Benitez officially gone!

[Cardie]

Given we were sold on the idea that Benitez going was traded against Torres, Mascherano and Gerrard staying and now it seems a possibility that all four could leave then I'd say it's onwards but upwards is far from certain.

 

Still, ANYONE is better than Benitez....right?

[robbiefowler9]

The right decision finally made. What I don't want ignored amongst all the obituaries is the fact that I was right. The endless excuses for not wanting him gone were ridiculous, thinking back.

 

Thank you oh Great Sage for your wonderfully enlightening insight. Thank Christ you aren't a cunt or anything...

[Warwick Hunt]

Sad for Rafa the man, and his wife and family.

 

But come on, the decision was essentially right.

 

Too many going overboard over the whole thing. And I think those most overboard are probably not the ones who are paying a grand and half of hard earned cash for a couple of season tickets when you're having to take pay cuts in work.

 

Thanks Rafa for some truly mind blowing European nights. I think this is what you were built for.

 

Alas, on the whole, the league campaigns weren't anywhere near as enjoyable and that was the downfall.

 

 

Liverpool Football Club has had far, FAR darker days than this. And it ALWAYS came back.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Sad for Rafa the man, and his wife and family.

 

But come on, the decision was essentially right.

 

Too many going overboard over the whole thing. And I think those most overboard are probably not the ones who are paying a grand and half of hard earned cash for a couple of season tickets when you're having to take pay cuts in work.

 

Thanks Rafa for some truly mind blowing European nights. I think this is what you were built for.

 

Alas, on the whole, the league campaigns weren't anywhere near as enjoyable and that was the downfall.

 

 

Liverpool Football Club has had far, FAR darker days than this. And it ALWAYS came back.

 

Again, another nonsense post. Obviously Hillsborough and Heysel are darker days, but tell me when the club has been in such a bad state off the pitch as it is now? Rafa has to take some degree of blame for what's going on on the pitch, but again, see my previous post, and whats happening off the pitch has had an obvious impact of what's going on on the pitch. Why have Tottenham and Man City leaped above us this season? One main reason is MONEY. I'm guessing that i've been relatively overboard by your standards in my previous post on this topic (if you care to read it). But, seriously, can you see somebody like Hodgson, O'Neill, Hughes or (pains me to say it) even Dalglish doing a better job than Rafa?

 

People are paying far too much attention to last season which was bad. If the board are saying that there is likely to be money for players why not back Rafa for one season, preferably this season just gone, when he had come so close to winning the league last season? We now have absolutely nobody with any semblance of footballing knowledge at the helm of our club. Rafa was a fetter to their ability to really fuck us up. Now he's gone, I really fear for our future. If somebody makes big bids for our players, I can see them leaving as the decision to sell will be made purely on financial and business considerations at the current juncture, and footballing reasons will be secondary.

 

And for the record I am a season ticket holder and have been for the past 8 seasons and have been a regular match goer since the age of 6 - my first game was Liverpool v Birmingham for the record, with David Seaman in goal for Brum

[rockredrock]

Thanks for the good times, Rafa. You seemed to lose your way a bit in the end but you'll always have a special place in our history for giving us Number 5.

 

Adiós y buena suerte, Senor.

 

Yes he lost his way with cunts to the left and twats to the right,and no fucking money yes he did lose it the end.

cunt fans cunt yanks:wallbutt:

[Red Nick]

I wanted Rafa gone but not like this

 

Its the right decision for the football club but today I am extremely sad.

 

Rafa will always have a place in my heart and gave me the best 4 days of my life in 2005

 

Just a very sad day

[rockredrock]

Thanks for the good times, Rafa. You seemed to lose your way a bit in the end but you'll always have a special place in our history for giving us Number 5.

 

Adiós y buena suerte, Senor.

 

Yes he lost his way with cunts to the left and twats to the right,and no fucking money yes he did lose it in the end.

cunt fans cunt yanks:wallbutt:

[DJLJ]

Get a life.

 

It's a sad day, thanks for the good times and good luck.

 

This club has been through much worse, and may have to go through much worse still in the coming months.

 

We have always survived, and will even survive the two yanks.

 

Daglish left and we survived, Shanks, Bob etc.

 

Why would Rafa leaving be the beginning of the end?

 

Get some fucking perspective.

 

Good post.

[BolshieBastard]

I wanted him gone. Im not sad about it. On the pitch we will improve a hell of a lot now.

 

Next task is getting in new owners.

 

LFC goes on.

[BolshieBastard]

I wanted him gone. Im not sad about it. On the pitch we will improve a hell of a lot now.

 

Next task is getting in new owners.

 

LFC goes on.

[Heinze]

Imminent.

 

Sad to see him go but his dubious subs and team selections have all played a part in is downall.

[H7K]

Best of luck Rafa, I will never forget that night in Istanbul. One of the best nights of my life.

[stringvest]

Gutted. I did a great post. Would surely have been regarded as a seminal moment in the annals of TLW! Lost in cyberspace/delay.

 

Can't you have a word upstairs G? He'll have it backed up on a log. He keeps an eye on everything, not just words and deeds, but also email and web traffic - or so I've been told, but you'll probably have the inside track on that one.

[chauncey]

The one I really feel for is Montse. She'll be driven to distraction by him sitting round the house all day, rubbing his hands.

[Dracco]

what the fuck, 6 years a member on rawk and I get banned for pointing out that it's fucking funny that a grown man is crying in his bedroom over Rafa leaving.

 

That is true face of RAWK. You say what you think and if the majority don´t agree you´ll get punished or at least lot of stick.

[Dracco]

Thank you for Istanbul Rafael, thank you for Athens, thank you for many great games.

 

But the time has come for a change, you´ve lost and I think you couldn´t give anything more for this club.

 

Good bye and YNWA

[zigackly]

James Lawton: His excuses had been exhausted, his authority lost. Benitez had to go

Friday, 4 June 2010

 

Rafa Benitez had to go. It is a reality that should not be caught up in all the angst and legitimate anger over the catastrophic American ownership of Liverpool.

 

This will still hold true if it should happen that one of the great clubs of Europe, including the reigning champions Internazionale, offer him the chance to rebuild the reputation that came with his success in Valencia and that extraordinary Champions League win in Istanbul five years ago.

 

That's the future – and maybe Benitez's chance to remake himself as a vibrant football leader rather than the befuddled, and befuddling, figure who, by the end of this last season, seemed increasingly distant from his No 1 priority of halting the slide in dressing-room morale which left Liverpool so far out of touch with the elite of the English and European game.

 

The present speaks for itself. Liverpool look all played out on the field.

 

Yes, the finances are nightmarish, the crisis of ownership no less stark than the picture painted recently by the man who was responsible for it, the former chairman and chief shareholder David Moores.

 

But none of this impinges ultimately on the responsibility of the coach, which is at all times to maintain the spirit and morale – and, most vital of all – the conviction of his team.

 

Benitez progressively failed to do this, to the point now that even the loyalist Pepe Reina admits that it is hard to be optimistic about next season and the chance that such as Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano will return from the World Cup action with the vaguest sense of renewed motivation.

 

Increasingly, Benitez has used the alibi of the dysfunctional ownership and his inability to make significant competitive signings.

 

Yet over six years he has been able to invest a conservatively estimated £250m – when all the undisclosed details of a number of transfer deals and academy acquisitions are added in – in his effort to remake Liverpool in his own image. The truth, one resisted religiously by his most passionate supporters in the stands, is that his team building has been disastrous.

 

In a sea of dross, he made three signings of the quality to which Anfield had become accustomed with the procession of men like Ronnie Yeats, Ian St John, Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Ian Rush. Of these, Xabi Alonso became disaffected over the years, and left at a critical point in Benitez's reign, and Torres and Mascherano had long established their position as two of the world's top players when they pulled on their Liverpool shirts.

 

This may be a broad brush, but then it is a big picture which, after the Champions League was snatched back from Milan in Istanbul in circumstances that rational football analysis have always deemed freakish, and the FA Cup victory over West Ham, has necessarily been painted in subdued hues.

 

But for a surge at the end of 2008-09 that could not be sustained, Benitez has never looked like fulfilling his central challenge of delivering a Premier League title. The case for the defence is that he has not had the means, but if you have a team that contains men like Gerrard, Torres, Mascherano, Alonso and Reina surely you have the basis for progress, surely the requirement is to put around them players of substance who begin to justify £11m here, £7m there, and all the other dribbling away of all-round quality which has left Liverpool so far off the pace.

 

To say that any of this is apparently evidence of extreme prejudice, of the prosecuting of a vendetta, is an extraordinary claim when you consider the terms on which all leading managers are obliged to operate.

 

Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, even Jose Mourinho, have at times all run the gauntlet of doubt. It is the nature of their business. But when such question marks have been raised against Benitez – his early obsession with rotation, his quirkish substitutions, his disastrous signings, the sense that he is often exerting nothing less than control freakery as he inhabits the technical area – he is defended with quasi-religious fervour.

 

Let's be very sure about one thing. Few top managers have ever met with such indulgence in the face of overwhelming evidence that their team is running down.

 

His railing against the restrictions placed on him in the transfer market are a familiar source of managerial discontent, but rarely have they been expressed so forcibly in the light of evidence that much of what has been available has been palpably wasted.

 

For many, the breaking point was surely the £17m acquisition of Alberto Aquilani, a player of talent, no doubt, but one notoriously fragile. That he should come in, at such a critical point to replace the powerful, inspiring Alonso, without any immediate possibility of helping the cause, is no doubt the single most breathtaking folly of a misbegotten season.

 

There were suggestions yesterday that Kenny Dalglish may be handed caretaking duties while the club pursue a leading coach who will balance the current chaos against the possibility, sooner or later, of new, financially sound ownership and the huge kudos to be drawn from some effective troubleshooting in a dressing room that appears to be homing in on rock bottom.

 

Of the candidates mooted so far, Guus Hiddink would bring the most vital authority. His brief tenure at Chelsea, admittedly blessed with far greater playing resources than he would inherit at Anfield, was marked above all by an ability to impose a new purpose and unity on players who had become fragmented and disenchanted under Luiz Felipe Scolari.

 

Hiddink's crowning gift might well have come with the winning of his second European Cup but for some bizarre officiating in the semi-final against Barcelona.

 

Most significantly, though, the Dutchman's most obvious knack – one which the World Cup misadventure with Russia scarcely diminishes, given all the other examples of his success across the football world – is to get players behind him, to understand their strengths and their fears.

 

This is the most fundamental quality in any football coach. Disastrously for Liverpool, it was one from which, in a critical season, Rafa Benitez seemed almost completely detached.

[mikeb58]

what the fuck, 6 years a member on rawk and I get banned for pointing out that it's fucking funny that a grown man is crying in his bedroom over Rafa leaving.

 

Read that....funny as fuck, could you imagine one of his kids asking his mum why is daddy crying in the bedroom ?

 

Unbelievable.

[mikeb58]

Which is precisely why I don't post there any more!

 

Same here stopped about a month ago, I don't think even 'reasoned debate' was allowed over Rafa anymore.

 

Some people just tore into you cos you disagreed with them, same posters seemed to be dictating all the 'pro rafa' stuff to the point it just got boring.

 

Some other great stuff on the site, but the Rafa business just put me off.

[Sandman]

Final curtain always on the cards with Rafael Benítez doing it his way

 

 

Tony Barrett

 

Liverpool fans burnt American flags and called for the head of Christian Purslow, the managing director, as shock over Rafael Benítez’s departure turned to anger at the way the club are being run.

 

About 500 supporters descended on Anfield last night after confirmation that Benítez’s six-year tenure as Liverpool manager had come to an end.

 

The main targets for their outrage were Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, the co-owners, but Purslow was also the subject of fervent chanting as the divisions that have riven Liverpool in recent years spilt out on to the streets surrounding their ground.

 

Conflict has been one of the key features of the Benítez era, the Spaniard having fallen out with a string of club executives, each of whom, he believed, had let him down by breaking promises or by being guilty of tardiness in the transfer market.

 

The cordial joint statement that ended one set of hostilities by bringing Benítez’s time at the helm to a close was significant for so many reasons, not least of which was the fact that it was the first time Benítez and the club’s hierarchy had sung from the same hymn sheet in some considerable time.

 

It was dated June 3, 2010, but the beginning of the end came on August 24 last year and had Benítez not pulled back from the brink, he would have quit on January 20 this year. What happened yesterday was merely the inevitable conclusion to a season that took manager, players, supporters and the entire club through one of the most turbulent campaigns in their history.

 

The importance of the events that took place on that evening should not be understated. Liverpool were beaten 3-1 at home by Aston Villa and their obvious shortcomings as a team were laid bare. That defeat in itself was damaging to Benítez because it indicated that he would not be presiding over a second successive title challenge. Words, though, rather than actions had the biggest impact.

 

In his post-match press conference, Benítez attempted to protect Lucas Leiva, who had scored an own goal and is so often a lightning rod for criticism, but the Spaniard’s defence of one player was to land him in hot water with several others.

 

“It is up to the senior players to take responsibility,” Benítez said in a very public admonishment that brought about a sudden deterioration in his relationship with a section of the dressing room.

 

Five months later, Benítez had seen his team knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage, embarrassed in the FA Cup by Reading and left well off the pace in the Barclays Premier League. His lowest ebb came when Tottenham Hotspur visited Anfield in January, his morale having plummeted to such an extent that there were fears within the club that he could quit on the day of a game.

 

Had it not been a match day, he might have walked out there and then, but the realisation of the disarray that such an abrupt decision would have caused helped to bring him back from the brink. A show of support from the fans leading up to kick-off ensured that thoughts of ending his association with the club he took to Champions League glory in 2005 cooled.

 

If anything, though, the antipathy between Benítez and the boardroom heated up from then on, as illustrated by a pre-match conversation between a senior Liverpool official and his opposite number from a rival club.

 

“Do you know why Rafa is playing two holding midfielders?” the Liverpool figure asked. “No,” came the reply. “Because he hasn’t got three,” came the answer.

 

While Benítez questioned those above him, they in turn had doubts about him, with concerns expressed privately about his man-management and motivational skills, and his record in the transfer market.

 

Gillett had a favourite phrase for Benítez, describing him as a “serial transactionalist”, in reference to the high turnover of players at Anfield. It was against this backdrop of infighting that Liverpool’s season unravelled as spectacularly as it did.

 

However, only a fool would believe that the removal of Benítez will cure all Liverpool’s ills: their problems — debt and lack of direction — are far too entrenched for that to happen.

 

The most important job facing Purslow and his colleagues now is to convince some of Liverpool’s biggest names that a revolution is afoot that will raise the club’s ambitions and improve their fortunes at a stroke — but with no buyer lined up, that will be no easy task.

 

Fernando Torres is known to be so disenchanted with Liverpool’s decline in fortunes that rival clubs have long since been alerted. It is unlikely that a game of managerial musical chairs will be enough to convince the striker that an upturn is imminent and Steven Gerrard will also be looking for reasons to remain at his boyhood club despite the interest of Real Madrid.

 

The jungle drums that beat incessantly on Merseyside had suggested that Torres and Gerrard would leave if Benítez remained but the departure of the manager does not guarantee their loyalty. Only the urgent fulfilment of the promises that have been made to them will do that.

 

In one respect, Benítez has already beaten them to the punch by heading for the escape hatch first. His destination remains unknown but, given his status as a Champions League-winning manager and his standing in European football, he will not be out of work for long, with Inter Milan leading the race for his signature.

 

“Benítez has a certain affinity with Inter fans,” Gabriele Oriali, a director with the Italian champions, has said. “He is very appealing to us. He has already given us great joy, namely the 2005 Champions League win against Milan. Who does not remember Istanbul?”

 

The Liverpool fans certainly do, which explains why a section of them took to the streets in protest last night. Benítez may have gone but the recriminations look set to continue.

 

Men in the frame

 

Kenny Dalglish A Liverpool legend on the field and in the dugout. Won the Double in his first season as player-manager, with two more league titles and an FA Cup to follow, then won another league title with Blackburn Rovers. Less successful with Newcastle United and Celtic, he returned to an ambassadorial role at Anfield last year.

 

Roy Hodgson Took Fulham to the Europa League final this season with a team assembled on a limited budget, which will appeal to the Anfield owners. Vastly experienced and well connected in the European arena, he has managed big clubs such as Inter Milan as well as international sides.

 

Mark Hughes Learnt his trade as manager with Wales and Blackburn, where he built a combative team who were difficult to beat. Struggled to live up to expectations with Manchester City and his past as a Manchester United player may count against him, but is known to have met Liverpool representatives when they played Benfica in Lisbon. Plus, he is available and has a point to prove.

 

Martin O’Neill The Aston Villa manager ticks many boxes — with ambition, passion and big-club experience — and after managing Celtic, he would feel the pressure of life at Anfield less than most. On the other hand, he has spent big money without delivering trophies at Villa Park and the ownership situation at Liverpool would not appeal to him.

 

Guus Hiddink The Dutchman made an excellent impression when he took temporary charge of Chelsea in the second half of last season and has Holland and Real Madrid on his CV. However, he failed in his attempt to take Russia to the World Cup finals. In any case, he has taken up a position as the Turkey coach and would be reluctant to break his agreement with their FA.

[TommyW]

Mark fucking Hughes

[Sandman]

Winter's still playing with himself.

 

 

Liverpool need Rafa Benítez's successor to relight the Anfield fire

 

What the Liverpool dressing room needs now is some warmth, some life breathed into a hearth that died under Rafa Benítez.

 

 

Exit stage left: Rafael Benitez has left Liverpool with a cold dressing-room culture that needs to be thawed out Photo: EPA

 

Now that this cold political animal has gone, Anfield requires a manager who can empathise with players, who understands they are human beings as well as professional footballers. Sometimes players need a boss who asks after their family or tells them "well done’’.

 

It would be easy to celebrate Benitez’s departure, to recall all of the times when his players required supportive words but were greeted with debates about near-post marking. It would be simple to highlight the wasteful recruitment of average players like Andrea Dossena and Lucas Leiva or ones like Alberto Aquilani unsuited to the pacey, physical nature of the Premier League.

 

It would also be straightforward to note the impoverished nature of the reserves and over-reliance on two magnificent club stalwarts in Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher inherited by Benítez. Or to point to a Premier League table that doesn’t lie.

 

This observer has long felt that a great institution like Liverpool Football Club deserved better than this awkward Spaniard. But enough carping. Benitez’s manifold defects don’t need dwelling on.

 

What first needs stressing is that he leaves Liverpool with fond memories of Istanbul and Cardiff and three world-class signings in Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres. What must also be remembered is that he had to live with a flawed, frustrating ownership structure.

 

If anything, Benítez deserves the club’s gratitude for not dragging the impasse out any longer, for now allowing the divisions to heal. He was beginning to resemble a squatter at Anfield but has accepted the board’s sensible offer of a pay-off and headed off.

 

Benitez’s done the right thing. A summer stand-off would have further damaged his reputation and Liverpool’s. Some dignity has returned to all parties.

 

Rather than reflect on the club’s slide under Benítez, Liverpool must look to the future.

 

Kenny Dalglish, whose title success in 1990 has weighed ever more heavily on each subsequent manager, has been named kingmaker.

 

Dalglish’s mere presence should help soothe fans aggrieved at Benitez’s exit. When the Kop sings The Fields Of Anfield Road there seems even more emotion poured into the words about King Kenny "and could he play’’.

 

There has been too much politicking at Anfield this season but fortunately Dalglish has only one agenda: to do what is best for Liverpool.

 

His office at the Kirkby Academy has two massive photographs of Liverpool fans and his passion for the club remains as strong now as during his gilded playing and management days.

 

Simply the involvement of such a popular club legend might also encourage Gerrard to resist any thoughts of joining Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid.

 

Dalglish’s love of banter, witnessed when engaging with the youngest Academy aspirant or established star like Gerrard or Carragher, will bring some warmth back to Anfield.

 

Although Fabio Capello will not appreciate the distraction, Dalglish needs to contact Gerrard and Carragher at the England camp in Rustenburg to hear their thoughts of who Benitez’s successor should be. Gerrard and Carragher are intelligent individuals who care deeply for Liverpool and have been hurt by the club’s descent into mediocrity. Their voices must now be heard.

 

The whisper is that Liverpool are looking to appoint an experienced replacement with a good record in Europe, one who is a stable character. Roy Hodgson fits that bill, although whether he would now uproot from his native London after returning home following a nomad’s existence remains another issue.

 

The Fulham manager is ambitious, though, and his stock is high after the team’s impressive run to the final of the Europa League.

 

Yet the feeling has always been that Hodgson would not make his next move until Capello vacated the England position. Such a patriot as Hodgson would love to finish his career as manager of his country.

 

Unless Liverpool look overseas, the other obvious candidate is Martin O’Neill.

 

Although his Aston Villa side remain a work in progress, and O’Neill is not the type to run from a half-finished job, Liverpool’s famous history and enduring support must be alluring. He has seemed increasingly tense in recent months, partly over the question of how much funding he will get to lift Villa up another level.

 

Few dispute that O’Neill improves Villa year on year, making good players like James Milner better yet he would be perfect for Liverpool, an antidote to the Benítez era. O’Neill motivates players because of his ebullient character. He challenges, coaxes them, inspires them.

 

Whether O’Neill could be considered particularly "stable’’ may be an issue that plays on Liverpool minds. He often comes across as the lawyer he once trained to be, engaging in unnecessarily complicated arguments.

 

He has decent European experience as a manager and exceptional as a player with Nottingham Forest, who vied with the Liverpool of Dalglish.

 

O’Neill would certainly cut a more demonstrative figure in the dugout than Benítez, who raised eyebrows in the dressing room by rarely celebrating goals or wins.

 

Yet what is happening at Liverpool is not about replacing one manager with another, it’s about transforming a culture. Benítez changed so much at Anfield and the new man will need to conduct a small revolution.

 

Thursday was a step in the right direction but Liverpool will continue to endure some painful times before they climb back up again.

[Guest PurpleNose]

Fuck off Winter you xenophobic cunt.

[Kennys_spell]

Get a life.

 

It's a sad day, thanks for the good times and good luck.

 

This club has been through much worse, and may have to go through much worse still in the coming months.

 

We have always survived, and will even survive the two yanks.

 

Daglish left and we survived, Shanks, Bob etc.

 

Why would Rafa leaving be the beginning of the end?

 

Get some fucking perspective.

 

Here's some perspective for you - Benitez had meetings with Broughton to pin down exactly what the transfer budget would be for this summer, he got no firm commitment. Benitez then went on to seek assurances that if the transfer budget provided was as low as was being suggested that any funds raised from player sales would be allowed to be put back into squad building, he got no firm commitment. Benitez again sought re-assurances on the future of current players within the squad including Gerrard, Torres, Mascherano, Reina and Kuty (I know, but apparently there are lots of inquiries about Kuyt) again no firm commitment.

 

All footballing matters that wrightly needed addressing.

 

It indicates one of two things.

 

1. New Owners are lined up and will be in place within a month with their own choice of Manager who has his own idea's about players.

 

or

 

2. The Leeches have started asset stripping our club and will not commit to any outgoing funds before they manage to sell the club. (Classic leverage/asset stripping).

 

How's that for perspective?

 

By the way - that's not to suggest that Benitez is completely untarnished in all of this - I think he's be announced as the New Inter Milan manager within a fortnight - it's just stating the perspective.

[paddyberger15]

I've just negged Henry Winter and his three Nannies, all of his teachers at Prep School and everyone the cunt has ever met.