fully see it from your point of view regards only giving him a 2 yr contract.

 

Lets just say Rafa is sacked in the summer that doesn't mean we then have to pay him the rest of the 4yrs of contract but purely until he gets another managers job.

 

There would be a fee obviously but that would only have been the same had he been on a 2 yr contract.

 

It also helped protray a sense of stability at the club in that the manager and the top players were all signed to lengthy contracts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you not see the irony in that statement? £27m worth of duds that he bought but now wants to ship out.

 

No I don't.

 

I see that players who are bought in the mid range category are hit and miss. That's football. For every one of those "duds", there is an Agger, a Skrtel, a Reina, a Benayoun, a Kuyt, an Insua. Do you see our rivals competing for this price level of player?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No I don't.

 

I see that players who are bought in the mid range category are hit and miss.

 

Then you save your money for the players who will not be hit and miss and not spend it on spectators while at the same time complaining about not having enough money. Quality not quantity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still don't get this people saying the owners can not afford to sack Rafa.

 

Again if he is sacked in the summer then that would leave 4 years left on his contract.

 

Under normal circumstances the sacked manager will be put on 'gardening leave' for upto a year where his wages for that year will be paid.

 

In our case i cant remember the exact figure but i thinks its about £5m.

 

Its still a lot of money and only in football do you get rewarded for failure but its still well short of the media driven £20m plus figure we keep hearing.

 

After the 12 months have expired then the ex-manager is free to get another job.

 

If in the meantime the ex manager is offered a job earlier then the 12 months then his former club would no longer be expected to make payments.

 

Even in a worse case scenario and the manager said to the owners that he wanted all his contract paying up and wanted to be on 'gardening leave' for the remainder of it then all the owners have to do is 'borrow' the money from Kop Cayman like they have done for transfers in the past.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our aims have been realistic - 99% of the times. In your opinion, which top club in Europe would have given Rafa a new 5 year contract?

 

I admire your will to argue about the wages but to say a manager is only 10% or less responsible for the club's success is a joke. I'm sorry to say, but it is really a joke.

 

Wages are important - only a fool will argue otherwise. But to bring wages into the argument EVERYTIME we fail to win a game or a trophy is also a joke. Football doesn't always operate like that.

 

If football strictly operated on the basis of statistics and numbers, we wouldn't have won the CL in 2005. We wouldn't have reached the final in 2007 either.

 

Wages is an important factor in success and domination. So are other qualities. And a manager has far MORE responsibility than just 5% or 10%.

 

I agree that Catch goes on far too much about the wages issue, however it does not mean he is necessarily wrong. Although I have not read it, I think he is getting his 90% from the recent book "Why England lose" which used stats to look at a lot of issues in football, and the emprical evidence of plotting end of season positions compared to wage bill suggests that wages account for 90% of where a team finishes. But it is quite an abstract way of looking at things, which is why it does seem wrong, but the evidence is there to support it.

 

I find the Fink Tank in The Times quite interesting and their Manager of the Year analysis sums it up quite well how to look at expectations compared to wages. Although unfortunately last season they gave it to Slur Alex.

 

Sir Alex Ferguson is Fink Tank manager of the year

 

They always ask the wrong question. When I tell people that I am about to reveal the Fink Tank Manager of the Year, I am usually asked “Who?” or sometimes “Why?” or most often “What are you serving for dinner and can I come?” But the right question is “How?”

 

I am going to tell you the identity of our Manager of the Year and you will have your own opinion of whether that feels right. But the correct way to judge if the result is correct is to judge whether the basis on which we made the calculation is correct. In other words, you need to think about how we did it, rather than who we picked. The result merely follows from our method of calculation.

 

Subjective judgments based on newspaper reports or single incidents are inclined to give too much emphasis to individual events that happen to be at the front of people’s minds. This is what psychologists call the availability bias.

 

Second, you can’t use raw data on club performance to choose a manager of the year, because this ignores the elephant in the room. Money is the single most important driver of performance. You have to be able to model the relationship between the money spent and the team’s performance if you are going to isolate the impact of the manager.

 

Third, looking only at money, performance and expectations excludes many things that people might like to include. Press relations, say, or nimbleness in the transfer market. But our view is that these things don’t matter unless they impact on a team’s results. Who cares if someone is good in the transfer market unless they produce good results?

 

Finally, the period over which they produce good results is important.

 

Having a manager of the month is absurd, because the results of one month of games tell you almost as much about luck as they do about management.

 

There is a good argument that even a year is too short. But it is reasonable to take a look each season.

 

So, Dr Henry Stott, Dr Mark Latham and Dr Ian Graham began by plotting the number of points obtained by each club against their estimated player wage bill. This allowed a curve to be drawn that shows how many points you would expect a team to score given the amount of money they were spending. As you move towards the top end you have to spend more and more money to gain anything extra in the way of points. That is even more true this season than it was last season.

 

Finally, we excluded managers who had been in charge for fewer than 15 games because we didn’t think there was enough data to judge fully.

 

This year’s Manager of the Year is Sir Alex Ferguson, the first time he lifts the prestigious trophy. Even though Manchester United’s wage bill is vast, his performance exceeded the expected performance by a wide margin. Rafael Benítez came second, his best Fink Tank Manager of the Year performance. Tony Pulis and Phil Brown have also had exceptional seasons. David Moyes finished near the top again.

 

It is worth noting that Sam Allardyce did better than expected given the Blackburn Rovers wage bill despite not having a chance to play the transfer market properly.

 

Luiz Felipe Scolari finished in the bottom segment, though controversially above Gianfranco Zola. Guus Hiddink was excluded because he wasn’t manager for long enough. But if he had been included? He would have come second.

 

Sir Alex Ferguson is Fink Tank manager of the year | The Fink Tank - Times Online

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do not.

 

However the emergence of such slop at a time when we are having one of our worst ever runs can and probably will be counter-productive. The talk of where we are in comparison to 2004 - I'm not ploughing down the 'anti' road by comparing players, we are a lot better end of story - unnervingly mirrors the list of pluses Gerard came out with in 2003 and 2004. Which were also correct, up to a point.

 

As much as you want fans to view the overall, this is unarguably his sixth season in charge. As Zigackly says we were not exactly pulling up trees before this run began. Of the 6 victories in a row, which of them were unexpected?

 

The opinion pieces will follow through the week, and for those who were casting doubt on his future how many do you think will now say "oh, now you mention it etc"? I'd say precisely zero, and more likely will be along the lines of "have you read what he's saying now?"

 

We lose to City and I'll be looking for the headline 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Clueless Mind". Toulouse Le Plot, only updated, but a top team with one victory in 2 months is not going to get an easy ride.

 

If Wenger were falling this fast the 'poison' would be there as well, and Ancelotti wouldn't even be there.

 

It's all about the undecideds and keeping them from forming a critical mass. And it will work because it always has and it will buy him time to turn the results around. Of course those who have taken a pathological position or make money out of stirring the pot are not for changing, but then they are not who this is aimed at and therefore to an extent, they really don't matter.

 

I'm interested in why you single this out as slop, it just looks like typical british sports journalism to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me the major difference in the last five years has been the emergence of the squad!

 

Not just a team with four or five Philip Nevilles and Nicky Butts but 15-20 international players, as we are painfully finding out 11 players with a few squad players is not good enough. To me that takes time, had we won the league last year, not one of us here would have said 'we don't need to buy anyone' yet we have had no investment this summer when it was more important than it has ever been.

 

People often say that Rafa has spent loads, yes I think he has, and that is why we have a team that regularly progresses in the chamions league and had finally challenged for the league, but you do not stand still and that is what we seem to be expecting Rafa to have done, but the crux is our current run. We need to be winning regularly and we need that run (the one we have always had).

 

Criticising the players signed can be a bit of a misnomer as well, as I say, Tuncay would have come been okay in the odd match, not good enough in the long run and eventually shipped out in two years! On paper he would be deemed a failiure, but I think he could have given us an extra six points this year, he would have slotted in when Nando was out and been a lot better than Ngog or Voronin! I would put Martin, Garcia, Momo, Crouch, Bellamy in that bracket, others would have them as failures which I couldn't really disagree with!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why didn't you answer the rest of my post?

 

"That's football. For every one of those "duds", there is an Agger, a Skrtel, a Reina, a Benayoun, a Kuyt, an Insua. Do you see our rivals competing for this price level of player?"

 

We could have had several more decent buys if we didn't blow money on numerous average players. We spend our money on too many players instead of buying quality. Rafa is still building a squad after 6 years, that says it all about the success of his signings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Then you save your money for the players who will not be hit and miss and not spend it on spectators while at the same time complaining about not having enough money. Quality not quantity.

 

You mean like Johnson? the same Johnson who he has been criticised for buying instead of spending less money on a right back leaving more to spread around!

 

You see! Can't do right for doing wrong. Some people want him gone, full stop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean like Johnson? the same Johnson who he has been criticised for buying instead of spending less money on a right back leaving more to spread around!

 

You see! Can't do right for doing wrong. Some people want him gone, full stop.

 

As good as Johnson is right-back was not the top priority and as such was the wrong move.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"That's football. For every one of those "duds", there is an Agger, a Skrtel, a Reina, a Benayoun, a Kuyt, an Insua. Do you see our rivals competing for this price level of player?"

 

We could have had several more decent buys if we didn't blow money on numerous average players. We spend our money on too many players instead of buying quality. Rafa is still building a squad after 6 years, that says it all about the success of his signings.

 

Rafa bought two first teamers this summer, players who when fit could hopefully better us, but are only replacing 2 players who went out. The squad is weaker as a result of 2 or 3 of these mid range players not coming in. That's the conditions he is working under.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean like Johnson? the same Johnson who he has been criticised for buying instead of spending less money on a right back leaving more to spread around!

 

You see! Can't do right for doing wrong. Some people want him gone, full stop.

 

Exactly. Damned if he does, damned if he doesnt. Really don't know why I bother.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As good as Johnson is right-back was not the top priority and as such was the wrong move.

 

You would have been happy starting the season with Degen and Darby as the right backs then.

 

For me right back was the priority in the summer.

Edited by coop
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You would have been happy starting the season with Degen and Darby as the right backs then.

 

For me right back was the priority in the summer.

 

No, Carragher should have been told he's playing there. I said at the start of the season that with no forward signed the best we could hope for was 3rd. I was laughed at, nobody is laughing now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, Carragher should have been told he's playing there. I said at the start of the season that with no forward signed the best we could hope for was 3rd. I was laughed at, nobody is laughing now.

 

Carragher told to start at right back!

 

Seriously, you have that as a viable alternative?

 

 

Are you Ant's lecturer?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carragher refused to play there purely due to the fact he didn't feel he had the energy at that stage in the season to play right back.

 

You know you will always get 100% of Carra but this season he is struggling with the pace of the game so imagine him coming up against a pacy winger.

 

You also have to factor in that the modern day full back is expected to attack as well as defend and there is no way Carra has the stamina to do that.

 

Carra is a top class centre half but a right back he is not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...