Not my favourite journalist

[Cardie]

I stopped reading it when he branded Houllier a failure, here was a man who instilled professionalism into a bloated club that was becoming a parody of itself and won several trophies along the way before nearly dying and then admittedly losing his way........Failure according to our Bri.

 

Thing is, when Houllier was here (like Rafa) he was labelled a cancer and subjected to some pretty bad abuse and only over time, once the 'collective' had got bored with him, was what he'd done for the club acknowledged.

 

It'd be nice if the constant barrage of bullshit from people was toned down and the hyperbole about the disastrous effect these managers (past and future) supposedly have on the team was looked on a little more rationally.

[hamstrung]

Such was the cult of Benitez after his first two brilliant cup wins, it was joked Liverpool should put a goatie beard on the Liver bird and change its name to Rafapool.

 

[Keens]

A FAR BETTER JOURNALIST! - BRIANE READE! -100% TRUTH CAN'T ARGUE WITH THIS!

 

 

Why Rafa Benitez leaves Liverpool as a legend, not the failure his history rewriting critics insist: The Brian Reade Column - MirrorFootball.co.uk

 

 

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 single-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.

[The Special One]

Well that's a new article I haven't seen posted on here for the 18th time today.

[piscinin]

By Dion Fanning

 

 

Sunday June 06 2010

 

We are drifting on a sea of garbage accompanied only by hopeless bullshitters. It was no surprise that the departure of Rafael Benitez brought out the worst in what can loosely be described as his enemies.

 

Benitez' problem, and the reason his inspired reign as Liverpool's manager had to end, was that his ability to ignore the opinions of people who didn't matter had been irreversibly damaged by the battles he was forced -- and occasionally elected -- to fight.

 

In his mind, they were all his enemies in the end. But they were out to get him.

 

Sky Sports love talking to a man with nothing to say and they found an egregious bunch in the wake of Benitez' departure, speaking and thinking in clichés, led, as always, by Jamie Redknapp.

 

Next season promised more paranoia and more desperate justification. Much of what Benitez achieved -- the European Cup, the re-establishment of Liverpool as a force in Europe, the legacy (for a few more weeks, anyway) of world-class players -- didn't need to be justified, it was understood by those who needed to understand. At his peak, Benitez knew this. Recently, like Gerard Houllier, he had started to list his achievements and it wasn't going to end well.

 

A couple of weeks ago, Benitez walked onto the stage at the Liverpool Empire and danced beside the cast of a play about Istanbul. It wasn't ill-advised, it was fatally ill-advised. It may have been his low point as Liverpool manager.

 

It pointed to the insanity to come, but things got a lot worse for Liverpool last week when they rustled up a deal to get rid of the one man who understood the games that were being played. Benitez left listening to the same bullshit he had to put up with for six years. Now it was even more serious.

 

There is a fierce refusal by most commentators to deal with the complexities of life. They see the Liverpool story as another football story, they talk about the list of contenders with a straight face as they open up the market to include Guus Hiddink or bemoan the timing that now rules Jose Mourinho out.

 

They refuse to see what is happening. This is the slow dismantling of a football club. The one man who would put up a fight as Liverpool's prize assets were being sold is gone. The least surprising piece of official information last week was that Liverpool were in no hurry to make an appointment. They could save a couple of months' wages if they delay. More significantly, if there is no manager, there is no man to ask if he might see some of the money for the sale of the players Benitez improved while at the club.

 

He was, they said, fired for finishing in seventh place. Many suggested that the squad Benitez left behind is worse than the one he inherited. Two words should shoot down that argument: Salif Diao. Still debating, take another two: El-Hadji Diouf. What about a mixture of words and numbers: £14m for Djibril Cisse. Bruno Cheyrou and Anthony le Tallec were there when Benitez arrived. I haven't mentioned Djimi Traore. Benitez won the European Cup with him.

 

He competed too, not all the time, but above Liverpool's capabilities given their wage bill -- the fifth highest in the league -- which is linked inextricably to how a club performs. Benitez wasn't allowed to gather a squad. Craig Bellamy and Luis Garcia went so Fernando Torres could come in. He made a mess of his relationship with Xabi Alonso but still managed to triple the price for the player and the money went on servicing debt.

 

On Wednesday night, it was suggested that the reason for Benitez' departure was the need to placate the star players. When the star players got to hear about this, they were understandably upset that they were the device being used to justify the change.

 

There are enough suckers out there with short-term memories to sign up to that. By Friday, Torres, Javier Mascherano and Steven Gerrard were said to be leaving anyway. Benitez had lost the dressing-room but the dressing-room was up for sale.

 

This is the reality. If Torres and Mascherano stay, there is an argument for getting rid of Benitez. If they go, there isn't. Redknapp suggested Liverpool didn't trust him to spend £30m. Perhaps Tom Hicks and George Gillett just didn't trust the builders either and that's why there's no new stadium.

 

The fans knew this and they were pilloried for it too. It turns out that the media needs the fickleness of supporters because they don't know what to do but mock when it's not there.

 

There is no logical reason to appoint Roy Hodgson. He had a fine record prior to last season but Benitez had a better one. Liverpool are now judging managers on the basis of one season, good or bad. In another time, Sam Allardyce would have been the leading contender.

 

One report may have got to the truth about the eagerness to appoint Hodgson, a thoroughly decent man. "Hodgson, in contrast, is seen as a manager who will concentrate more on sorting out the many problems Liverpool face on the pitch rather than being involved in disrupting things behind the scenes."

 

Things are going so well behind the scenes that it will be a relief for Liverpool fans to know that their manager will not be disrupting them. Benitez had become caught up in the feuds. But at Liverpool, more than nearly any other club, it would be hard not to come to the conclusion that there was somebody else to blame.

 

Hicks and Gillett wanted to fire him before he even signed Torres, his outstanding purchase. But he stayed and fought them. He turned Gerrard into a truly effective player until last season when Gerrard turned in on himself and became a liability, not the man carrying the team as most pundits declared.

 

Benitez never gave him a break, he never gave anyone a break. He was Lieutenant Columbo and there was always one more thing.

 

He was always mad. But the good ones are all mad in their inability to see reason and another's point of view as things that have any bearing on how they do their job. "Like all madmen," Tolstoy said, "I thought everyone was mad except myself."

 

Benitez had good reason to think it. Working for Hicks and Gillett, he encountered, not only insanity, but greed and duplicity too. By the time he did his desperate jig at the Liverpool Empire, it was over. Liverpool are now dancing in the dark.

[The Special One]

That last line's got me humming to The Boss now.

[Section_31]

He was the Gordon Brown of football. Honest, capable, but missing the crucial ability to work with other people.

[Section_31]

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?

 

Clutching at straws there, the number of players you've got going to the world cup is no sign of their quality. The chavs have also got an injury list longer than the 1945 Soviet army.

 

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.

 

Nah.

[piscinin]

That last line's got me humming to The Boss now.

 

Rafa was heard singing along as he left the boardroom (according to atk who was of course hiding in one of the garbage cans. He thought he could hear the sound of hands being rubbed together vigorously but couldn't be sure).

 

Message keeps getting clearer, radio's on and I'm moving round the place

I check myself out in the mirror I wanna change my clothes my hair my face

Man I ain't getting nowhere just sitting in a dump like this

There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is (Inter mate)

 

You sit around getting older there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me

I'll shake this world off my shoulders come baby this laughs on me

Stay on the streets of this town and they'll be carving you up alright

[hamstrung]

 

Nah.

 

I'd say he probably does. If you combine to likely values of Torres, Reina, Mascherano and Gerrard you get a big number.

 

And that's before we even start talking about N'Gog.

[Sandman]

Dancing in the Dark is one of the all time classic songs. Gonna go dust off my Springsteen collection now. Thanks Dion!

[Section_31]

I'd say he probably does. If you combine to likely values of Torres, Reina, Mascherano and Gerrard you get a big number.

 

And that's before we even start talking about N'Gog.

 

I personally think that's because the price of players has been thrown out of kilter since Chelsea started spending big. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if we got £20m for Mascherano, but is he really any better than Hamann? Not for my money. What price a Sami Hyypia in today's market too?

 

There just aren't many good players around now, and the freak clubs like Chelsea, Madrid and Citeh are prepared to pay anything to get them, but it's not comparing like with like for me.

[Original202]

You owe me a shiny penny, Original202!

 

Hehe, I've nothing shiny but a cheque is winging its way to you by carrier pigeon right now.

[JimmyConway]

By Dion Fanning

 

 

He turned Gerrard into a truly effective player until last season when Gerrard turned in on himself and became a liability, not the man carrying the team as most pundits declared..

 

 

This kind of journalism pisses me off,when Gerrard was bang on form it was down to Benitez but when he was off form it was down to Gerrard.I'm sorry but thats bollox

[Cardie]

This kind of journalism pisses me off,when Gerrard was bang on form it was down to Benitez but when he was off form it was down to Gerrard.I'm sorry but thats bollox

 

I'm guessing you had no issues with the reverse?

[JimmyConway]

I'm guessing you had no issues with the reverse?

 

 

No I think its a combination of both working in harmony,when Gerrard was bang on form he was deployed in an attacking role which was a masterstroke from Benitez as it allowed Gerrard the freedom to cause havoc further up the pitch,but that was at a time when the team had the speed of thought of Alonso to find Stevie.If Gerrard made 3/4 yards of space,bang Alonso found him.

However last season it was pretty evident that Gerrard was being isolated in an advanced position and he wasn't recieving the ball quick enough,I think Benitez should have seen this and done something to change it,but it never came and Gerrards form suffered hugely from it.

[Trucker Paddy]

All 3 decent articles, but for the last fuckin time we did not sell Bellamy so we could buy Torres, we sold Bellamy because Rafa wanted to sell him, if anything it was to buy Babel

[Christian]

Bascombe has become a parody of himself. It was time for a change, that was obvious, but that article just reeks of someone putting the boot in when the fight is long over.

 

Who reads the fucking NOTW anyway?!

[Section_31]

Bascombe has become a parody of himself. It was time for a change, that was obvious, but that article just reeks of someone putting the boot in when the fight is long over.

 

Who reads the fucking NOTW anyway?!

 

Apparently it's the most widely-read paper in the English-speaking world. Scary I know.

[Brownie]

We should just forget about it and now move forward.

[Cardie]

Are they counting the number of people or the number of attempts it takes your average knuckle dragger to read it?

[gkmacca]

Fanning and Reade are excellent, but the smugness of the other hacks - Bascombe, Winter, Barclay - now that their nemesis has gone is sickening. You'd think all is well with the world the way some of those idiots are writing now. With Bascombe the subtext is always personal - why did that bastard treat me so badly? - and, as always, he conveniently ignores the countless 'Rafa gone' exclusives (yeah, right) he's printed in the past two years when he finally gets to publish the definitive piece he's had filed away on his computer since, well, two years or so ago. He's a painfully thin-skinned hack constantly shaking his head when the targets he pokes with a sharp stick say 'Ow!'

[BatChainPuller]

Written as if he was some sort of objective observer rather than the active participant he was.

[Moo]

Bascombe has become a parody of himself. It was time for a change, that was obvious, but that article just reeks of someone putting the boot in when the fight is long over.

 

Who reads the fucking NOTW anyway?!

 

Makes you sick doesn't it?

What a twat.

If he wants to write such bitter tabloid stuff about Benitez you'd think he'd at least balance it out a little with some real criticism of The Twats. Instead the best he can muster against them is, "Working for mad chairmen is an occupational hazard but most managers deal with it in a shrewder manner."

 

Even now, people who wanted Benitez out first and foremost are still focussing their criticism on the departed manager instead of turning their attention to the owners.

I dunno, maybe he'll write something about them in the near future, but I won't hold my breath.

 

It's just sickening.

[BatChainPuller]

Fanning and Reade are excellent, but the smugness of the other hacks - Bascombe, Winter, Barclay - now that their nemesis has gone is sickening. You'd think all is well with the world the way some of those idiots are writing now. With Bascombe the subtext is always personal - why did that bastard treat me so badly? - and, as always, he conveniently ignores the countless 'Rafa gone' exclusives (yeah, right) he's printed in the past two years when he finally gets to publish the definitive piece he's had filed away on his computer since, well, two years or so ago. He's a painfully thin-skinned hack constantly shaking his head when the targets he pokes with a sharp stick say 'Ow!'

 

Yes - seem to remember it even happened on here when Paul had the temerity to criticise his writing style. He's got a degree dontcha know.