Is Benitez about to be found out…?

[Tee]

You forgot to mention the lucky 0-0 away to Chelsea in 2005, and the lucky 0-0 in Turin, and the lucky win in Barca this year (where the Chavs only managed a draw), or the lucky 3-0 win in Eindhoven.

There are more examples, but IMO we have the right man for the job and lets be grateful he has twice told Madrid to ****off, otherwise it could have been very different now.

[KK07]

I understand what you're trying to say but it does come across a bit negative.

In fairness I think most of us on here,if we're honest with ourselves will admit to pulling our hair out (honest,thats how I'm bald) at certain times this season and over the last 3 with some of Rafa's descisions.

Whether it be Zenden against Chelsea,Kewel against Milan or some of his signings,tactics,subsitutions etc.....

So I'm not going to say that he's the messiah but I do think he has more about him then luck.

Rightly so we seem to have had our fair share over the last few years but then again don't we make our own luck?

By working hard and grinding out results and making it hard for other teams to play?

All managers and teams need luck,but I don't think we can say this is all Rafa has,I believe he will come good in the league eventually,especially given the money to bring in the players he really wants as opposed to what he can just afford.

Oh and welcome to Est mate.

[Morph]

for the sake of argument and I know you're probably a wind up but here we go

Something that has crossed my mind and I wanted to share.

Now the facts don’t lie we are in our second Champions league final in three
years and on the brink of out third major trophy in three seasons under Benitez.
This is great case for celebration. However that aside is there a case to be
made to say he is just a very lucky manager who has flattered to deceive
on his way to getting humbled badly by a great Milan side in 2 weeks time??

If Rafa's lucky then i'd love to have his lucky ballies

Firstly, the league doesn’t lie and we have been average at best with no real
signs of major improvement that we all had hoped for especially this season.
And don’t forget Rafa was brought in on the basis of his league credentials
not his cup success. Parry wanted a man who could produce the good quickly
on the pitch on a limited budget. And by all accounts in the league at least
Benitez has failed this miserably.

True, but we are competing against the moneybags teams in Chelsea and the Scum, who either had a very long time to form their team an astounding amount of money to buil the squad, or one of those special players who changes games and nets 30 goals a season (we're still waiting for one of those, so lets judge it a bit better when Rafa gets some cash behind him, we all know what the transfers turned out like last summer.

Secondly, how good have we been in Europe? 2 years ago it took a Gerrard
wonder goal against a rubbish Greek outfit to scrape out of the group. Then
we beat a completely depleted Bayer L side and a Juve team we now know
had bought their success. We scraped by Chelsea in a very tight affair that
could have gone either way.

Then the final, we got absolutely battered for 55 mins should have been 4
down only for Milan to completely take their eye off the ball. Rafa got it
seriously wrong and only for an incredibly twist of fate we would have been
embarrassed for all of Europe to see.

Two years ago we had a pretty **** side correct, but surely it's credit to rafa
and the star players he had that we go to the final and then made the amazing come back, once could be considered lucky maybe, twice in two yrs and your having a laff

Last year we went out to a very average Benfica side getting beat 2-0 at home.

Can't win em all mate, what you want us to do get the final every year, lets not forget the same benfica knocked out the mancs who then won the league this season so it means ****

And even this year it could be argued we beat, a Barca team in turmoil, a
very poor PSV side and a Chelsea team exhausted by their mammoth campaign.

Again where rafa's lucky ballies, because if they engineer a great performance away to barca and an even better one at home to chelsea, plus cruising comfortably through our group with a game to spare then i really want a pair

Could Milan finally set the record straight by whipping the floor with us and
showing up Benitez as nothing more than a decent cup manager with poor
man management skills, poor record in the transfer market and an even
poorer one in the league? (We’ve been effective out of the title by Oct
each year in the last three)

wouldn't be a very good cup manager if we lost would he, poor transfers? now i know you're a windup, again fair coment about the league just, but hopefully thats two third place finishes, so we aren't exactly going backwards

Finally as I briefly mentioned above, Benitez’s man management must be called
into question when our best player for 20 yrs was within a whisker of
leaving, every striker we get turns to ****e, instantly it would seem. Even
Kuyt seems to have only one shooting boot on most of the time.

I have just realised you are a definate piss take and questioning wether I should even bother posting this reply, but it's written now so might as well

So is the truth that we allow are trying to deny or is this just a very negative
one sided look at it?

I hope it’s the latter.

Time will tell.

hopefully

[Dreambeliever]

Welcome mate. and thanks for taking the time to post that load of ****e for us to read.

Ha ha no worries and thank you.

What part is a load of ****e??

Granted alot of it may be a matter of opinion but none of it is completely wrong??

[DannyMan2006]

Something that has crossed my mind and I wanted to share.

Now the facts don’t lie we are in our second Champions league final in three
years and on the brink of out third major trophy in three seasons under Benitez.
This is great case for celebration. However that aside is there a case to be
made to say he is just a very lucky manager who has flattered to deceive
on his way to getting humbled badly by a great Milan side in 2 weeks time??

Firstly, the league doesn’t lie and we have been average at best with no real
signs of major improvement that we all had hoped for especially this season.
And don’t forget Rafa was brought in on the basis of his league credentials
not his cup success. Parry wanted a man who could produce the good quickly
on the pitch on a limited budget. And by all accounts in the league at least
Benitez has failed this miserably.

Secondly, how good have we been in Europe? 2 years ago it took a Gerrard
wonder goal against a rubbish Greek outfit to scrape out of the group. Then
we beat a completely depleted Bayer L side and a Juve team we now know
had bought their success. We scraped by Chelsea in a very tight affair that
could have gone either way.

Then the final, we got absolutely battered for 55 mins should have been 4
down only for Milan to completely take their eye off the ball. Rafa got it
seriously wrong and only for an incredibly twist of fate we would have been
embarrassed for all of Europe to see.

Last year we went out to a very average Benfica side getting beat 2-0 at home.
And even this year it could be argued we beat, a Barca team in turmoil, a
very poor PSV side and a Chelsea team exhausted by their mammoth campaign.
Could Milan finally set the record straight by whipping the floor with us and
showing up Benitez as nothing more than a decent cup manager with poor
man management skills, poor record in the transfer market and an even
poorer one in the league? (We’ve been effective out of the title by Oct
each year in the last three)

Finally as I briefly mentioned above, Benitez’s man management must be called
into question when our best player for 20 yrs was within a whisker of
leaving, every striker we get turns to ****e, instantly it would seem. Even
Kuyt seems to have only one shooting boot on most of the time.

So is the truth that we allow are trying to deny or is this just a very negative
one sided look at it?

I hope it’s the latter.

Time will tell.

I think that you have discovered that it is possible to put a negative and positive spin on everything. If I were you I'd chuck my CV in the direction of West London.................

Juve bought their success? Yes, but they were still a top side. A depleted Bayer side who eased through a group including Real Madrid. A Chelsea team who were at their imperious best. And a Milan side that played stunning football when given the freedom of the pitch and who had no plan B when Kaka was nullified, despite them having the best strikeforce in Europe, and a far better one than they have now.

Will we beat Milan? Well I would say that and game between two top sides can go either way, so it's not a forgone conclusion. However, we are a beter side than we were in 2005, whilst Milan have aged and lost Sheva and Crespo.

I must say I'm confident. Also after beating Chelsea this year in the prem we were 8 points behind Man Utd and had we beat Everton I could have seen us keeping up the pressure on them and Chelsea. We didn't and the team lost the heart for it and turned their attention to Europe.

[Guest]

Was Parry's main focus on getting Rafa not to challenge instantly for the title??

Three years on and we are further behind if anything......

Just looking at things from another perspective.

It was impossible to challenge for the league instantly, as we were so far behind when Rafa took over. He has certainly brought stability and we are closer now, but this is a gradual process. It sure is more difficult to win the league than winning the European cup.

To win the league, we have to be there week in week out, and the way Chelsea and Manure have been playing of late, it is even more difficult. The key is being able to compete in the transfer market for the best players, and I think we'll do that next summer.

The next two seasons will be the time to judge Rafa on that front, not now. He'll bring it home, I am sure of that.

[Howard_lfc]

I understand what you're trying to say but it does come across a bit negative.

In fairness I think most of us on here,if we're honest with ourselves will admit to pulling our hair out (honest,thats how I'm bald) at certain times this season and over the last 3 with some of Rafa's descisions.

Whether it be Zenden against Chelsea,Kewel against Milan or some of his signings,tactics,subsitutions etc.....

So I'm not going to say that he's the messiah but I do think he has more about him then luck.

Rightly so we seem to have had our fair share over the last few years but then again don't we make our own luck?

By working hard and grinding out results and making it hard for other teams to play?

All managers and teams need luck,but I don't think we can say this is all Rafa has,I believe he will come good in the league eventually,especially given the money to bring in the players he really wants as opposed to what he can just afford.

Don't go all around the houses Jay. Tell him it's bollox.

[Mr Tourette]

Was Parry's main focus on getting Rafa not to challenge instantly for the title??

Three years on and we are further behind if anything......

Just looking at things from another perspective.

i think its very likely your a very bored united fan.

There is no way you can convince me we were a better side 3 years go, however disappointing it is we havent got closer to the title.

[Dreambeliever]

No ifs and buts in the fact we havent even had sniff of a title challenge under the manager brought in to provide just that.

Ged was a great cup man but got the boot because our league form suffered.

What's the say the same fate won't befall Rafa if things go terribly bad in Athens and next season we start badly for the fourth year running?

[Morph]

i think its very likely your a very bored united fan.

There is no way you can convince me we were a better side 3 years go, however disappointing it is we havent got closer to the title.

it's disapointing we aren't closer, but I think Rafa's done well to actually keep us up there after the pile of **** he inherited in 04/05

[KK07]

Don't go all around the houses Jay. Tell him it's bollox.

I don't post up here much Les mate and was trying to look like I know something about something!!

Cheers for putting me straight Les you ****er,I'll go back to chat chat!!

[Dreambeliever]

I understand what you're trying to say but it does come across a bit negative.

In fairness I think most of us on here,if we're honest with ourselves will admit to pulling our hair out (honest,thats how I'm bald) at certain times this season and over the last 3 with some of Rafa's descisions.

Whether it be Zenden against Chelsea,Kewel against Milan or some of his signings,tactics,subsitutions etc.....

So I'm not going to say that he's the messiah but I do think he has more about him then luck.

Rightly so we seem to have had our fair share over the last few years but then again don't we make our own luck?

By working hard and grinding out results and making it hard for other teams to play?

All managers and teams need luck,but I don't think we can say this is all Rafa has,I believe he will come good in the league eventually,especially given the money to bring in the players he really wants as opposed to what he can just afford.

Oh and welcome to Est mate.

Nice reply, that was more at what I was trying to get at or least see if people saw it too.

And don't forget Rafa has already spent a fortune just alot of the signings haven't been good enough.

Bellamy, Morientes, Sissoko, Nunez, Speedy even Kuyt has looked somewhat limited in certain aspects this year.

I think the money side of it is only the start, Rafa must learn how to win week in week out away from Anfield.

[Guest]

I don't post up here much Les mate and was trying to look like I know something about something!!

Cheers for putting me straight Les you ****er,I'll go back to chat chat!!

Aren't you a LFC supporter ? Then you should have an opinion and you should let it be known more often.

It's all about opening one's horizons KK mate.

[Mr Tourette]

it's disapointing we aren't closer, but I think Rafa's done well to actually keep us up there after the pile of **** he inherited in 04/05

I agree. I like Rafa a lot and think hes a proper Mr Football and he loves us as well. If i was picky, i would bow down politely and suggest to him that from now on we should ignore the rotation policy in the first 2 months of the season and that we dont purcahse any more squad players.

[bazza76]

Welcome mate. and thanks for taking the time to post that load of ****e for us to read.