Rafa poll re-run.

[rednich85]

I hold my hands up

 

I fucked up

 

I didnt know David Moores was ripping off Shanks

[stringvest]

David Moores? You're quoting David Fucking Moores?

 

dearie me.

[navbasi]

Poll results seem to have shifted to "I want him to stay.." for the first time..

[Tom R]

Poll results seem to have shifted to "I want him to stay.." for the first time..

 

All the rawk brigade logging on....

[Guest davelfc]

All the rawk brigade logging on....

 

Can't you just accept that people are allowed to have a differing opinion to yours? Besides there's as many people want the manager out on rawk as there are here.

 

It's a poll, they are not using these results to decide his future. If you're in the minority then live with it.

[Tom R]

I am better than you.

[Guest davelfc]

I am better than you.

 

That's wearing pretty thin these days mate, was funny when Harry Enfield did it over a decade ago.

 

Two thirds want the manager to stay, at least until the end of the season. But don't worry you can make enough noise to drown them out. You are after all considerably better than them aren't you?

[RedinSweden]

I have voted for him to stay until the end of the season. I don't really see us turning this into a decent or even an OK season. Getting a CL place and winning the Europa League would be decent, but I just don't see it happening. I would have him replaced now if Hiddink or a manager of similar quality was to come in, or if Kenny was happy to step in, but I don't think either is likely and i don't trust the yanks to find a decent candidate. i have a feeling that i voted for him to stay last time though, so he has slid in my opinion poll.

[Tom R]

That's wearing pretty thin these days mate, was funny when Harry Enfield did it over a decade ago.

 

Two thirds want the manager to stay, at least until the end of the season. But don't worry you can make enough noise to drown them out. You are after all considerably better than them aren't you?

 

All that proves is that most people are fucking thick.

 

Like you.

[Guest davelfc]

All that proves is that most people are fucking thick.

 

Like you.

 

 

Not thick enough to touch that. ;)

[Bogman]

Nothing changed.

 

Still got bigger problems than Rafa at the club.

[Red Nick]

Probably too late to make a change now as if there was one to be made it should have been now with the new manager bringing in some fresh faces from the sales money.

[Guest juanmanual]

How and why so many still want Rafa at the club is fucking incredible,Istanbul was how many years ago now?

 

Get real you bunch of fucking clueless twats.

[The Chief]

How and why so many still want Rafa at the club is fucking incredible,Istanbul was how many years ago now?

 

Get real you bunch of fucking clueless twats.

 

There you go, a very well reasoned argument!

[Randy Marsh]

Still back him, 100%

 

• Worked under conditions like no other Liverpool manager has had to
  

• Despite what anyone says, Facts prove he has spent comparitively less than his rivals (rivals being those above him when he took over, and a few sides below us too)
  

• In his 5 years he has taken us from 37 points behind the champions Chelsea to finishing above them last year, and a record breaking 4 points behind the mancs.
  

• He has gave us some momentous victories in the most prestigious destinations in world football; Nou Camp, San Siro, Bernabeu, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge
  

• He has once again, this blip of a season expelled, made us a European force to be genuinely feared: So much so that we where statistically the number 1 ranked team in European Football for a period.
  

• He brought us Fernando Torres, and made him in to the world's best striker. In doing so, he has broken goalscoring record after goalscoring record at the club
  

• He has turned players such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher in to world class superstars, maximising their potential
  

• He drank with the fans in a pub in Leverkusen the night before the RO16 2nd leg.
  

• He stayed with the side in Japan after the death of his Father, because he felt we needed him most
  

• We have year on year improved as a team, this half season blip apart
  

• He gave us Cardiff in 2006, one of the greatest FA Cup Finals of all time.
  

• very nearly won us our 6 European Cup, which would have made him 2nd only to Bob Paisley in our European record
  

And personally to me, probably most importantly

 

• He gave me the greatest day and night of my life, a day, having growing up fed on Uefa Cup knockouts to Brondby and Strasbourg and on old VHS tapes and stories from my dad, I NEVER EVER EVER in my life thought I'd ever experience. Istanbul 2005, the greatest night in our peerless history and probably the greatest cup final match ever.
  

 

 

Anyone wanting him out after 6 poor months is incredibly shortsighted. We think log term, we are not Portsmouth or Newcastle. Rafa has more than earned the chance to turn this around. I am honestly baffled by any Liverpool supporter not willing to afford him this chance. We are spoilt. At 99.9999% of other clubs Rafa would have a statue in his honour and a job for life. Our history is his biggest enemy. People forget that Rafa didn't take over the 1988 team.

[isr]

We've a right shower of cunts following us these days, and I'm fucking sick of it. No backbone whatsoever, demonstrating signs of glee when we struggle so they can say how right they are in wanting rid of the manager, throwing mud and backing shitehawks in the press who've always had an agenda against us because they are calling for Rafa's head and worst of all, calling Rafa names that dickheads who follow other clubs and have always despised us have been calling him.

 

I don't think it is at all. The amount of negativity on this forum is sickening. We came within a gnat's dick away from the title last year and, because we're having a bad season, 6 months later the majority of people on here want him out.

 

So what you're saying is, people who want Rafa out cos they fear for the future of the club should take a look at themselves as Liverpool fans? Get fucking real will you, when Souness was in charge loads of people wanted him out, were they shit fans cos of that? The last few years of Houlliers reign, he lost the plot big time but he'd won us 5 trophies, lots of Liverpool fans wanted him out, would you say the same about them?

 

Like I said in the original post, this is not a thread to start petty shite, it's asking people's honest opinions.

 

Ok, here's mine.

 

This season has been a disaster. There are 2 ways of handling a disaster like this at a "big" football club.

- throw everybody out, and start afresh. Players, manager, staff. This can work, but usually only in situations where you have excess funds available to throw at the problem.

- try to analyse what went wrong, fix it, and move forward.

 

Most recognise that we simply don't have the financial resources to do #1. Even when we were uber-successful, we never did. It was always about incremental improvement. We're not Real Madrid, not out of choice, but out of necessity.

 

Leaving us with #2. And thats where everything goes to shit, and its almost impossible asking for "honest opinions" on a site like this. Why?

 

Because, at no point during his 5 1/2 year tenure have people been genuinely honest about Benitez.

 

He's been tagged as a man who has no clue how to win a league - yet he won 2 in Spain. He's been slated as a tinkerman rotater, and as a boring defensive git. Yet he crafted a side which were the TOP SCORERS in England last season, with a settled system, and the core of the team pretty much inviolable.

 

Rafael Benitez is a modern day illustration of "throw enough shit at a wall, and eventually some of it sticks".

 

Even his detractors will now admit to some of his accomplishments at Liverpool. Yet, at the very time he was achieving those things, those same detractors were then lambasting him for other offences, imagined or otherwise. At no point has he ever been given due credit for his achievements whilst doing them.

 

Take last season. Now, viewed in isolation, its regarded by many as an excellent achievement. Take a club which hasn't had a sniff of a title in 2 decades, and they went to the brink of winning it. Playing some excellent football along the way, and bashing goals in for fun for large parts.

 

And yet, WHILST HE WAS DOING THIS, he was getting abuse. He's bottled it. He's too defensive. He's fucked it all up. Etc, etc.

 

Chief, you said that Special K should get real. But how can you expect others to "get real" when you start mentioning Benitez and Souness in the same sentence (as Liverpool managers)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Souness produce a season like 2008-09, 6 months before leaving?

 

Or those who moan about having to endure 6 years of boring football dictated by a cowardly manager too afraid to win. Boring football? When we're bad, we're bad. When we're good, we're pretty fucking good. And we've been good a hell of a lot under Benitez. We sent "you're just shit on a stick" packing from Anfield with a FIVE-NIL aggregate hammering. We went to Old Trafford and raped them. We've taken our fair share of teams to the cleaners at Anfield. Even this season, disasterous as it has been, we still put 6 past Hull (before the wheels really came off immediately thereafter).

 

There's simply no attempt at fairness or honesty in this "debate".

 

Liverpool FC is NOT a club which exists solely to win trophies. It used to be. THAT DIED WELL OVER A DECADE AGO. We have the same name, and play in the same colours, on the same ground. We used to pride ourselves on having the most knowledgable fans, and our club was run with such a calm "behind closed doors" setup that we even coined a phrase "The Liverpool Way" to sum it all up.

 

Now, thats mostly gone. As a business, we are a tragi-comic manual on how NOT to do it. We're outspent by the Tottenhams of this world, forget about Man Utd. Our fans - many still cling to the old ways, while a growing vocal group act in a manner which would put the most deluded Newcastle/Real/<fill in your favorite bunch of over-indulgent whiny backstabbers here> to shame. Down to slagging off those who DO try their best to cheer on the manager and team at matchday (cringeworthy - reading comments like that from some of the tits on here).

 

Any of the above strike a chord? And if, at some point in the last 5 years, we lost sight of how we are just another "once big" club - as we charged to European finals, or came within a hair's breath of winning the League - reassess that with the above in mind. The current manager HAS punched above his weight, so much so that many thought we were on the verge of reassuming our rightful place. This season has been a drastic splash of cold water.

 

My $0.02 (addressed to no-one in particular)? If we're going to recover what was lost, we're not picking up the threads leftover from the glory days. We're starting from scratch. And that means taking the odd shit year on the chin. If you can't do that, then you're in for a world of hurt. And I'd much rather you endured your own hurt in private, and not feel the need to inflict on everybody else. Thanks all the same.

[The Chief]

Chief, you said that Special K should get real. But how can you expect others to "get real" when you start mentioning Benitez and Souness in the same sentence (as Liverpool managers)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Souness produce a season like 2008-09, 6 months before leaving?

 

 

Nah I was trying to make a point, and I can't be bothered to read through, as you rightly say, some of the tripe on here, I think it was about everyone having their own opinions. I'm stupid mate, but not stupid enough to put Souness in the same class as Benitez.

 

Reasoned arguments is all I asked for from both sides of the debate, and I think the poll and (some of) the posts in this debate make very interesting reading.

 

Oh yeah, by the way, 311 people voted in the last poll, so if it reaches that many by Monday, I'll, put both together and see how it's changed....or not as the case may be.

Edited January 19, 2010 by The Chief