Is Benitez about to be found out…?

[Fowler_God]

There are certain elements of truth in your post.

I never thought Houillers reign would turn out like it did when i was standing on Queens Drive watching the bus pass by with 3 trophies on it.

The difference i think this time though is that we have had our fingers burnt by getting caught up in the moment during Houillers time. With that in mind you can really see the difference with Rafa. The main thing i love is that he has no obvious favorite player (unlike Heskey, Murphy etc). Rafa's sole purpose is team. The other big thing is none of these crackpot phrases Ged had. 5 games from greatness and all that. Finally Rafa knows instantly if he has made a cock up in the transfer market and sorts it straight away (Josemi, Nunez, Moro, Kromkamp) were-as Ged would hold on to the pile of ****es to save his face (Cheyrou, Diouf, Diao)

The main moan i have at the moment is that we are not as free flowing as say the mancs. We are still a bit to workman like so we can sometimes struggle to break a team down. Yet other than that you can see Rafa is a Top notch manager and will bring home number 19 in 2008/2009 season

[dww]

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......

I think that it was Parry brief to bring in a manager who would take us to a level where we could challenge for the league. It would have been unrealistic to expect that to happen instantly.

The problem has been that starting from a better position than us Man United and Chelsea have been able to outspend us too.

On top of that the squad Rafa inherited was full of players unsuitable to his style of play. He had to completely remodel the squad. I would say that last season he made big strides in adapting the squad to the type of football he wanted and set a base for a team that could potentially challenge. Needing to add creativity to a solid base.

This season has been a big disappointment CL not withstanding. The team has stayed at the same level despite additions. There have been contributory factors (world cup, injury to Luis Garcia and Kewell) but our league form hasn't been good enough. However in my opinion the players bought in have improved over the season and we now have the finances to at match for this summer at least what Chelsea and Man United do. I think the current squad is capable of another 5-10 points if everyone was on form from the start of the season. Add in 2/3 new players and we should expect to challenge for the league next year.

If we are not at least close then we could start looking at how well Rafa has done, until now his task has been bigger than Mourinhos, Fergusson or Wengers in my opinion and we would come out favourably in a comparison to Arsenal over Rafas tenure in my opinion.

[DannyMan2006]

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?

GH was particularly great in the Carling cup and won the Uefa and FA cup once to.

They hardly compare to getting to the final of the Champions League twice in three years. If you seriously expected a manager to come in and spend buttons to win the league then you would be a fool (buttons in comparison that is of course!). To win the league for the past three seasons a team has needed close to 90 points which isn't easy.

The real ice breaker for Rafa is if he spends a shedload of cash this year and only manages 70 - 80 points. Next season there can be no excuses if he is backed in the transfer market.

[Red_Polo]

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??

No there ****ing isn't. We only needed Gerrard's last minute goals against Olympiakos because Saviola scored a goal with his hand against us, and anyway, Gerrard did ****ing score it. It wasn't luck, he's just that good, and he's done that kind of thing regularly.

Were we lucky in the final? It wasn't misfortune that cost Milan that final, it was their mentality and approach in the second half. You can pick over the decisions made in the final, was Sheva offside for the disallowed goal, was Dudek off his line in the pens, did Gerrard dive or should Gattuso have been sent off, didn't Nesta handball it in his own area just before they scored their second goal? Bottom line is, we completely deserved our place in that final. Just as we do this season. Luck? My arse.

[Guest]

I think that it was Parry brief to bring in a manager who would take us to a level where we could challenge for the league. It would have been unrealistic to expect that to happen instantly.

The problem has been that starting from a better position than us Man United and Chelsea have been able to outspend us too.

On top of that the squad Rafa inherited was full of players unsuitable to his style of play. He had to completely remodel the squad. I would say that last season he made big strides in adapting the squad to the type of football he wanted and set a base for a team that could potentially challenge. Needing to add creativity to a solid base.

This season has been a big disappointment CL not withstanding. The team has stayed at the same level despite additions. There have been contributory factors (world cup, injury to Luis Garcia and Kewell) but our league form hasn't been good enough. However in my opinion the players bought in have improved over the season and we now have the finances to at match for this summer at least what Chelsea and Man United do. I think the current squad is capable of another 5-10 points if everyone was on form from the start of the season. Add in 2/3 new players and we should expect to challenge for the league next year.

If we are not at least close then we could start looking at how well Rafa has done, until now his task has been bigger than Mourinhos, Fergusson or Wengers in my opinion and we would come out favourably in a comparison to Arsenal over Rafas tenure in my opinion.

Agree 100%. And it's all about a gradual process under Rafa, and we've certainly been progressing consistently since he's been here.

[KK07]

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.

Bellamy: Not someone Rafa wanted as a 1st choice,but was available at a fee we could afford.

Morientes: Had a proven record and just look what he has achieved back in Spain since. He just wasn't suited to the EPL,Rafa wasn't to know that and we all creamed ourselves when he signed.

Nunez: Again he was a limited player but we were losing Owen anyway and I think Rafa took a chance to see if this makeweight would work.
He didn't and was gone quick enough.

Speedy: Young talented player when in Spain and alot of clubs were looking at him,hasn't lit the world alight but may come good.
May be too late if we believe some of the stuff on here and he's gone in the summer.

Kuyt: Again a provenm goal scorer in Holland and how many times have managers been burned by signing players with good records from abroad?
Whether he makes it as a yop striker only time will tell but he works god damn hard and I reckon Rafa will give him the time required.

(I'm getting good at this,not a in sight,if I keep this up I'll lose my bull**** brigade rimleader tag!! )

[Howard_lfc]

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!!

Good idea Jay mate. It is Friday after all.

Well - he comes on here and after 3 posts decides to pick holes in Rafa's achievments. WTF is that about?

[Morph]

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.

I think thats fair comment, however it probably won't happen next season either cos i think there will be more than a few changes to our squad before we get it right, which will probably see us more in the mix the season after that.

What i find better now is that there isn't really a match i go into thinking we can't win this one, which is the attitude i would have had to a lot of matches in rafa's first season. I think we're comfortably confident in beating the vast majority of the league now, except for maybe the away trips to the mnacs, chavs and arsenal, but even then we're still capable of doing them over

[bazza76]

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.

Rafa has never shopped in Harrods while he has been in charge, I think that is the difference between us winning the title and not, especialy when you consider the spending power of our rivals, all the names you mention seem to be bargain buys or close to it. I think as KK07 has mentioned, with the right spending power, we should mount a serious challenge and see the real benefits of having Rafa as a manager, at the moment, the team carries out his orders to almost fine detail, that was especially the cae in he second leg against te chavs, imagine if we had top class signing to carry his tactical orders out, especially on the wings and up front. As it is, teams hate playing against us.

[bazza76]

Good idea Jay mate. It is Friday after all.



Well - he comes on here and after 3 posts decides to pick holes in Rafa's achievments. WTF is that about?

Well it does look as if he is looking at Rafa from the perspective of a rival fan who doesnt know a whole lot about Rafa.

[AFII]

Rafa has been knocked out one time in the last four years in Europe. That says it all how excellent he is.

You can also look at the CL winners the last few seasons and then you will discover that only Barcelona plays attacking football.

[Guest]

Rafa has been knocked out one time in the last four years in Europe. That says it all how excellent he is.

You can also look at the CL winners the last few seasons and then you will discover that only Barcelona plays attacking football.

Good post AF11.

[Red Chilli]

He'll get found out one way or the other.

Either for being a lucky manager and lightening does strike twice

OR

For being a great manager who hasn't been given the resouces to compete on a level playing field but has managed great success anyway.

Rome wasn't built in a day and our league results have shown steady improvement. The new owners need to give Rafa 3 years to compete for the title IMO.

[Los Rojos]

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

[Dreambeliever]

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

No wind up I assure you.

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.

The one problem there is Rafa has never liked to play the 30 goal a season player who grabs all the headlines. Its all about the team. I still think he wouldn't have minded selling Gerrard. So that leaves us with the building a team over a long period option. Newsflash its been 3 yrs and we are not getting any closer

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
Barca were very poor over both legs and thank God Messi wasn't fit. As for the Chelsea game, they were ****e, one demenisonal (i.e boot it to Drogba and pray he nicks us a goal) and we still only managed the victory on penos
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
He wasn't brought in to stay static in third he was brought in to win it. He hasn't even challenged yet. And his transfers haven't been great at all. Still no 20 goals a season striker, No wingers, no full back cover.

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

Is it not true that the Gerrard saga was managed terribly by Rafa. Cisse is another example, h's a player that needed an arm around the shoulder not the cold one Rafa dished out. He's a great tactics man, but seems to lack when it comes to man management in my eyes

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


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