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Tommy Smyth

lifetime fan

By lifetime fan,
in FF - Football Forum

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Guest PurpleNose

Guest PurpleNose

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He's right about Athens though, our tactics were wrong that night.

 

Being 50% right usually makes your point a bit rubbish though.

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Tom R Grand Master

Tom R

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You fucking whopper.

 

"The team won the Champions League" Istanbul.

 

"He (Rafa) lost the final" Athens.

 

The latter is precisely correct.

 

The former is harsh though. Whilst I have doubts if it was Benitez' tactical genius that won us the final, it's without a doubt what got us there in the first place.

 

I've been no fan of his for the last 2 or 3 years, but to start writing out his truly brilliant moments out of our history is just bang out of order.

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lifetime fan Grand Master

lifetime fan

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The latter is precisely correct.

 

The former is harsh though. Whilst I have doubts if it was Benitez' tactical genius that won us the final, it's without a doubt what got us there in the first place.

 

I've been no fan of his for the last 2 or 3 years, but to start writing out his truly brilliant moments out of our history is just bang out of order.

 

Tom I completely disagree with some of the shite you come out with.

 

However even a Rafa hater wouldn't blame him for not winning a European Cup after guiding the cup to the final but not allow him any praise for winning it in '05.

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The Acolyte Experienced

The Acolyte

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Here's a quick comparison.

Rafa 2 CL finals winning one in 3 seasons.

Cost, at the time must be under 100M

 

Sir Alex Whiskey Nose Bacon Face Taggart Cunt Ferguson

 

3 Finals winning 2 in over 20 seasons

Cost, Christ only knows

 

say what you will about his league performance but Rafa was without equal when it came to Europe. Should've stayed focused on that, get the cash in and build an army worthy of Mordor rather than trying to appease the masses with a title push and fighting on all fronts. Should've only attempted that once the tumours had stopped shaking the till.

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Newport Grand Master

Newport

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He's right about Athens though, our tactics were wrong that night.

 

Not really. It was also down to bad luck. The free kick that bounced off Inzaghi pretty much sealed the game for us and when Masch was subbed they scored their second right after. Maybe it was wrong to sub Masch but it was a gamble to get the equaliser. In hindsight it might have been wrong, because we might have needed Masch after the eventual equaliser, but there is no reason to blame Rafa alone for losing that final.

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Razoray Grand Master

Razoray

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To be fair everyone was surprised that Kewell started ahead of Didi in Istanbul and even more surprised when Smicer came on for him but after that tactically Rafa got it spot on. We were getting overrun in midfield and our 2 centre backs were not able for their 2 strikers.

He went with 3 at the back on Crespo and Shevchenko as Milan had no width and brought Didi on to mark Kaka. That left Alonso and Smicer on Gattusso and Seedorf and, Luis and Riise on Maldini and Cafu. That left Baros upfront on their 2 centre backs with Pirlo trying (in vain) to keep tabs on a much too quick and powerful Gerrard and losing the control he had on the game in the 1st half.

It worked for 20-30 minutes until Ancelotti brought on Serginho for badly needed width but Benitez copped it and changed the formation to move Gerrard to right back.

I mean come on, if we cannot give credit to a manager who sends his team out in the second half 3-0 down in a game as big as that with a 3-6-1 formation when it worked so well. Nobody else in world football would have come up with that formation in my opinion. Tactically he got it wrong in my opinion but he very impressively turned it around at half time.

In Athens he went with the team that beat Chelsea in the semi, more or less and to be fair we were the better team, we just didn't take our chances. If he had gone 4-4-2 with Crouch and Bellamy up front with Gerrard on the left who is to say that we would not have been overrun like in 05? If Bellamy had shown the form of the past year and a half then he could have played on the left instead of Zenden and Crouch/Kuyt ahead of Gerrard would have been the way to go, but hindsight is 20/20 vision and all that.

Either way he was lucky as a manager here especially with penalty shoot outs but tactically, especially in Europe he had no peer, in my opinion.

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Dicko Veteran

Dicko

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He didn't.

 

Tommy Smyth didn't.

But I must of imagined it in Tommy Smith's latest autobiography him recalling the episode were Hughes approached him about getting the players to throw a match for £50 each against Arsenal. But wanted Smith to front them because they wouldn't believe it coming from him.

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