Probably the best article I have read about Rafa Benitez

[Hermes]

Do not worry about net spend, Hermes will be along shortly to tell us we've spent plenty.

 

You don't need me, just read every article that's ever published a comparison.

 

Better still, put one up on here that disputes it.

[edge of darknes]

dont want to get over it, ok

 

quite liked being number one ranked team in Europe for 3 seasons.

yes number one.

 

i hate fickle fans

 

Well you carry on crying then. Being ranked number one is an achievement but its not what football's about.

 

I hate fans who constantly make someone look bigger than the club.

 

You're a fucking retard. Get over it.

 

I was PM'd by a number of other posters who told me you were the biggest retard on here. Well done!

 

I take it you never talk about Istanbul, Cardiff, the 2001 treble, the 77, 78, 81 and 84 European Cups, Wembley 65, Shanks, Paisely, Fagan and King Kenny then? Seen as they've gone and are part of our glorious History we should get over them too? Divvy.

 

 

Dont talk shite. I talk about them but dont dwell on them as they are as you readily admit, part of of history.

[goatboy59]

Like I said in my original post, it's balanced

 

 

It's nothing of the sort.

 

If you're too mentally incompetent to engage in a discussion

 

Top quality 'not descending into an argument' there.

[Il Fenomeno]

I was PM'd by a number of other posters who told me you were the biggest retard on here. Well done!

 

Haha great.

 

Probably the people you were trying to impress by criticising Benitez, interesting.

[edge of darknes]

Haha great.

 

Probably the people you were trying to impress by criticising Benitez, interesting.

 

Like you trying to impress people by being a prize prick? Nah, dont think so. He's gone. Move on. Breath deeply etc :P

[Randy Marsh]

Dont talk shite. I talk about them but dont dwell on them as they are as you readily admit, part of of history.

 

How is pointing out an article that people may be interested in dwelling on something? That happens every day on the forum accross a range of subjects.

 

It's nothing of the sort.

 

Top quality 'not descending into an argument' there.

 

I'd say it is fairly balanced. It's not overly bias and gives mention to a range of issues and how people interpret them differently, aswell as giving the authors own interpretation on those issues.

 

Like I've just said, what is the problem in pointing out an article or piece of work to people who may be interested in it? Just because it's Rafa Benitez is that not allowed? I've not gave my opinion on him, merely pasted it in.

[goatboy59]

Except the "interpretations" of people who thought it best that he leave are presented in such a cack-handed, mongo way in order to make the other side 'irrefutable'.

 

And why should you say anything when Sid says it so faux-eloquently for you?

[edge of darknes]

How is pointing out an article that people may be interested in dwelling on something? That happens every day on the forum accross a range of subjects.

 

 

 

He's gone. Stop dwelling on it.

 

I'd say it is fairly balanced. It's not overly bias and gives mention to a range of issues and how people interpret them differently, aswell as giving the authors own interpretation on those issues.

 

Like I've just said, what is the problem in pointing out an article or piece of work to people who may be interested in it? Just because it's Rafa Benitez is that not allowed? I've not gave my opinion on him, merely pasted it in.

 

 

Frankly, Im not arsed if people think its balanced or not. What matters is, its irrelevant. he doesnt manage here anymore.

[Randy Marsh]

I give up. Didn't realise there was a blanket ban on mentioning anything to do with him. My apologies.

[Il Fenomeno]

Like you trying to impress people by being a prize prick? Nah, dont think so. He's gone. Move on. Breath deeply etc :P

 

I am over him, it was you that started rambling on about how people said Houllier only won titles with Lyon because he inherited a good squad, who's ever said that? I'm guessing it's just a cheap little dig at Rafa.

 

I don't understand the whole argument about it being X manager's squad, who really cares who bought the players, it's not like it says 'Rafa Benitez - 2005' on the trophy, it says 'Liverpool F.C. - 2005', so who cares who built the squad? Houllier played a part in 2005, so did Benitez, so did Gerrard. It wasn't 1 man who won the trophy, it was the whole club.

[goatboy59]

I give up. Didn't realise there was a blanket ban on mentioning anything to do with him. My apologies.

 

Oh for pity's sake.

 

You didn't just print the article and leave it at that, look at your thread title! You endorsed it, you virtually said this is how it is as far as you are concerned.

 

I disagreed, citing just one of its numerous flaws, and now there's this flounce.

 

Just out of curiosity, was there any explanation why Lowe is getting round to this spirited (iff little else) defence of Rafa at this point in proceedings?

 

And have you ever heard anyone accuse nasty Rafa of not giving Gonzalez (shit) Pennant (shit) and Riera (okay then shit and a twat as well) a chance to settle, because I haven't.

 

Stick for buying them in the first place, yes.

 

Or was that Parry again?

[Randy Marsh]

Oh for pity's sake.

 

You didn't just print the article and leave it at that, look at your thread title! You endorsed it, you virtually said this is how it is as far as you are concerned.

 

I disagreed, citing just one of its numerous flaws, and now there's this flounce.

 

Just out of curiosity, was there any explanation why Lowe is getting round to this spirited (iff little else) defence of Rafa at this point in proceedings?

 

And have you ever heard anyone accuse nasty Rafa of not giving Gonzalez (shit) Pennant (shit) and Riera (okay then shit and a twat as well) a chance to settle, because I haven't.

 

Stick for buying them in the first place, yes.

 

Or was that Parry again?

 

Really am waisting my time here but fuck it.

 

Yes, my title does endorse it because I think it's an excellent piece.

 

I also said that I don't agree with everything in it, which would include the points you've made about Gonzalez, Riera and Pennant amongst other things.

 

I enjoyed it because it highlighted pretty much everything that we have seen from the reaction in this thread. It pretty much nailed the love/hate relationship people have with him. I found that interesting, and thought others would to so that's why I posted it.

 

There's not much more to it than that really. I've not brought up my opinion on Rafa because I spent enough time last year doing that, and that's why I'm not going to bother taking the bait with your little snide Parry dig.

 

I thought it was a good article, I posted it for others to read. I really don't get all the fuss but I can see that the mere mention of his name clearly touches a nerve with some people. Quite sad really.

[Liam]

I know, I know.....

 

Turn any two of these games into wins and number 19 would have been ours.. That's how close we were.....

 

Aston Villa 0-0 Liverpool

Liverpool 0-0 Stoke

Liverpool 0-0 Fulham

Liverpool 0-0 West Ham

Liverpool 2-2 Hull

Stoke 0-0 Liverpool

Liverpool 1-1 Everton

Wigan 1-1 Liverpool

Liverpool 1-1 Man City

Liverpool 4-4 Arsenal

 

Signing a better striker than Robbie Keane would have done the trick. Helped to share the burden on Torres and Gerrard.

 

To be fair though, we were poor early on in the season that year and I thought got lucky a few times. We ended the season playing the best stuff I have witnessed in my life time though. And Albert Riera was playing very well in this side I was watching.

[Allan the Red]

In keeping with the original thread...

 

Rafa started as well as anyone might have expected, 5th place in first season, we would have accepted that, only then there was Istanbul! Raised the bar somewhat! How fucking delighted were we all then??? Anyone who was not as excited as a kid at christmas can fuck off now! Poor in the prem in 05 though!

 

All said things were looking up! Shite players everywhere, Murphy outsted, Alonso in, we dealt with that!

 

Another shite season in 06 with the fa cup the only bright point, though we did seem to be playing better football, starting to see what the manager's vision was etc. Stevie playing like two Pele's didn't hurt!

 

Then a series of events that have already changed the future of our club took place, obviously the so-far uncureable diseases were diagnosed, but;

Rafa had a massive falling out with Pako, Pako who had been his right hand since he was RM youth coach, who had been his only confidant throughout his managerial career, who was the only person on earth who knew Rafa, the 'real' Rafa, except maybe his ever-suffering missus, who then had to take on the job of pepping-up Rafa, keeping him motivated, and taking care of business while Rafa allowed himself to get carried away with himself.

 

We had Torres to smooth things over, but Rafa never looked the same, he never had that cool, calm, controlled look about him, he looked out of his depth, though of course he wasn't, he was just a man who had lost his best friend and couldn't find a replacement.

 

The replacements came fast though, and soon every football 'expert' under 30 in Spain was on his way to Anfield to pander to the ego of the man who didnt seem to believe in himself anymore. We all put our heads in our hands when Rafa attacked baconface, lets face it you need to win the prem atleast once to unsettle that soak!

 

Rafa is an intellectual (though not as smart as Alonso I get the feeling), unfortunately football is not an intellectual's paradise (see A.Cole, J.Terry, R.Ferdinand & Rooney)(and countless others of course), the lifeblood of all of Rafa's understanding of what he wanted a football team to do went with Pako, after that there were no ballsy decisions, no master-strokes of tactical genius, only a need to prove himself (love to know what their last conversation was like), and no-one there to make it happen.

 

So not able to control the players, not content with controlling the spotty coaching 'specialists', Rafa went after the next weakest, the head-in-the-arse owners and tried to manipulate them, fucking hell it almost worked too. Then the credit crunch, poor old Rafael was destined to lose, no matter how we, his public rallied against the 'them' and for Rafa.

 

At end of day Rafa was too much of a nail-biter, too insecure, too reliant on Pako to chew what he had bitten off. The writing had been on the wall for a long time.

 

In a lot of ways he is like Maureen, if he cant have his way he will destroy that which loves most, and them skip to a team with loads'a cash and a dressing room full of stars.

 

Though bless him he did give us almost as much joy as he did frustration, which isn't all that bad when you think about it!

 

Anyway fuck him, he's gone, now all we need to do is get rid of the owners and we can start the slow recovery.

 

P.S No Liverpool manager has come in with a shit situation like the one we have now, thank fuck for Roy's experience, he's gonna need it all!

 

YNWA

[G Richards]

I think it is time to stop talking about Rafa now. Good luck at Inter. The end.

[Cantrell20]

 

Another shite season in 06 with the fa cup the only bright point, though we did seem to be playing better football, starting to see what the manager's vision was etc.

 

YNWA

 

No sense of objectivity there. I had to sweat my blood to force myself to reading the rest of the best, but credit to you, such illogical nonsenses didn't appear very often till the end of your short-sighted post.

 

If you call 2005-2006 a shite season I struggle to even imagine how you call glorious pursuit of the title in 2001-2002 with the team Houllier built obviously, not the one he inherited. In the mentioned campaing we accomplished the best season total since Dalglish era, the best bloody result in at least 15 years. 82 points was a better achievement than Ged's 80 from 2001-2002, it was more than enough to win the title in 1997-1998.

 

Moreover, if it wasn't for a bad start to the season, when I guess we won only 2 from 8 opening games, we could aim as high as the league championship, we missed out on it still holding our heads up high. 82 points in only second season, more than Ged ever won in 6 years tenure. Following your logic we got only one non-shite season under Houllier in 2000-2001, which was actually shite apart from winning 5 cups:)

 

2005-2006 was a great foundation, maybe even overachievement provided resources we had at our disposal and caused big, but deserved, anticlimax in next two years, when Rafa didn't buy wingers and strikers properly and we faced two year downhill in the league.

[Dicko]

It's a good job there's not a seven page thread about Gerard Houllier then isn't it?

[Dicko]

In keeping with the original thread...

 

Rafa started as well as anyone might have expected, 5th place in first season, we would have accepted that, only then there was Istanbul! Raised the bar somewhat! How fucking delighted were we all then??? Anyone who was not as excited as a kid at christmas can fuck off now! Poor in the prem in 05 though!

 

All said things were looking up! Shite players everywhere, Murphy outsted, Alonso in, we dealt with that!

 

Another shite season in 06 with the fa cup the only bright point, though we did seem to be playing better football, starting to see what the manager's vision was etc. Stevie playing like two Pele's didn't hurt!

 

Then a series of events that have already changed the future of our club took place, obviously the so-far uncureable diseases were diagnosed, but;

Rafa had a massive falling out with Pako, Pako who had been his right hand since he was RM youth coach, who had been his only confidant throughout his managerial career, who was the only person on earth who knew Rafa, the 'real' Rafa, except maybe his ever-suffering missus, who then had to take on the job of pepping-up Rafa, keeping him motivated, and taking care of business while Rafa allowed himself to get carried away with himself.

 

We had Torres to smooth things over, but Rafa never looked the same, he never had that cool, calm, controlled look about him, he looked out of his depth, though of course he wasn't, he was just a man who had lost his best friend and couldn't find a replacement.

 

The replacements came fast though, and soon every football 'expert' under 30 in Spain was on his way to Anfield to pander to the ego of the man who didnt seem to believe in himself anymore. We all put our heads in our hands when Rafa attacked baconface, lets face it you need to win the prem atleast once to unsettle that soak!

 

Rafa is an intellectual (though not as smart as Alonso I get the feeling), unfortunately football is not an intellectual's paradise (see A.Cole, J.Terry, R.Ferdinand & Rooney)(and countless others of course), the lifeblood of all of Rafa's understanding of what he wanted a football team to do went with Pako, after that there were no ballsy decisions, no master-strokes of tactical genius, only a need to prove himself (love to know what their last conversation was like), and no-one there to make it happen.

 

So not able to control the players, not content with controlling the spotty coaching 'specialists', Rafa went after the next weakest, the head-in-the-arse owners and tried to manipulate them, fucking hell it almost worked too. Then the credit crunch, poor old Rafael was destined to lose, no matter how we, his public rallied against the 'them' and for Rafa.

 

At end of day Rafa was too much of a nail-biter, too insecure, too reliant on Pako to chew what he had bitten off. The writing had been on the wall for a long time.

 

In a lot of ways he is like Maureen, if he cant have his way he will destroy that which loves most, and them skip to a team with loads'a cash and a dressing room full of stars.

 

Though bless him he did give us almost as much joy as he did frustration, which isn't all that bad when you think about it!

 

Anyway fuck him, he's gone, now all we need to do is get rid of the owners and we can start the slow recovery.

 

P.S No Liverpool manager has come in with a shit situation like the one we have now, thank fuck for Roy's experience, he's gonna need it all!

 

YNWA

Really it takes someone quite special to use all them words and be totally wrong.

As for your last point Evans, Houllier & Benitez had far tougher tasks.

The biggest task Hodgson has is trying to convince people that he should be in the job in the first place. Given the fact he's not fit to polish the previous two incumbents trophies.

[Wor Horse]

dont want to get over it, ok

 

quite liked being number one ranked team in Europe for 3 seasons.

yes number one.

 

i hate fickle fans

 

quote..""Few coaches seem to have divided opinion quite like the Spaniard.""

 

well that's because internet fans have only just been invented,

so the statement isn't quite true.

rafa give us our pride back,

 

You sound like an arl women. Pretty pathetic.

[Benitaur]

Decent Article, alot to agree with, but IMO Rafa totally lost his way in the final season and since the Torres/ Yossi signings everything he went near in the market was a failure to which he deserved to lose his job for, not one player signed in the 2008 and 2009 summers was a success, and he and he alone is at fault for that, he let Risse(who was poor) go paid double on a worse player, let Crouch go payed double on a worse player, then he bought riera a fuckin Donkey.

Arbeloa sold for £3.5m and we paid 4 times that for a worse player, and the cream of the crop Aqualani, a player who had barely played 100 games in 5 years he paid £20m for, these signings are the reason we finished 7th last season, and no manager at any club should be forgiven for such total disregard and ignorance in the transfer market and a drop of 5 places in the league.

 

You mean since the time our club seems to have to make a net profit every transfer season? I'm SURE Rafa intended that every transfer season since

[Trucker Paddy]

 

You mean since the time our club seems to have to make a net profit every transfer season? I'm SURE Rafa intended that every transfer season since

 

So what your saying is it wasn't rafas fault when we needed a striker he bought Keane for £20m, when we needed a leftback he bought a shit fat one in Dossena for £8m, an injured average midfielder for £18m, and £18m on an average rightback, ok I see.

[bigbak]

He's fucking gone. Get over it.

 

We'll see how good he is now he's taken over Inter. I mean Houllier only won 2 french titles because he took over a title winning team didnt he? so come on Rafa, show us your title credentials now.

 

He won the league with Valencia.

[Guest ian garro]

I think it is time to stop talking about Rafa now. Good luck at Inter. The end.

 

This would be ace.

[Code]

Net spend or not net spend.

 

The fact is that Rafa spent more than £200M on players in his time here and if he had not wasted around £100M of that on pure dogshite he probably would still have been here and we might even have won something during the last 4 years.

 

The end.

 

One more thing by the way.

 

Wanting to get rid of Alonso for around £15M one summer and then finally have to sell him the summer after for £30M might look good for the net spenders, but for anyone else it is a proof of poor judgement that could easily be seen as a liability when it comes to how he used the clubs assetts.

[cochcaer]

Rafa falls into the same bracket as Houllier, a talented and gifted coach who gave us some great nights and trophies, made some top signings, and who deserves to be celebrated, but who had achieved all they could achieve here and who ultimately began to go backwards.

 

Both slipped into self-delusion, obstinacy and paranoia. The pressure to make the 'next step' did for both.