In Rafa we trust? Go fuck yourself

[King Emlyn]

Do you mean the title as opposed to individual matches? In that case, I've got no evidence for the defence. However, I would say that if he can see the results of that policy and then ignore them he must be stupid. It's just so blindingly obvious that that approach (aggressive, high tempo, compact, attacking football played high up the pitch) is the key to winning the league, in my view.

Yes mate, i meant the title, i agree with the rest of your post.

[Dougie Do'ins]

I think that is a media misreprensation of his character.

 

He is a classic gambler.

 

He always gambles if he thinks he has the slightest edge.

 

That gives him his stunning wins, his man-management "issues" (fuck people, i'll play the odds), his indifference to criticism & his lows.

 

Maybe we don't want a gambler in charge (i think we have to, given our constraints, but that is a different story), but he is a gambler thru & thru.

Your talking about Ferguson ?

[Dani Pacheco]

Rafa is a very good coach (with some flaws obviously).

 

But he has failed here and will continue doing so under the circumstances of the club in my opinion.

 

For me their is no evidence he can rebuild a squad and be competitive on all fronts unless he's spending a lot more than our biggest rivals, which we can't do. At Valencia he inherited that squad that won the league titles. He inherited the side that won the Champions League here. Good coach but he just isn't a good buyer of players in general, obviously some great buys but too many bad buys that can't be ignored and just make you seriously think how the fuck did he really think they were good enough for this club.

 

If we're going to continue being a club who can't compete with clubs with higher resources then I think Rafa has had his time to prove he isn't going to be the man to lead us to glory. 1 title challenge past December in 6 seasons doesn't require miracles and it's a bit of a joke really.

[King Emlyn]

His character is that of a gambler.

 

Dostoevsky and all that.

 

It may not be right (indeed some of the most valid criticisms of him are that he sees everything in terms of blind odds not people) but that is what it is.

 

He always looks for value & he always acts on it & fuck any notion of opinion.

 

If your character is essentially that of a gambler you will take the "safe" option if you percieve it as having "value" when contemporary wisdom suggests "go for it"

 

His underlying character is that of a compulsive gambler.

Exactly, ridiculous as it sounds, he gambles for a draw, and he certainly doesn't care what people think; he never ever goes for the throat unless it's the first 20 minutes of games in which people give us no chance whatsoever; when the cards are in his favour it's safety first, always. I think he revels in being the underdog, when he is the hunter he lacks bottle and conviction entirely and i say again, you will never get where you want to be with that mind set.

[Catch22]

Your talking about Ferguson ?

 

In simple terms, Ferguson's success is based upon charisma & his ability to lead/inspire men.

That is a very human trait- a gambler is Stu Ungar, arguably the greatest poker/gin rummy player of all time but completely incapable of relating to people.

 

Rafa's character is almost perfectly that of a gambler.

 

I am not saying if that is right or wrong but it fits so many of his actions & so many of his perceived man-management weaknesses.

[King Emlyn]

In simple terms, Ferguson's success is based upon charisma & his ability to lead/inspire men.

That is a very human trait- a gambler is Stu Ungar, arguably the greatest poker/gin rummy player of all time but completely incapable of relating to people.

 

Rafa's character is almost perfectly that of a gambler.

 

I am not saying if that is right or wrong but it fits so many of his actions & so many of his perceived man-management weaknesses.

Disagree, in simple terms Fergusons success is built on going for the throat.

[Unrighteous]

Disagree, in simple terms Fergusons success is built on going for the throat.

 

Yup. He's fucking aggressive and his teams always display this personality trait.

[Catch22]

Disagree, in simple terms Fergusons success is built on going for the throat.

 

Possibly but that is not a gambler, which is what Rafa is to a tee.

 

The character of a gambler is based upon constantly trying to calculate odds, react accordingly & stay firm in the face of conventional wisdom.

 

Although i want Rafa as our manager it is very possible to argue that we don't want a Jesse Livermore type character running a football club.

 

But to say he doesn't take risks is wrong

 

He constantly calculates odds (maybe wrongly) & then takes risks (maybe wrongly as it ignore other issues) accordingly

[King Emlyn]

Possibly but that is not a gambler, which is what Rafa is to a tee.

 

The character of a gambler is based upon constantly trying to calculate odds, react accordingly & stay firm in the face of conventional wisdom.

 

Although i want Rafa as our manager it is very possible to argue that we don't want a Jesse Livermore type character running a football club.

 

But to say he doesn't take risks is wrong

 

He constantly calculates odds (maybe wrongly) & then takes risks (maybe wrongly as it ignore other issues) accordingly

I know he takes risks, risks on not losing, and that imo makes him a bottler; Ferguson takes risks by attacking teams, i know which mindset i prefare.

[King Emlyn]

He is cautious although what he ain't is a bottler.

Depends on your definition of a bottler, i'm convinced that is exactly what he is.

[dennis tooth]

It’s gone all Houllier, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. It has, and without mentioning the obvious similarities, the key one for me is that I actually feel physically sick when I read articles defending him.

I know that sounds harsh and shit that I actually feel sick when fans defend our manager, but I can’t find any other way to describe it, every time someone mentions money, injuries, the yanks or any other excuse I feel like punching a wall.

 

I truly can’t be fucked with the shit football we play, the shit players we put out and the utter fucking moronic substitutions the man puts out. FFS Aquilani for 30 fucking seconds, and Yossi has came off in games where we needed a win! I can't be doing with some tit telling me it isn't Rafa's fault.

 

I’m fed up of listing reasons why I want him out, I’m fed up of trying to justify my feelings when I see the club I love and adore in this predicament, when it’s blindingly fucking obvious, in my eyes anyway.

 

How can anyone be happy in the position we are now, and how can anyone say that the manager is not blameless? Fucking hell…..Seriously the thought of justifying our position makes me want to punch a wall.

 

I can’t be fucked listing all the reasons because you’ve heard them all before.

 

Here are the ‘fahcts’

 

No trophies in 3 years

 

Out of the Champions League

 

Out of the league race

 

In Rafa we trust? Go fuck yourself.

 

Little Tommy fucking Tantrum. Fuck off.

[Unrighteous]

You are talking all sorts of sense, King Emlyn.

[Kitchentable]

Actually, no. Since the League Cup final replay that year, when we lost to Forest 1-0, but played so well I started to really like and admire that team. At the time, I knew next to nothing about English teams (being in Ireland), and I just picked a team based on my favourite colour. Red being one, but that day, Liverpool were in white.

 

 

No we weren't.

[King Emlyn]

No we weren't.

You're right we weren't, wasn't that Thomsons professional foul moment? If memory serves he was found £400 English pounds for that comment. And that's without google help, that's pure fogey power!

[Kitchentable]

You're right we weren't, wasn't that Thomsons professional foul moment? If memory serves he was found £400 English pounds for that comment. And that's without google help, that's pure fogey power!

 

Bit of a love in for Forest fans but Thommo's interview is at the end of the clip

 

[YOUTUBE]nu_ZS6XrKXs[/YOUTUBE]

[RoboRiise]

Thought the following excerpt from a Richard Williams article, contrasting Liverpool under Benitez with our successful teams of the 80s, makes a lot sense. Seems that every season under him, we always have a bad run, a bad sequence, a bad result before it clicks under pressure. And that can't last....

 

 

"The trouble with Liverpool under Benítez is that they produce results in big matches only when goaded to a frenzy by the consequences of their own earlier inadequacies. In recent years we have grown accustomed to writing them off, only to see them respond with performances – against Manchester United, Real Madrid or AC Milan – epitomising the triumph of fighting spirit, of a refusal to accept the odds against redemption.

 

In truth, however, the old Liverpool – the Liverpool of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish – seldom needed to rely on the emergency turbo-boost provided by sheer desperation. Inspired by Shankly's example, a succession of managers created teams that played with an intimidating power and a relentless tempo but never forfeited ingrained virtues of vision and accuracy. Eventually the habits of simple, accurate interplay in attack and ironclad discipline in defence ran so deep that it was seldom a problem, even on a black and white television, to identify Liverpool at first glance.

 

Benítez's perennial fidgetiness, by contrast, seems to find an unintended expression in his team's infuriating inconsistency. Stability on the pitch can only be undermined by instability off it and, although Tom Hicks and George Gillett cannot fairly be accused of withholding funds for Benítez's player recruitment, since their takeover in February 2007 the emergence of divisions between the two and the failure to fund the new stadium project can only have had a debilitating effect on a team struggling to live up to the demands of a club accustomed to judging itself by the very highest standards. For everyone at Anfield, an uncertain future now awaits."

 

 

He can fuck off with that shit, they've borrowed every penny we've spent and our net budget this summer was fuck all. Other than that, a reasonable analysis.

[RoboRiise]

I don't care what anyone says he is playing to be sacked to get a big pay off.

 

 

Oh aye, that'll be it. He's signed a five year deal just so he can start deliberately losing matches in order to engineer his dismissal, royally fucking the club up the ass in the process. For this, he will receive a proportion of the money that he would have got if he'd managed us to success for the length of his contract. So to recap, you don't necessarily think he's incompetent like many others do but that he actually despises the club, the fans and everything we hold dear and he's following a carefully laid plan to fuck us up and pocket a nice wedge in the process? Win/win for Rafa? Get yourself down to Netto for some cheap tinfoil Simon, you're gonna need a bigger hat.

[The Big Step]

I think anyone who says they back the manager through thick or thin needs to have a word with themselves and stop criticising those who feel the opposite.

 

I don't back the manager any more because I think he's dragging us backwards and undoing all his good work. That doesn't mean I'll boo him or demonstrate against him. That doesn't mean I want us to lose to make him look worse. That doesn't mean I don't support the team when they're playing, even though there might be players out there that I might think are shit. I think Voronin is shit but I'll cheer him if, by a miracle, he scores. I don't think Kuyt is good enough and he frustrates me but I still like the guy as a person and I will still applaud him when he does something well.

 

My recognising when something is done well does not alter at all my belief that the manager and some players need to go. It's just me being reasonable.

 

 

is right

[Brownie]

is right

 

I agree with what he's written there as well.

 

I was trying to explain my stance to a Newcastle fan today in work. He was asking what I thought of Benitez and his job, to which my reply was, 'either way i'd wait until the end of the season but right now i'd sack him then'. He was surprised by that and asked me why.

 

My reasoning was that when it comes to my team all I want from the manager is for him to make decisions that are logical and make sense. If we try to do things in the right way and the team is given he best chance of winning every game, then I really can't have any complaints.

 

All I want to see our manager doing is picking the right kind of teams and seeing the problems in the team and fixing them.

 

Rafa used to be excellent at that for me, but as time has passed he seems to have more of a blindspot for certain players and his decision have become even more erratic. When that is happening and results are good, then you can accept it, though still retaining an over-riding sense of discomfort in the background.

 

When results are poor, however, those feelings come to the forefront and you can only believe that the illogical decisions and lack of foresight in certain situations are having an affect on those results.

 

I want Benitez to be our best ever manager. I'm desperate for him to succeed. I don't believe he will though for the reasons i've already outlined.

 

That doesn't mean I don't support the team though. When I go the match I sing my arse off for the team. When I watch the game on tv I get right behind the team, even if players who I don't rate are playing.

[Red Nick]

i love all my LFC brothers

 

For all of those who have been taking acting lessons at how to be a cunt, I love you too and have nothing but love for you my lfc brothers

 

Lfc fans shouldnt be fighitng with LFC man

 

Feel the love man and remember who the enemy is not you fellow LFC brother but those wanking cunts from across the pond.

 

Sweet dreams

 

Love & Hugs

 

Red Nick

[Menc]

seeing the problems in the team and fixing them.

 

This is key I think. There needs, for example, to be some sign that he’s recognising how shit we are from set pieces (both attacking and defending) and rectifying that over the coming weeks. In the past I think we’ve seen Rafa spot problems and fix them; so far this season he hasn’t dealt with this glaring problem and I’m not sure why.

[Red Nick]

This is key I think. There needs, for example, to be some sign that he’s recognising how shit we are from set pieces (both attacking and defending) and rectifying that over the coming weeks. In the past I think we’ve seen Rafa spot problems and fix them; so far this season he hasn’t dealt with this glaring problem and I’m not sure why.

 

Ive been banging this drum for some time now

 

I dont give a shit if the manager has lost the plot or fucked up, its about realising those fuck ups and what your doing wrong and fixiing it

 

Look forward not backwards but if he continues to repeat those mistakes and doesnt fix the problems then action needs to be taken to rectify the situation with Insua and Kuyt being perfect examples of that. However kuyt isnt responsilbe for us being knocked out of the CL

[RoboRiise]

I never forgave Rafa for putting himself before the club in all honesty with the embarrasment of the Keane debacle. He treated him like a fucking cunt.

 

 

He played like a fucking cunt.

[Herp McDerp]

He didn't get a fair go mate, didn't you know? I still see people asking who I'd rather bring off the bench, N'gog or Keane, I'll take the youngster who puts the ball in the fucking net over the idiot who pissess and moans all match long kicking air as often as he kicks the ball and mouths off when he's subbed.

 

Great thread title by the way.

[goatboy59]

And that's without google help, that's pure fogey power!

We should gang up together and fight crimes.

 

As long as they don't clash with Countdown or Last Of The Summer Wine.