Rafa

[BobTheCharmer]

bloody hell, spend an age thinking of something to type and the thread gets closed. sounds familar.

anyway, my quick thoughts on the Gaffer.


I've had serious doubts about Rafa winning us the league for a while now.

If we had been getting close than thats fair enough. After all you can't guarantee winning anything no matter how much you spend. My problem with him is his seemingly negative approach to certain games. Take Utd away last season, that was a shocking performance. My belief was restored when we went to Barca (luckily I was there to witness it) and we took the game to them. Then the final comes and in my opinion he blew it by not starting or at least giving longer to Crouch. He seems to over complicate a relatively simple game to me.

I can't help but like his comments to the media at times and there's no doubting Valencia played some great football. But I haven't seem a lot of this during his reign here.

His insistence on playing our captain & best player out of his preferred position is both baffling & frustrating to say the least. At any other club the team would be built around him. Call me old fashioned but thats the way I see it.

The question for me is will we go to Villa on the opening day and attack them? Or will he settle for a point? That game will for me say a lot about his ambitions & approach for the season.

He's had money this summer. There's no more excuses Rafa. I don't expect a 19th title but to be in with a shout come March is mandatory.

*delete if you must*

[Guest]

With the emphasis on attack minded players since the transfer window has opened, he certainly isn't someone who is thinking defensively all the time.

[stevie_gerrard_8]

Rafa's emphasis is on control, not to defend. Until now, he has not been able to afford the right players with the right technical ability.

[BobTheCharmer]

With the emphasis on attack minded players since the transfer window has opened, he certainly isn't someone who is thinking defensively all the time.

Of course he isn't. Hopefully this will be a bright new era. But in the past with the players we have had, they were more than capable of taking the game to the opposition if they were allowed off the leash. I also don't think he understands a strikers mentality. Getting in the grove and scoring is what most of them thrive on. In out, in out, shake it all about most certainly isn't.

[Red_Polo]

I tend to agree that if Rafa took a different approach to certain games we'd do better, but then I also feel that the apparently negative gameplans he sends us out with in some games have been in part the product of a lack of quality options in attack, but moreso an illusion created by poor execution of the gameplan for the same reason.

Looking back to two seasons ago we actually played some very good stuff barring a poor start. This season, I expect a return to that. Not necessarily a radically different approach, but less prosaic in the final third and executing moves with greater consistancy and fluidity.

[Catrin]

Rafa's emphasis is on control, not to defend. Until now, he has not been able to afford the right players with the right technical ability.

I agree that Rafa's emphasis is on control. Normally the best way to control a game is to control possession but that's easier to do in continental football than it is in the fast-paced premiership. Therefore, Rafa uses placement of players to stifle the opposition so that they can't do anything with the possession that they have.

I think that with better players Rafa's emphasis will still be on control but through retaining possession rather than through stifling the opposition. Pass and move!

[stevie_gerrard_8]

I agree that Rafa's emphasis is on control. Normally the best way to control a game is to control possession but that's easier to do in continental football than it is in the fast-paced premiership. Therefore, Rafa uses placement of players to stifle the opposition so that they can't do anything with the possession that they have.

I think that with better players Rafa's emphasis will still be on control but through retaining possession rather than through stifling the opposition. Pass and move!

Exactly, hence the reason we are buying players who are comfortable with the ball: Yossi, Torres, Babel, Voronin, Lucas

[Redlife]

Rafa's emphasis is on control, not to defend. Until now, he has not been able to afford the right players with the right technical ability.

That's completely correct.

[Morph]

Also i remember reading an interview where rafa said we'd basically sorted our back five and midfield and now it was time to sort out our wings and up front.

With the funds available to him, it was always going to make more sense to build from the back.

If you take his first season, you call that a settling in period, started to get the defence and midfield working how he wanted.

Then his second season, reina comes in breaks records the defence improves and the central midfield gets better with sissoko included now.

Then take last season, defence gets even better with inclusion of Agger, the midfield gets better with the inclusion of Mascherano.

There really isn't much more I can see we can do to improve either of those areas, but Rafa has gone and brought in Lucas now also.

Now is the time to sort out the upfront area and the flanks with those purchases that will cost a fair bit but we are now almost at the stage were we can go out and get 1/2 players in the summer without the need for rebuilding.

I'm really looking forward to the new season, and i think we're going to start seeing Rafa's vision for us really take shape.

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

My only gripe is that he stops rotating so much.

Surely he must have noticed that continuity of selection by the mancs last year, and the chavs in the previous 2 was a big factor in them winning the league - obviously they had more quality, but hopefully we've closed the gap.

[Morph]

The question for me is will we go to Villa on the opening day and attack them? Or will he settle for a point? That game will for me say a lot about his ambitions & approach for the season.

oh and as for that, i think we're going to go and murder them, much is being made of our poor starts of the last few seasons, we'll fly out of the traps and hit them for two before the first 20 mins are over, Torres and Gerrard.

Our pre-season is a pretty tough one, and really the only real proper go Rafa has had I think to prepare, without the worries of international tournaments and bringing players in, looks like our major business will be completed this week, so no repeat of the Kuyt situation this year

[stevie_gerrard_8]

My only gripe is that he stops rotating so much.

Surely he must have noticed that continuity of selection by the mancs last year, and the chavs in the previous 2 was a big factor in them winning the league - obviously they had more quality, but hopefully we've closed the gap.

They both rotated just as much. It's just that are players were not good enough, and that we weren't playing well, so that was the most obvious reason, which it wasn't

[Red_Polo]

My only gripe is that he stops rotating so much.

Surely he must have noticed that continuity of selection by the mancs last year, and the chavs in the previous 2 was a big factor in them winning the league - obviously they had more quality, but hopefully we've closed the gap.

Ferguson rotated like **** last season, especially in the opening months when he was making almost as many changes as Rafa. I don't think rotation is a huge problem on the whole tbh, it's more the lack of quality in depth and players struggling to adapt that has stymied our progress in the league.

[spud_gun]

Rafa's been given his own head this summer.

[CJ]

i think rafa rotates certain things more than i would like

it is plain to see however that rafa believes this enables the team to finish strongly. so in rafas eyes surely no rotation at the beginning will only move a poor start to a poor finish.

not sure myself but i think that is how he sees it in my very janet and john way