F.A.O Forum bellends

[Ezekiel 25:17]

Can we not just concentrate on the yanks instead of every thread being about Rafa, this is BIGGER than Rafa, we need to act against them Americans, they are the real problem at the club. Can't believe people are going on about Rafa when there are those two ruining our club.

[Dicko]

Can we not just concentrate on the yanks instead of every thread being about Rafa, this is BIGGER than Rafa, we need to act against them Americans, they are the real problem at the club. Can't believe people are going on about Rafa when there are those two ruining our club.

 

Arf.

[paddyberger15]

Can we not just concentrate on the yanks instead of every thread being about Rafa, this is BIGGER than Rafa, we need to act against them Americans, they are the real problem at the club. Can't believe people are going on about Rafa when there are those two ruining our club.

 

Not when he's on the training ground rubbing his cock between his middle and index fingers in front of all the wives saying "They can't handle this monster" and four players had to be held back from chinning him FACT and then the greedy fat cunt fucked off with a 900m pay off which he only signed his contract for in the first place FACT.

I know all this to be true because someone who used to live next door to somebody who once knew someone else said.

Rafa had to go, the fucking Russian cunt. The fact we finished 38th last season was down to him. FACT.

The Americans wanted him to stay, especially his best mate George Hicks who he's been cosying up to and having cyber and text sex with on and off for over 2 years. FACT.

[WilliamW]

Pointless thread. He's (finally) gone, get over it you bitters.

[Boomshakalaka]

Billy you may be Bonzo by name but most definitely not by nature.

 

That is one of the best posts I have ever read if not the best. Yes Rafa has made mistakes and one is causing Alonso to move on. Yet if as the story is told Rick had done his job properly we would have had a replacement before he left. Even now Rick should not shoulder all the blame. MON played a part in the failure by demanding more than we were willing to spend (even though if we did not have the debt we would have been able to afford Barry) so we can blame the diseases that plauge or club. Yet even Barry himself is not free of blame after waiting a season to create a better leverage for us he decided to follow the green instead of going with the real possibility of immediate success through going red(forget last season's debacle as nobody could have predicted that). Man City over Liverpool who could ever have foreseen that?

 

Bearing the last paragraph in mind it shows the owners are just plain lucky. Without Real pushing for Alonso we would probably have only have got £20m for him so they managed to pay off an extra £10m of their debt and we got nothing.

 

This brings us to his replacement that many believe to be a dub. Excuse me but those that say this are devoid of imagination or more importantly analysis. Aquilani has shown he could be quality and I expect big things from him. He is neat, cultured, loves to pass and move, has vision and adds quick one touch passing to it not to mention he can score a goal or two. This for me is the Liverpool way so he should fit right in. Yet he really must replace Gerrard further up the field with Gerrard returing to his natural position where he can hopefully rediscover the burning passion that was missing from his game last season.

 

The reasons for this lack of passion could be anything but we quickly went from team expected to challenge for the league to team expected to underperform miserably. Talk about timewarp back to 2005 and before. That is enough to put anybody into an eternal strop. Just look at the forums and posts from early last season to reinforce my assertion.

 

Returning to Rafa and the points the media choose to over look and instead try to paint him as a failure. I hate what Hansen has said. We are in a shit position and it implies that it is Rafa's fault. A sub text could be that whoever comes in we should not expect miracles. For this he could be forgiven but without speaking with him we will never know what he truly intends to say. I like him he is not a cunt but he does say hurthful things (yet do not think I do not believe the statement that the truth can hurt).

 

Danny Wilson move on despite Rafa axe - Evening Times | Sport | Editor's Picks

 

Lack of budget instead of wasting money on dubs. If you add up all the money he has spent on buying stopgap players that provided a slightly better option than the one that went before them and the money raised from their sale I am sure it will show a profit. We once had the strongest starting spine of any team in the world when all were on form and not injured: Reina, Carra, Agger, Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard and Torres. All those players were bought in by Rafa bar two. With a bit of modification and exchanging Alonso for Gerrard and Aquilani playing where Gerrard had been, and delivering the quality all can see unless you are blinded by a desire to label Rafa a failure, we could still have that spine to scare the living daylights out of anybody.

 

The weak squad with 13 internationals at the World Cup. The squad has not been allowed to grow because we have not had the money to facilitate its evolution from almost to there. It really is that simple. It is uncanny how this season the manager has got it in the neck when really we should just be concentrating on the Owners.

 

The depth has disappeared from the squad as Rafa has thrown caution to the wind and went for success by gambling on no injuries over the course of a season. Another huge mistake but one that was demanded; everybody could have seen it coming including Rafa but with out financial support you are forced to take extra risks. Last season we were so close this year we were miles off. The squad was weaker and players were off form when we really needed them to shine.

 

We also know that Rafa has a philosophy that requires the players are ready for the finale expected at the end of every season. This explains the weird substitutions and we should have seen them coming but what makes them worse is that at the beginning of his reign we had four strikers not capable of doing a job for us sharing the responsibility up front and other players for the other positions. The changes would almost be like for like. Now though we have some of the very best players in the world being replaced by players that could become good enough for Liverpool in the long term such as N'gog (another man that will turn a profit for us - do not forget his winner against United this season)). Again he has shown enough to enable us to say he deserves a chance but ideally this would be once we have kiled a match off and not as a potential match winner at this point in time (again lack of depth in squad is to blame - Rafa could not fix this without cash; of course I agree to a certain extent that the negativity was not completely necessary but it his starting point and with thought surely this is where every team should start from).

 

So the starting 11 is stronger but the depth is shallower than a rock pool. Creativity still has not come yet we have two attacking full backs that are international players but both can be exposed defensively. We all cried out for a more attacking game which was provided at the back end of 2008-2009.

 

Reira for me played a large part in our success yet for some reason his already huge head got larger and something else if not the swollen head swelling even more behind the scenes has caused Rafa to marginalize him. People say Reira was not good enough. Is this because he is no John Barnes? If so I have to say he was doing a sterling job for us. This level could only have been improved upon if we bought in a world class left winger. Surely with money this would have been done years ago.

 

I for one will not be labelling Rafa a failure. A legend may be stretching it but I still think if given time he could have been a legend for us.

 

His time here has been blighted by infighting but he has fought for the good of the club. He also appeared to be winning but then the results let him down. Many steps forward with one step back should not result in a man like rafa being fired.

 

He is accountable for the success and failure of the club yet players complaining that he does not talk to them or listen to them should not be a reason for him losing their support. If professional football is anything like local football any discussion will be about let me play or do this to make me look better or I want my friend to play. As he is accountable it is his thoughts that matter and if the team is winnning there wil be no complaint yet if losing they will quite readily point a finger of blame at the person that leads them as it is easier to blame somebody else than it is your self.

 

For me we have acted yet those actions are driven by spite and the belief that in a results game the grass is greener on the other side. Yet if what Hansen says is correct that green grass will take three to four years to grow surely it would have been better to let a man finish the job he was doing.

 

Cancer and Aids have a lot to answer for. By now if they had been more generous with their cash they could have an investment worth £800m, the stadium they were bought in to build and a squad winning things. All they would have needed to do was use their own cash to buy the club and then get loans for players and stadium. The ground would now be built, the commercial revenue would be paying top whack as we would be winning (so they can stop blowing their own horns as they are not going to bring in anywhere near what the result based payments could pay), and we would have a great squad.

 

Instead they have a club that is likely to lose some key players, a shit load of debt and no manager and no stadium.

 

Things just could not be any worse.

 

Back to Rafa in years to come people will argue was he a legend. The fact that this is a point for discussion despite the problems shows we could never label the man a failure. He is a very good manager and my only wish other than he was still here is that he had enjoyed the financial support he deserved. We would have had a title by now.

[King Emlyn]

Benitez won the CL fair and square, same with the FA cup, they were fine achievements, anybody trying to take them away from him serve only to make themselves look very, very silly.

[Squabblefest]

Steven Gerrard has literally dragged us by th scruff of the neck in so many games.

 

And I literally laughed my head off at the use of the word literally.

 

Literally.

[Hand Shandy]

Benitez won the CL fair and square, same with the FA cup, they were fine achievements, anybody trying to take them away from him serve only to make themselves look very, very silly.

 

Try and explain that to Code without wanting to resort to gouging your own eyes out with cocktail sticks...

[Lapskaus]

Rafa Benitez leaves Liverpool as a legend so could critics please stop rewriting history?

 

Right to the end the professional pundits failed to understand why so many Liverpudlians stayed loyal to Rafa Benitez.

 

As 500 fans marched on Anfield after his departure, chanting the Spaniard’s name, heads shook at a footballing sub-species bracketed somewhere between romantic die-hards and mawkish morons.

 

To the “expert” eye, these deluded fools had been conned by Benitez’s cunning and blinded to his failings by the glory of Istanbul and the criminal incompetence of the American owners.

 

Liverpool fans they said, once among the most knowledgeable in the world, had clearly lost touch with the modern reality, and were now a sad throwback to the days when sideburned men kicked orange balls.

 

Well, I’d argue one of the saddest aspects of modern football is too many pundits, including ex-players, have not paid to watch a game since those orange ball days. And they’ve lost touch with the fan.

 

I’m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he’s been a major player in Anfield’s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing.

 

But to paint his six-year reign as an unmitigated disaster, sustained only by the over-sentimentalising of Istanbul, is analysis at its most skewed and cringeful. By 2004 Liverpool had been relegated to the status of European also-rans. Benitez made the club a genuine world force again.

 

It wasn’t just that 2005 Champions League win (which is shamelessly downplayed as a fluke despite beating Fabio Capello’s Juventus, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan). Or reaching the 2007 Champions League final and the 2008 semi-final. It wasn’t even UEFA elevating Liverpool to Europe’s top-seeded club due to results under Benitez.

 

It was beating Real Madrid and Inter Milan at the Bernabeu and San Siro (which the Reds had never before done) and Barcelona at the Nou Camp. Magical victories at the very top of world football, which restored long-overdue respect to Liverpudlian hearts.

 

Ah say the experts, but he didn’t win the league. True. But he got closer than any Liverpool boss in the past 20 years. A season ago he was a whisker away, taking the highest number of points by a runner-up in a 38-game season and the club’s best points haul since 1988.

 

And he did so despite having the 5th highest wage bill in the league, the 5th costliest squad, the 5th biggest stadium capacity and a net annual transfer spend of £15million. Which should have made experts ask why Liverpool were ever considered a nailed-on top four side under Benitez, especially when the boardroom was mired in anarchy.

 

Ah, they say, but he’d long lost the players and the board. So why have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina signed new long-term contracts within the past year? Why last August did managing director Christian Purslow do interviews purring over Benitez and how he was integral to the club’s future?

 

Ah, the experts say, but that was before he let Xabi Alonso go, which everyone could see was a calamity. These would be the same experts who, for the previous couple of seasons, claimed Liverpool were a two-man team. With Alonso (on whom Benitez turned a £20million profit) never being mentioned as one of those two.

 

Ah, they say, but Torres apart, he only signed sub-standard dross and ended up with a shockingly-weak squad. Really?

 

Liverpool are sending 12 players (13 if you count Milan Jovanovic whose Bosman signing is going through) to the World Cup. Or an entire team: Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Rodriguez, Kuyt, Torres. Subs: Kyrgiakos, Jovanovic.

 

Eleven Chelsea players flew out to South Africa, the same number as Arsenal, and Manchester United sent eight. Does that look like he’s left Anfield bare of talent?

 

The truth is Benitez leaves a squad worth many times more than the one he inherited, despite spending less in the past three transfer windows than he’s brought in.

 

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give.

 

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

 

Rafa Benitez was many things at Liverpool but unlike every manager since Kenny Dalglish, he was not a failure. Indeed a majority of Liverpudlians will remember him as a legend.

 

Because like Bill Shankly, on more days and nights than those expert pundits ever care to recall, he made the people happy.

 

Good article. Thanks Rafa, good luck in the future! The amount of disrespectful bellends in this forum is reaching critical levels. Out

[Brownie]

Here's something I don't get. Various people seem to be trying to use this article as some kind of big stick for anyone who had doubts about Rafa, but the article makes it very clear that even one of his biggest supporters, Brian Reade, thought he had to go.

 

It is a superb eulogy, and very relevant to those who have attacked Rafa personally and tried to discredit his achievements, but for those of us who acknowledge those acheivements and still think he had to go, it's hardly something we would disagree with much of.

 

That sums it up perfectly for me.

[il principe]

I’m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he’s been a major player in Anfield’s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing.

 

......

 

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give.

 

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

 

 

I think most of the "bellends" agree with the quoted part. That's why people wanted Benitez to go. Does that make the author a bellend to?

[Seanleonardart]

Steven Gerrard has literally dragged us by th scruff of the neck in so many games, to deny that is pure ignorance mate ( no disrespect) , the Champs League Final and The FA Cup Final are prefect examples of Steven Gerrard doing this.

 

Are we forgetting Jamie Carragher's perfomance in the champions league final? that performance was the most heroic one iv'e seen...I would agree with the west ham game...his genius stood out that day.

 

But look, everybody has their opinions on rafa...i will remember rafa's reign fondly. He gave me some great highs, but last season, ultimate lows.

 

last season is fresh in everbody's minds, and in time, he will be remembered as been a succesfull manager who made us into a feared team. Trophys let him down.

[spider-neil]

no one wins football matches 'on their own' if they did or if it were possible G & H would sell the rest of the squad and pay down the loan because all the other members of the squad would be superfluous.

[silverlining]

no one wins football matches 'on their own' if they did or if it were possible G & H would sell the rest of the squad and pay down the loan because all the other members of the squad would be superfluous.

 

spidey, when people say "he won the game on his own" they are not being literal. It's a figure of speech.

[Guest PurpleNose]

He literally took the game by the scruff off the neck in those games.

[BatChainPuller]

And I literally laughed my head off at the use of the word literally.

 

Literally.

 

[DirkDiggledinho]

I'm just loving the way someone's a "bellend" if they wanted Rafa to leave, and, as somebody pointed out, the author actually shared the same view.

[johnnyboy]

I'm just loving the way someone's a "bellend" if they wanted Rafa to leave, and, as somebody pointed out, the author actually shared the same view.

 

Erm no, read it again, Reade was saying he could understand why a growing number of fans wanted Rafa out and knew something had to give. Reading his other stuff I suspect he would have preferred Rafa to stay.

[danperkins]

Wow seriously wow. What you've achieved is up there with Whelan and Gray in terms of bitterness and BS.

Haha yeah i'm bitter good one, pot kettle black my friend

[danperkins]

Are we forgetting Jamie Carragher's perfomance in the champions league final? that performance was the most heroic one iv'e seen...I would agree with the west ham game...his genius stood out that day.

 

But look, everybody has their opinions on rafa...i will remember rafa's reign fondly. He gave me some great highs, but last season, ultimate lows.

 

last season is fresh in everbody's minds, and in time, he will be remembered as been a succesfull manager who made us into a feared team. Trophys let him down.

Fair points mate

[zigackly]

Erm no, read it again, Reade was saying he could understand why a growing number of fans wanted Rafa out and knew something had to give. Reading his other stuff I suspect he would have preferred Rafa to stay.

 

Perhaps you should read it again, he also said there was growing anger from the players and it was best for all concerned if he left.

[DirkDiggledinho]

Erm no, read it again, Reade was saying he could understand why a growing number of fans wanted Rafa out and knew something had to give. Reading his other stuff I suspect he would have preferred Rafa to stay.

 

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give.

 

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

 

Seems to be suggesting that maybe his time in charge was just running out of juice, the players were not motivated by him anymore and it was time for something fresh as it had all gone a bit stale.

 

Which it what many have suggested only to be labelled "bellends".

[Carradona]

FAO billy bonzo

 

wake up and stop being a mong.

[Jose Jones]

Surely anyone opening and posting in this thread given it’s title is just admitting that they think they’re a bit of a bellend?

 

Erm...

[Guest The Chimp]

Surely anyone opening and posting in this thread given it’s title is just admitting that they think they’re a bit of a bellend?

 

Erm...