Is Benitez about to be found out…?

[stevie_gerrard_8]

But that is due to ignorance on your part. Kuyt played as an out and out striker @ feyernood. Here he has been asked to play between the lines. It goes w/o saying that he would score less goals in that position. Obviously, you haven't taken those kind of subtilties into account and therefore I can only call BULL**** on your conclusions.

Why do you think he is asked to play this role after scoring so many goals from playing up top?
i think he's a very good player but i am just wondering why Rafa converted him into a second striker

[Mr Tourette]

Why do you think he is asked to play this role after scoring so many goals from playing up top?
i think he's a very good player but i am just wondering why Rafa converted him into a second striker

i dont think hes trying to convert anyone. Kuyt was supposedly a striker capable of the 20/20 assists and goals. I just dont think he isnt that in the prem unfortunately...god bless him though....

[Farside]

Why do you think he is asked to play this role after scoring so many goals from playing up top?
i think he's a very good player but i am just wondering why Rafa converted him into a second striker

He may have scored a lot of goals in Holland but he does not look like a natural goal scorer in the Premiership.

[spud_gun]

Rcdnw!

[Gazmo1]

I've just lost 2 mins of my life i'll never get back.

Thanks

[Red_Polo]

Give one statement in my intial post that had little truth??

And winning one tie by the odd goal isn't luck but doing it over and over again has to been seen as having an element of luck no??

No, in fact doing it over and over again might suggest that it isn't luck. I would say the scoreline tells you absolutely nothing at all about which team, if any, was lucky.

As for asking for one statement in your initial post that had little truth - you misunderstand. I'm not saying it's filled with factual inaccuracies, rather you have misrepresented things that are accepted fact - you have given them a significance which they need not confer; that they are evidence that Benitez has been lucky and is about to be found out.

Nobody can deny we've been ****e in the league for much of this season. We should've made the step up and really competed, so in that respect Rafa has ****ed up this season. But your thread title 'is Benitez about to be found out...?' suggests we're about to discover something we don't already know. Every man and his dog knows Rafa has found it hard to get it right in the league, so you can only be talking about what you spent a lot of your first post alluding to - our success in Europe being down to luck that is about to run out.

Well I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. Regardless of the result in the final and despite our failure to do the business in the league, I think we are one of the best teams around in European competition. The fact we have done so well in Europe compared to the league is amongst other things down to Rafa's ideas and new players being employed to better effect in Europe than in the Premiership, i.e. not down to luck, and I think given the time and resources the same ideas, players, and level of success will transfer itself to the Premiership.

[bigfooty]

I have significant reservations about Benitez in the league, I voiced these over on KT back before the Man Utd away game earlier this season and have done so quite regularly since. It's of course hard to defend this point when your team reaches a European Cup Final, but I tend to look at the two tournaments as requiring different approaches to win, something Man Utd would probably agree with after their humbling in the San Siro.

At the time I said Rafa could bring us success in many cups - particularly Europe - but I just felt he didn't have the right footballing approach to win us the Premiership. I pointed to his crap record against the Top 4 which, whilst it has slightly improved overall thanks to home wins over Arsenal and Chelsea (twice), is still not good enough. I pointed to the slightly baffling team selections away from home and that how, in pre-season, we'd looked a complete shambles. The treatment of Crouchy, dropped after scoring goals and apparently third choice behind Kuyt & Bellamy until the last couple of months, also irked me and he's proven once again that he's our most effective striker this season as he was last. We've won 12 of the 15 games He & Kuyt have started compared with 8 of the 17 Bellamy & Kuyt have started. In all the games he has started we've lost 4 of them, compared with 6 when just Bellamy & Kuyt have started.

Ultimately since I originally made that statement nothing has really happened to change my view. Our lowest away goals tally since the Souness era is excused only by the fact that Rafa apparently gave up on the league with half a dozen or so games to go, a luxury I would rather not have had as it showed just how off the pace we really were. Our friends from America appear set to give him more funds than any other LFC manager before, even though he's spent close on 85M, which makes me slightly more confident in Rafa's chances, but then again I have this horrible feeling that a magnificent opportunity could be squandered on players unfit for the Premiership yet effective in Europe. Put it this way; if Rafa takes his spending to 120M and we're still no nearer sustaining a title challenge then we never will be. I'm not saying he has to win the title next season as luck with injuries plays a big part, but he's got to have us up there and not out of it by October.

There's no doubting Rafa is a quality manager who could repeat past successes and win the league many times over in Spain with a top side there and though we've had close shaves in getting to where we are in Europe this happens to a lot of teams, look through any European run and a goal more here or there could have quite a significant outcome. If Celtic had scored in extra time against Milan then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Reaching the final twice in three years is not "luck" and it's perhaps more a testament to Rafa's skill in Europe that last season getting to the Last 16 was seen as a disappointment when we really should, and could, have gotten past Benfica.

Milan could end up giving us a football lesson again but I hope Rafa has learned from the mistakes of the first 45 in Istanbul and I expect us to field two sitting players to try and negate Milan's play. The thing is that you would expect Rafa to have learnt his lesson in the Premiership yet away from home we are generally as inept as when he took over, 85M and three years later. Either way the outcome of the final is almost secondary for me. My personal ambition for LFC is to see us back up challenging for the title and I'd gladly swap a 5-0 hammering in Athens for a Premiership trophy next May.

[Howard_lfc]

Dreambeliever:

I stated at the beginning of the thread that what you posted was a load of ****e IMO but to your credit you have stuck around to fight your corner. I haven't read all of the thread (so you may still be talking bollocks) but at least you're still in there debating the points with the rest of the forum which is to your credit mate.

[AFII]

Rafa won the CL with players like Biscan, Traore, Smicer, Cisse and Dudek.

I don't think any other manager in the World would have been able to do that.

Give Rafa the money and he will sign the right players. Look at the £10m+ players that he has signed. Everyone of them has been spot on.

Look at players like Crouch and Pennant who plays better and better.

Rafa isn't only great when he signs players. He also makes the players better.

[bigfooty]

Rafa isn't only great when he signs players. He also makes the players better.

Like who?

[Marky]

To clear it up we were lucky but deserved it for our application (hard work, never say die spirit) not for our football.

We were muck against them at the Bridge and were very "Lucky" (sorry couldn't resist) not to be put away down there.

Ged in his time got us from 7th to 2nd before failing.

Rafa hasn't looked likely yet.

We were 1 point of 2nd place last season.

[AFII]

Like who?

Alonso, Gerrard, Carra, Agger, Reina, Finnan, Crouch, Garcia and Pennant for example.

[Morph]

We aren't getting any further away which i think is more the point in question, when you look at the results, and lets discount the last two dead rubbers, we were five wins away from challenging, thats not a great deal and with some better wingers or pennant coming to forma little earlier, or not having kewell out the whole season we could well have got a few more of those 5 wins

Sorry 5 wins away in the League season is a massive difference. And one that should be alot closer by now.
not really when you look at the blackburn match, the chelsea match and plenty of others where we should have come out with more, even the mancs and everton at home warranted more points, and an unpredictable/creative player could get us the points in those matches, and i think one of those is on rafas summer shopping list because they don't come cheap

well who made them play that way, you are never going to convince me that you can get to the final twice in 3 years by luck, maybe it's lucky that mourinho struck gold with drogba, who arguably looked **** in his first season, or the mancs with ronaldos form this season, you can spin these things any way you want

We have a good side there is no doubting it as we work hard for each other but it could be said we have been lucky to meet teams who havent been at their best coming into the games, i.e Barca and Chelsea.

swings and roundabouts mate, were sheffield lucky on the first day, where bolton lucky we played ****e, chelsea and barca didn't play **** we made them play that way, if you can't see that or understand the tactics involved then the argument is pointless

Okay transfers, Reina, Alonso, Agger, Mascherano, Sissoko (pre injury), Kuyt, Pennant (almost although jurys still out, Garcia, Crouch have all been great signings, so don't be giving me that crap about not good at all signings. He was brought in to win, sure, did you expect it overnight, he worked miracles with the team we had in 04/05 to get us to 82 points the following season, this season has been much the same really, so i don't really see your point, if we're still here in 2 yrs time, then i might take your point. Oh and as for the striket, go and look at the thread on this topic, we have the second highest amount of goals scored by strikers, so i'm not overly convinced that is the imediate priorty, wingers are and if he had the cash he wanted we'd probably have them by now

Reina Agger I'll give ya. The rest are ify. Alonso looks like he could be on the way out in the summer and has been dropped of late for Masher. Masher has played 10 games so the jury is still out. Sissoko could never pass the ball well enough to hold down a place in a team driven by holding posssesion. Kuyt has been ok nothing spectacular yet. Pennant the same. Garcia?? Your having a laugh he's losing the ball more often than an alzheimer's patient losses his memory. Crouch has been decent again nothing more nothing less. A good bench option.

I'm not gonna debate all the players because it seems to be a waste of time, but all of those are worth more now than what we paid for them if we were to sell guaranteed. You're judging Sissoko on his off form in the second half of this season, Alonso is quality and you know it, for me the jury isn't out on mascher he's quality, and Garcia is one of those creative players i was talking about before, by nature of his style he will give the ball away, but what dif does it make if he gives the ball away 100 times in a match and then scores the winner, which he often does, he's a difference maker and we've missed him in many games

[einar]

Nice post, but no offence its a load of bollox

The buck stops with the manager and he shouldn't bring in a player unless he's done his homework. If the player doesn't make it a large portion of blame goes to the manager.

If a player isn't good enough he isn't good enough, bringing him in because he's cheap, or a swap deal or available is bollox management.

This is just crazy. Just look at Man Us best players and see what they cost. If they where not brought in as kids. Are you saying the players Rafa has brought in are worse then the ones we had before? Whether you like it or not this is all about the money. We went for Ronaldo, Duff, SWP, could never have afforded Drogba, Rooney, Nistelroy the list goes on and on.
Do you think it is a coincidence that Man U Chelsea or Arsenal where not after Crouch, Bellamy, Pennant, Garcia or Kuyt? Of course it´s not. They are not god enough for a top prem. team.The only attacking player the other top teams seem to show interest in was Kewell.

And as to whether or not the other managers would have done a better job with our team. We will never know. Allot of Fergies succusses is down to the fact that he got a golden generation and a few years later all the money in the world. When have Man U gone after a player and not gotten him?

Fergie knows the league in and out, he´s been here for 20 years. Plus he is a great motivator. But it is not just about being a great motivator, he was also given time and money to get the players that suited his style of motivation. Rafa is still doing that. I know every one is saying these days that the league is the main thing but ask any Man U fan about their European succusses and they are not happy.

Wenger has won nothing since Vieira went and could be accused of not being abel to replace many of his stars. Look at his team now. The only players people really envy him of are Fabregas and Henry. ( Some could say Toure and Gallas. )

As for Mori, it is really the same story. He got a very good base in Terry and Lampard and a few other and money to spend.

As to whether it has all been down to luck. Well, if a manager goes for a 1-0 result, and then gets that, it is hard for me to call that luck. Football is about attacking and defending. In simple terms, we are one of the best defending teams in the world, and did not have the money to the best attacking team in the world. We do now so that is the next step for Rafa.

Am I happy with our league runs since Rafa came? No. But the simple fact is that managers at top clubs need time and Rafa has done more then enough to earn more.

[Nic83]

I've just lost 2 mins of my life i'll never get back.

Thanks

Took you that long to read?