diego

He looks like the driver of the getaway car.

Your logic is distorted by your anti-Rafa bias. If as you admitted twice in that post that we were within a couple of points of 4th place with only a few games to play, then how could it be that it was our worst football in a long time? Without your bias it should read, that despite a very bad start to the season due to Carragher's and Gerrard's poor form, despite the fact that all the Spanish internationals were not fully fit coming back from the European championship, despite the fact that Mascherano was out of sorts due to his World Cup travels and other problems, and despite the huge number of injuries (to 23 players) especially to Gerrard and Torres, and despite Torres long absence in the second half of the season which is when we should have been winning those extra few points you mentioned, the manager coaxed performances from a depleted squad that almost secured 4th place with only a few games to go.

No, they're more likely to buy it now for the religious thrill of removing the devil from the shirts

Tony Evans is much closer to the truth than his critics on here. So far, we see the selling or attempted selling of a lot of players (some of whom Rafa would also have sold - Riera and Yossi and Degen for example). Mascherano has indicated a desire to leave. Torres refused many opportunities to confirm that he was staying even during a visit from the acting MD and the Manager. Before hinting that he would stay, Gerrard has been waiting for an offer from another club that never came. There is something going on with Kuyt. So far, the Tony Evans scenario seems reasonable. Even Hodgson noted that part of the disenchantment among the players is the loss of a popular manager. Its true we see LFC buying of a few players to offset the sales, most of whom Rafa had earmarked or negotiated. Joe Cole was not on the market when Rafa was here but I think he would have been interested in him as a free agent. Rafa demanded clear written commitment that Torres and Gerrard and other valued players would not be sold and that the proceeds from any other sales would be added to the transfer funs. LFC preferred to pay Rafa off rather than given him those written assurances. Against this background, Tony Evans's predictions were reasonable.

Lack of respect for supporters. He's obviously taken a bung from the Grasshoppers. I saw him in the grass rubbing his two hind-legs together.

On a pure footballing basis Benitez's superiority over Houllier was eloquently demonstrated by Valencia's master-class thrashing of LFC in 2002. For a very brief reminder:

Gerrard is a fundamentally insecure personality who can never get enough pampering. In retrospect Rafa's biggest mistake when he took over was flying out to the England camp to persuade him to stay, although I fully realise the politics involved. It would have done Gerrard good to have gone to Chelsea and LFC would be a stronger club for it now. I don't think LFC will ever win the league with Gerald as the lynch-pin, let alone captain . One of the "small details" of success is having a consistent engine room - Gerrard is too moody, too given to special friendships and aversions in the LFC and England squad and, in general, too much of a wet blanket.

It takes one to know one. I can't believe your daily dripping of bile and bitchy gossip is limited to this web site.

It takes one to know one.

Then growing dogmatism worked! He progressively increased the number of points won. The failures of last season - 2009-2010 - had nothing to do with rotation or even tactics - it was down to the players - their lack of fitness and mental preparedness at the start of the season, their enormous number of injuries, and their poor form in the case of Gerrard, Yossi and one or two others.

If Houllier was so devoted to the boot-room tradition he should not have undermined Roy Evans, should not have plotted to get rid of Fowler, should not have briefed against his players with the hack Bascombe and should have introduced some pass-and-move instead of kick-and-rush. His method was to curry favour with the players who were most liked by the media - so all the pampering of Owen and Gerrard. Most games under Houllier were soul-destroying. He is several grades lower than Rafa in terms of quality. Gerrard blossomed under Rafa, not Houllier. Its interesting that some player understood that Houllier would welcome a message referring to Rafa in that way. Had Houllier been communicating with Rafa's players, then? Which player would still be currying Houllier's favour while pretending to be loyal to the club, calling Houllier "Boss" and delighting in Rafa's going? Unless Houllier was lying about that - and I would not put it past him - the most likely candidates are Carragher, who is the club's biggest gossip and agitator desperately hoping to extend his playing career and then be manager one day, and Gerrard, who is always talking about how he misses "mon oncle". Of the former players, it could only be Danny Murphy , the original "Anfield Mole" on Kraptalk, and a particularly bitter journeyman.

If Houllier was so devoted to the boot-room tradition he should not have undermined Roy Evans, should not have plotted to get rid of Fowler, should not have briefed against his players with the hack Bascombe and should have introduced some pass-and-move instead of kick-and-rush. His method was to curry favour with the players who were most liked by the media - so all the pampering of Owen and Gerrard. Most games under Houllier were soul-destroying. He is several grades lower than Rafa in terms of quality. Gerrard blossomed under Rafa, not Houllier. Its interesting that some player understood that Houllier would welcome a message referring to Rafa in that way. Had Houllier been communicating with Rafa's players, then? Which player would still be currying Houllier's favour while pretending to be loyal to the club, calling Houllier "Boss" and delighting in Rafa's going? Unless Houllier was lying about that - and I would not put it past him - the most likely candidates are Carragher, who is the club's biggest gossip and agitator desperately hoping to extend his playing career and then be manager one day, and Gerrard, who is always talking about how he misses "mon oncle". Of the former players, it could only be Danny Murphy , Koptalk's Anfield Mole, and a particular bitter journeyman.

How is it "news" that Gerrard is staying? He has a long, very lucrative contract at LFC and gets pampered as a big fish in a small pond. No other team has shown an interest in him. As for the Real Madrid rumours - he is not good enough for them. So once again he gets to be the centre-attention of prolonged press speculation through the summer and the benefit of "fans" begging him to stay. thereby building up his commercial brand value. If his plan was to deflect attention from the major role he played last season in the club's poor results, it has worked, at least temporarily.

Joe Cole has always been a "promising" player ever since he was about 16. But he has never fully lived up to the promise. Successive England managers have treated him as an apprentice who needed to mature. He is available mainly because Chelsea don't want to offer him a new contract. While his history suggests caution, he is better than Yossi and therefore a welcome addition.

Very well sai! However as far as the anti-Rafa bitters on TLW are concerned - they defend Purslow because he did them the favour of undermining Rafa. Their hypocritical atempts at after-the-fact rationalization are cringe worthy.

Purslow & co intend Hodgson to be a patsy, if required. Hodgson knows this but thinks the 9 million pound three year contract and the chance to play with the LFC train-set before he retires is worth it. Besides he probably harbours the hope that the "most knowledgeable fans in football" will protect him from the machinations of the owners and their stooge, Purslow. Thats what Rafa thought, too.

But that doesn't explain why you were just savaged by the former leader of the cub pack in the Koptalk free forum.

As for signing players the manager had never seen or checked out - can any story better that of Souness when he was manager of Southampton? He signed a 30 year old Senegalese, after an agent called him. The agent claimed to be George Weah, former World Player of the Year, but he wasn't. He offered Sourness his talented cousin who supposedly had played 13 internationals. Purely on the strength of the phone call from this faker, Souness offered Dia a one-month contract. Without ever having seen him kick the ball in training, Souness gave him his debut against Leeds. He came off the bench midway through the first half to replace Matt Le Tissier. He lasted 53 minutes before he was substituted. Knows a lot about management does our Graham!

It's not widely known that among the many obscure teams Roy has coached is Rabotnicki of Macedonia and Mika of Armenia. Lucky us!

The club has had much tougher times than these - 1954, Billy Liddell missed a penalty against Cardiff City when Alf Ramsey, their outfield substitute goalie, saved from him. That 1-0 loss saw us go to 2nd division for eight years.

When he was with the Liverpool Echo, Bascombe used to have privileged access to LFC and Rafa. It could be argued that he got his lucrative job at the NOTW on the expectation that he could maintain the strong links he had with Rafa. But the club (and Rafa) treated him as just another NOTW hack and they transferred their communications to the new Echo correspondent, TB. Rafa then made a statement that the NOTW was one of two national newspapers that LFC supporters had learned not to trust. He said this in 2008 in connection with a defamatory article written by Beasley. Rafa sued the NOTW and eventually accepted a substantial payment in settlement and promptly donated it to a social club in Litherland. Bascombe began to realise that journalism without privileged access to Rafa and LFC was difficult and he was reduced to lifting stories from websites and dealing in gossip from those who, like him, were now disaffected with Rafa. Some of them were associated with this website. Most of his stories about Rafa were unsubstantiated and were written to support his agenda.

In your drawn-out attempts to justify your dislike of Rafa you have constructed a straw-man argument. Basically you argue that Rafa was a despot who sought and achieved complete control to the point that he no longer thought of himself as an employee. In fact, he got significant input into the Academy only last year - five years after arriving. In the last four transfer windows he worked within a severely restricted budget and stated on several occasions last year that he accepted the restrictions because everyone had to work together to balance the books for the good of the club. He made a profit on transfers in all those windows, thereby contributing to the paying down of the debt. In those four windows the original budget provided to him by the board was withdrawn or reduced unilaterally by the board, so that Rafa's original plans were thrown out of kilter. The money you complain he wasted on Aquilani - he earned that money by insisting that Real Madrid pay 30 million up-front for Alonso. He made about 15 million profit on the buying and selling of Alonso. However, he sold Alonso only because Alonso insisted on leaving after negotiating a lucrative transfer in April 2009. Rafa did not arbitrarily chose new players without input from the club. The club had a staff of full-time and part-time scouts who recommended potential targets. In the case of Aquilani the scouting staff and the medical staff prepared written reports recommending the transfer. Those reports were submitted not only to Rafa but to the board. Aquilani is a first-class player who could be sold for the same price he was purchased or higher.

Bottom line: nobody has made a formal bid for Gerrard or Torres. For "political" reasons Purslow has instructed his mouthpiece, Hodgson, to state that neither are for sale. This will not only appease supporters temporarily, it will also establish a negotiating position with the two players and any potential bidders. In my opinion, nobody of consequence will bid for Gerard so he is likely to stay by default. If Torres does not make an unequivocal statement that he will not move, then there will be bids for him. I believe that potential bidders have been in touch with his agent for some time. Purslow would be only to happy to claim that he had extracted such a statement from either of them, if he had. But he has not. Rafa would never have allowed the acting managing director to accompany him to his first bonding meeting with his players.

Well, if he's met Carragher that might explain his anti-Rafa diarrhea.