Arbeloa Interview – Interesting insight into Rafa’s Tactical Ethos/Set up

[05 Milan]

Good interview that, gives a lot more insight than usual. The following point-scoring on this thread however, is as tedious as usual.

[stringvest]

Well, it does confirm what most of us already knew.

 

Maybe Gerrard's run out of patience and understanding. That must be why he hasn't improved this season. Damn your impatience Steven.

[RafaLaBamba]

Prevents us from winning the prem so much that we were just a whisker away from winning it last season.

[jackofdk]

Good interview that, gives a lot more insight than usual. The following point-scoring on this thread however, is as tedious as usual.

 

Very true on both counts.

[overthe]

I can see what some are saying in terms of the lack of flair and freedom but i think that it's fine for RB to have strict guidelines that the players follow where every player knows what to do and can fit into the system.

When confidence is lost, it's this tactical and team grounding that will pull you through.

It's no coincidence that the shackles came off when our team was fully fit and fully confident. That momentum has been broken this season and confidence awfully low but at the very least the team continues to work as a unit and be solid.

Yes we are looking for more than this but i reckon we have to accept that the strength of our squad doesn't allow us to be high flyers 100% of the time.

[G Richards]

That was a good read. Albert spoke well enough and pretty much summarized what many of us have seen with our own eyes. Still, its good to have a recent former player spell it all out so clearly - and he wasn't sticking the knife in on Rafa, he was just telling it like it is, with the good side (player improvement if you work with Rafa) and the bad side (too mechanical, no individual player expression).

 

I think ideally we need a manager who can do a bit of both. We want a competent, top class coach; a man who can come in and improve his players - even world class players.

 

But I think we also need a manager who will allow said players to go out and express themselves a bit more.

 

I really hope that we are not stuck with a false dichotomy of having to choose one or the other. We need both.

[The Robot Tank]

I don't think Arbeloa was overly critical of Rafa. What he said, most of us already knew. Rafa is demanding, forces the team to be predictable, Rafa hates risks etc etc.

 

For what it's worth, I'd take Arbeloa back in a heartbeat and keep that £15m difference. Very underrated player.

 

That was a good read. Albert spoke well enough

 

You mean Alvaro?

[Lucky Pierre]

What are the biggest differences between Manuel Pellegrini and Rafa Benitez?

Pellegrini is a name on a bit of paper, Rafa is a manager.

[LFC Ultra]

Plainly, Arbeloa may be added to the list of those who consider Benitez an incompetent, greedy, corrupt Fat Spanish Waiter.

 

I presume that Benitez' attacking nature during the final third of last season coincided with almost a full flush of players to chose from. This may be lost upon the 'we need a manager who just tells them to go out and play! that's what shankly did!' crowd, but playing two-touch attacking football with Degen marauding down the wing with Voronin, Eccleston, N'Gog or Dossena in support, as has happened enough times this season, isn't realistic.

 

 

What I can sympathise with here is that Benitez' style of play may only be suited to having top players in every position. Give him the Madrid side, and the talent it holds, and his team would be a footballing battering ram. For various reasons, some through Benitez' own fault and others not, we don't have nearly the same amount of quality. In the absence of Torres, we've had a flailing Gerrard, and a Benayoun who has blown hot and cold throughout, besides his golden spell last season. Whether, if we cannot bring in investment, Benitez would continue to be the right man to work under an extremely limited budget, I don't know. But certainly, regardless of who came in, we would not be challenging consistently for any domestic or European titles on such a budget.

 

Which is why the team needs an overhaul. Every interview from every player, besides Pennant, who I presume is currently languishing in his bed after a heady Zaragoza night, points to Benitez being a superb footballing man. But he needs to make changes, certainly.

Excellent post and one with substance. Makes a change from the usual sub standard vitriol spewed out on here by the 'fickle contingent!'

[Lucky Pierre]

Bob.... - The Liverpool Way

[DonaldDonaldson]

The aspect of our play that annoys me the most is the apparent lack of rudimentary footballing ability that characterizes our play all too often - the simple things like controlling the ball and passing it to a team mate instinctively. It's almost as if the players are rusty and have to put too much conscious effort into the simple things that they should be able to do in their sleep, and the only explaination must be that they don't get enough football practice during the week.

[Lucky Pierre]

The aspect of our play that annoys me the most is the apparent lack of rudimentary footballing ability that characterizes our play all too often - the simple things like controlling the ball and passing it to a team mate instinctively. It's almost as if the players are rusty and have to put too much conscious effort into the simple things that they should be able to do in their sleep, and the only explaination must be that they don't get enough football practice during the week.

It's characterises.

[DonaldDonaldson]

It's characterises.

 

Thankz.

[Lucky Pierre]

Thankz.

No worreez.

[isr]

Plainly, Arbeloa may be added to the list of those who consider Benitez an incompetent, greedy, corrupt Fat Spanish Waiter.

 

I presume that Benitez' attacking nature during the final third of last season coincided with almost a full flush of players to chose from. This may be lost upon the 'we need a manager who just tells them to go out and play! that's what shankly did!' crowd, but playing two-touch attacking football with Degen marauding down the wing with Voronin, Eccleston, N'Gog or Dossena in support, as has happened enough times this season, isn't realistic.

 

 

What I can sympathise with here is that Benitez' style of play may only be suited to having top players in every position. Give him the Madrid side, and the talent it holds, and his team would be a footballing battering ram. For various reasons, some through Benitez' own fault and others not, we don't have nearly the same amount of quality. In the absence of Torres, we've had a flailing Gerrard, and a Benayoun who has blown hot and cold throughout, besides his golden spell last season. Whether, if we cannot bring in investment, Benitez would continue to be the right man to work under an extremely limited budget, I don't know. But certainly, regardless of who came in, we would not be challenging consistently for any domestic or European titles on such a budget.

 

Which is why the team needs an overhaul. Every interview from every player, besides Pennant, who I presume is currently languishing in his bed after a heady Zaragoza night, points to Benitez being a superb footballing man. But he needs to make changes, certainly.

 

To follow on with your thoughts, I reckon:

 

- without responsible new ownership, and adequate investment in the squad, it really won't matter WHO is the manager. We will just drift backwards.

 

- with new ownership AND adequate investment (which also means having money up front so that we can plan our acquisitions more wisely, instead of selling to buy, and having our prime targets snapped up in the interim by others), its hard to think of a BETTER manager than Rafa (of those available).

 

Which underpins the only truth behind the club. For all the need for scapegoats and sacrificial lambs, its almost impossible to truly judge his efforts thus far, until we have a proper ownership above him.

 

Then give him a season (full season, with a summer of signings), and we'll see.

 

Worst case, we lose a season. In the grand scheme of things - big deal.

 

Best case, we had our man along - and now we realise it.

 

Get rid of him now - and everyone, even his staunchest critics, will have a "hmm, we'll never really know, will we?" feeling at the pit of their stomachs.

 

Liverpool FC isn't a club built around retaining a manager at all costs. But we've never gotten rid (post Shankly), unless we all KNEW that it was needed.

 

What do you think?

[Randy Marsh]

Plainly, Arbeloa may be added to the list of those who consider Benitez an incompetent, greedy, corrupt Fat Spanish Waiter.

 

I presume that Benitez' attacking nature during the final third of last season coincided with almost a full flush of players to chose from. This may be lost upon the 'we need a manager who just tells them to go out and play! that's what shankly did!' crowd, but playing two-touch attacking football with Degen marauding down the wing with Voronin, Eccleston, N'Gog or Dossena in support, as has happened enough times this season, isn't realistic.

 

 

What I can sympathise with here is that Benitez' style of play may only be suited to having top players in every position. Give him the Madrid side, and the talent it holds, and his team would be a footballing battering ram. For various reasons, some through Benitez' own fault and others not, we don't have nearly the same amount of quality. In the absence of Torres, we've had a flailing Gerrard, and a Benayoun who has blown hot and cold throughout, besides his golden spell last season. Whether, if we cannot bring in investment, Benitez would continue to be the right man to work under an extremely limited budget, I don't know. But certainly, regardless of who came in, we would not be challenging consistently for any domestic or European titles on such a budget.

 

Which is why the team needs an overhaul. Every interview from every player, besides Pennant, who I presume is currently languishing in his bed after a heady Zaragoza night, points to Benitez being a superb footballing man. But he needs to make changes, certainly.

 

Brilliant post mate. Totally agree

[Randy Marsh]

To follow on with your thoughts, I reckon:

 

- without responsible new ownership, and adequate investment in the squad, it really won't matter WHO is the manager. We will just drift backwards.

 

- with new ownership AND adequate investment (which also means having money up front so that we can plan our acquisitions more wisely, instead of selling to buy, and having our prime targets snapped up in the interim by others), its hard to think of a BETTER manager than Rafa (of those available).

 

Which underpins the only truth behind the club. For all the need for scapegoats and sacrificial lambs, its almost impossible to truly judge his efforts thus far, until we have a proper ownership above him.

 

Then give him a season (full season, with a summer of signings), and we'll see.

 

Worst case, we lose a season. In the grand scheme of things - big deal.

 

Best case, we had our man along - and now we realise it.

 

Get rid of him now - and everyone, even his staunchest critics, will have a "hmm, we'll never really know, will we?" feeling at the pit of their stomachs.

 

Liverpool FC isn't a club built around retaining a manager at all costs. But we've never gotten rid (post Shankly), unless we all KNEW that it was needed.

 

What do you think?

 

Another good post.

 

It basically sums up my feelings. I've seen enough of Rafa's Liverpool over the past 5 seasons to know that he knows what he is doing and we have improved.

 

This season has been a massive hammer blow to that. Rafa has made mistakes.

 

This abortion of a season has also co-incided with the most unstable period off field in our history, and following a summer where we saw 2 hugely influential players leave with the replacements (who we didn't pay as much for as what Andy Grey would have you believe) still to prove themselves. Added to that, no one else was brought in to supplement or add to the squad.

 

For those reasons I firmly believe he deserves a season with a stable board and a summer's financial backing fitting of a club of our stature. No balancing the books, no sell to buy. Yes, ship out the Degens of the squad, but no sell 2 to buy 1 policy which he has generally had to employ every summer. He deserves that.

 

Anyone who cannot see, up to this season, the leaps and strides we have made must seriously have the blinkers on. If Rafa doesn't get that stability and backing I hope he leaves for his own sake because IMO he doesn't deserve his name to be dragged through the mud that is our club currently. He doesn't deserve to be made a scapegoat and labelled a cunt by some of our own "supporters" who only 5 years ago watched him lift our fifth European Cup in his first season, an FA cup the season after, a narrow European Cup Final defeat the season after that and a whisker away from number 19 just 12months ago.

 

I guarantee you if he goes to another club who back him and back him well, deliver him his first choices instead of his thirds, he will clean up.

[G Richards]

 

You mean Alvaro?

 

Of course I mean Alvaro!

 

You may not be aware, but there has been a bit of a thing on The Liverpool Way to give some players an endearing nickname, and Alvaro has been, for many on here, Albert.

 

It's a little bit strange, but it is one of the many small things that add up to the greatness of this place.

[spider-neil]

To follow on with your thoughts, I reckon:

 

- without responsible new ownership, and adequate investment in the squad, it really won't matter WHO is the manager. We will just drift backwards.

 

- with new ownership AND adequate investment (which also means having money up front so that we can plan our acquisitions more wisely, instead of selling to buy, and having our prime targets snapped up in the interim by others), its hard to think of a BETTER manager than Rafa (of those available).

 

Which underpins the only truth behind the club. For all the need for scapegoats and sacrificial lambs, its almost impossible to truly judge his efforts thus far, until we have a proper ownership above him.

 

Then give him a season (full season, with a summer of signings), and we'll see.

 

Worst case, we lose a season. In the grand scheme of things - big deal.

 

Best case, we had our man along - and now we realise it.

 

Get rid of him now - and everyone, even his staunchest critics, will have a "hmm, we'll never really know, will we?" feeling at the pit of their stomachs.

 

Liverpool FC isn't a club built around retaining a manager at all costs. But we've never gotten rid (post Shankly), unless we all KNEW that it was needed.

 

What do you think?

 

sums up my feelings exactly.