Benitaur

Not the worst ever. But I would have rather kept Insua. At least there is room for improvement in a young player such as him, and he had a few assists last year too

Yep, Inter whose top players have been out for most of the season BTW, all of them are on the wrong side of 30 too. If you want to play counter attacking football, sure maybe those same players can continue another year or so If you want to dominate possession and play attacking football, those same players don't have the legs anymore.

Read the post moron. If you don't financially back your manager, don't expect any results. Mourinho was backed at Chelsea, Inter and now Real. He can buy the best players in the world, literally anyone he fancies. Rafa was having a negative budget for the last 3 years here, and spent nothing at Inter. And he is expected to win trophies

How far we have fallen in a year. From YNWA, compiled by Sion. Quote "I have come here to win, and my players have to have the same mentality." "I am young, I want to win lots of matches and in the right way. I hope the players think like us that it is possible to win titles. "I want the supporters to be proud of the team, of the manager, of the players, of the club." Rafael Benitez "Are people suggesting that we should be doing the same as Arsenal, who have had the same team together for the last six years and Chelsea, who have just won the league? "If so I would accuse them of being unrealistic at this moment in time. Roy Hodgson -------------------------------------------------- "When you see the supporters and how the club works it is like a religion to them. We will try to do our best to bring more trophies back for them." Rafa Benitez "This is a new team, there are four or five new players. We finished seventh last season so I don't understand why it's suggested we should be comparing ourselves every day with Chelsea or Manchester United at this early stage of the season. "It will be nice if we can get there. We will see but I certainly don't make that demand upon the players." Roy Hodgson ----------------------- When they start talking and talking about us, it shows they are worried about playing Liverpool," Rafa Benitez "Northampton are a formidable opponent" Roy Hodgson ----------------------- "No, I'm not thinking about a draw. We're going out to win." Rafa Benitez "It was a good point because we knew it was going to be a tough game. (Referring to a draw against a mid-table Dutch side) Roy Hodgson ------------------------- Never call me the special one!" Rafa Benitez "To suggest that, because I have moved from one club to another, that the methods which have stood me in good stead for 35 years and made me one of the most respected coaches in Europe don't suddenly work is very hard to believe. Roy Hodgson --------------------- "To work hard and have our supporters behind us and believing until the end, you run a little bit more." Rafa Benitez "The protest does not help but it is something I have had to live with since I came to the club," Roy Hodgson -------------------- "I have a lot of confidence in the team, maybe Milan are favourites -- they have a lot of good players -- but we have confidence and we can win." (Referring to one of the best teams in the world at the time) Rafa Benitez To get a result here would have been Utopia (Referring to Everton) Roy Hodgson ---------------------- I picked the team which I felt was right for the game and I have no regrets about that. In the first half Burnley were better than us but in the second half we were better. The bad thing is we conceded a poor goal and it was then always going to be difficult for us to score on a bad pitch against a team that was fighting for everything. Rafa Benitez - refuses to blame youngsters after Burnley loss "These players have to accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for changing a lot of players in the team, I did it because I honestly thought the players I put on the field were good enough to win the game and they weren't. Roy Hodgson - lays into youngsters after Northampton loss

I would love for Rafa to come back, provided he is backed. Why? The style of football he WANTS to bring, but has always lacked the resources Possession football, pressing when not having the ball, defending high up the pitch, every player able to interchange possession. Rotation football. The ONLY team playing football like that is Barcelona, and that is because of the amount they have spent, they not only train their youngsters like that, they buy players who fit that kind of football. You need super athletes who are good at football too, the likes of Torres and Gerrard, but for the rest of the team, in order to play this kind of football. Barcelona not only plays rotational football, they can afford to buy the best players who can fit this style of football. Whereas Real just buys the best players, regardless of the style or tactics I hate being stuck with counter attacking football, under Roy, or going back to Houllier, or even the master counter attacker Mourinho Mourinho has been fortunate to always go to teams fully backed financially. Rafa keeps going to broke teams, and it is clear the creaking old players at Inter cannot keep the pressing and high line. But I do believe that is a winning style, you just need the players

I have posted before, its the manager that made Torres prolific. Now we only have the Torres who plays for Spain or Atletico, not the computer game Torres who played under Rafa You want him back to his best, play him in a better system where he doesn't have to chase after long balls, ie change manager first

If somehow you could buy the whole English national team today, and put the best English manager, you won't win anything. Not the league, nor the Champions league. Might win the league cup though. That unfortunately is the truth.

I would get rid of the manager first Most of these are still Rafa's buys, and like most Rafa's buys are usually worth more than we bought them for Roy's purchases have been hit and miss. Arguably only Meireles may be worth more when sold. Thus I would rather the new manager come in and buy the players he wants, rather than Roy's over the hill buys for the most part, that would be useless for reselling and rebuilding a squad

Oh come on. He was injured for years and only just started getting fit when he finally played for us Even half fit he produced quite a number of assists for us. And compare him with Maxi. He fell out and was benched for half a season or so before he came to us from Atletico. He was slow, unfit last season This season expecially in the last few games he (Maxi) actually looks fast. I have no doubts if we kept Aquilani, and he didn't get injured again, he would be playing well.

I hear this Spanish guy is good in defence. I reckon since we need a better left back.....

Well, perhaps judge him when he is fit eh? His passing and movement has been excellent this season, and I can see why he was bought as a replacement for Alonso. Dfjsg8LA304 XUCNuyg9wAU

Fair enough With what we have now, I would go for Lucas-Meireles in the middle, Gerrard behind Torres, and Maxi and Kuyt on the wings. Personally I have no idea where Cole would fit in on current form, or ever. I think I now rate Babel above him, as he has done more this season in his rare subs than Cole has in all the matches bar the early Euro game where Milan did well too.

Replace Kuyt with Cole I would agree. I'm unconvinced Cole is good enough to be a starter. Same as above. From all the games with us so far, Meireles is a definite starter, and Cole isn't

I hope Juve isn't able to come up with the cash for Aquilani. I would love to see both him and Meireles in the centre, as I believe their mobility and passing would fit brilliantly together

Really? Looks like the players are clueless with no instruction or direction. If that isn't letting the players just play, what is? They don't play to strict formation. They stand haphazardly with their man marking, they are playing school team football.

Once the criticism of Rafa has he loved tactics and formations. Not a criticism of Roy, since Roy's style is as simple as they come. 4-4-2, let the players play. Why complain if you got what you wanted?

We got Rafa to get us playing like his mighty all conquering Valencia We got Roy to get us playing like fucking Fulham Says it all really

I always thought Lucas would fit well in the middle with Aquilani. Similar preference for the one touch passing. Good to see he is getting confident game by game.

Great result. Great performance. However lets not get carried away yet. This is a Chelsea without Essien and Lampard in the midfield, and without Drogba until the second half. They lost Cavalho in the summer too. This is a weakened Chelsea. Look how much things changed with the introduction of Drogba.

Correction. He's English, does a few flicks, hence he is as good as Messi

Priests on sugar, white stuff in milk bottles.... Why wasn't Rafa coming out with these while with us? These are gold Think of the banners, the t-shirts etc

For those who are criticizing Rafa for speaking up. He didn't even want to bring Liverpool up: Benitez said: "I will be clear. I don't want to talk about Liverpool but I will because they are asking me again. I feel that Mr Hodgson, he doesn't understand. Every single press conference is worse than the last one. He's talking about things he doesn't know. Some people cannot see a priest on a mountain of sugar. He doesn't understand. Maybe he has been in the job for not so long. "We (the Benitez regime) gave the (Liverpool) fans the pride. Again. We fought for the fans, we fought for the club and we fought for our players. Maybe he cannot understand this. I brought back Kenny Dalglish to do a role in the club. Christian Purslow (the former managing director) gave him another role. So he doesn't know but I will explain to him. "He (Hodgson) signed nine players. I left that squad with £10m net spending, I left that squad with a value of £300m value and 13 internationals. So instead of talking about flips and flops, he has to concentrate on the job, try to do his best and not talk about the level of his players. Let the new players come in and concentrate, try to do their best, because it will be the best for the clubs and the best for the fans." Benitez slams Hodgson in 'priest on a mountain of sugar' tirade - Soccer, Sport - Independent.ie

Yes please. These magicians are usually temperamental anyway. Could be our cantona (boy do I loath him)

Funny. When Pako left we got 2nd in the league although we achieved the highest premiership points in our history, and towards the end of that season played the best football I have seen in 20 years, scoring 4 goals per game against our rivals and smashing everyone else. All the other top 3 achieved more during Rafa's reign? Arsene has done worse than Rafa, and Chelsea and the Mancs obviously have more resources Maybe the fact that we had a NEGATIVE transfer budget those last 2 years has anything to do with our regression? Funny that for one who slates Rafa for not winning the league, we achieved our best result in the league when Pako left (for flirting with Moureen no less).

Maybe the fact that he was competing with Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano has anything to do with it? Every time he played, he was slated because Rafa wasn't playing his top players by rotating Lucas in, and he was always compared unfavourably to them. So he became the favourite scapegoat whenever things went wrong So that sticks even till today, when both Masch and Alonso are gone. He is still slated for being not as good as either of them.