Rafa Benitez appreciation

[carrsim]

i'd like to direct people to my sig to let you know where my loyalties lie.

rafa is the best man for the job.

and i haven't read all this thread but all the talk of torres vs brum is bollox.

1. the rest should have been good enough to score without torres.

2. we managed to win games without him scoring before and since, whether he played or not.

3. he had plenty of space on saturday and didn't have his shooting boots on. who's to say the brum game would have been different

but its immaterial now

rafa

[bertie]

Its a petition mate. Its pointless. Spell there name without one letter right, it doesnt matter, theyre never gonna read it.

Point is, it rallies the fans together.

Any chance of the mods posting a link to the petition site on the main page? It'd be a great sign of how much we're ALL behind Rafa

[carlton]

Former club champions arent exactly jumping over each other to come out in the press and support Rafa are they?

[MrMichael]

Regardless, it seems clear that certain promises they have made are not being kept. The way they are laying down ultimatums in public to a revered and respected manager seems to me that they are already betraying the ethos of the club (which they promised they would be respectful of) and treating it like their play thing.

Well, just playing devils advocate a bit.... wasn't it Rafa who brought all this into the public domain? Therein seems to have come most of the problem. Ok, so in response Hicks basically told Rafa to shut it and concentrate on the important games coming up. Games which will firmly shape the direction of our season, and dictate whether transfers in Jan should involve strengthening for an end of season title push or not. Where's the ultimatum there? Rightly or wrongly, they are Rafa's bosses. He criticised them in public. Wrong. They had a go back. Also wrong. The whole thing got whipped up and almost went out of control. Wrong.

I'll tell you what betrays the ethos of the club. Muppet "fans" who call 606 after a couple of draws abusing our own players and saying Rafa should be sacked. I heard it on the radio, and I read similar on here too. Frankly, all the way over in Texas, I can understand how, just a few weeks ago, Hicks and Gilette may have been getting the impression that the fans of the club were anything other than behind Rafa. His judgement over transfers, his tactics, his selection policy, all were being heavily questioned by the media, fueled by a general sense of simmering discontent amongst the fans. Don't make me go searching this forum for some choice quotes, we all know it was happening.

What I'm trying to say is that its the sort of fans who go off on one at the slightest thing, who demand instant success, who believe everything they read in the Sunday S*n or have spoon fed to them by Sky, that need to do a bit of looking at themselves rather than constantly chucking the abuse about at whoever is today's villan of the piece. There's been wrong on all sides of this spat, if we can just pull ourselves out of pantomime mode for a minute and act with some of the dignity our owners unfortunately seem to have lacked slightly in this whole episode, we might just get an awful lot further.

[MrMichael]

I's agree with a lot of that. I think it is key how G&H respond to the current problems. If they decide to learn more about the football markets and improve manager-owner communications and deal brokering in future then it is happy days. If they fail to see that they are at least in part to blame for the furore then it will be a problem long term.

Still I would love to see a positive pro-Rafa reaction at Anfield from both team and supporters. I really hope it doesn't become an anti-American thing though.

Exactly

Rafa =

Xenophobic nonsense =

[thesilverfoxlfc]

Seemed strange that he wore a tracksuit at the Newcastle game he never did that before in a main match probably wasnt all that bothered about it after all the fighting........

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

Exactly - Rafa seems to be trying to re-build bridges - an ill-considered fan protest could actually undo that...

Totally agree.

Though chanting the managers name is fine - obviously, but there seems to be a protest scheme underway having persued various forums today against the yanks. Masked as support for Benitez.

[AFII]

Seemed strange that he wore a tracksuit at the Newcastle game he never did that before in a main match probably wasnt all that bothered about it after all the fighting........

Parry usually wears the same sort of tracksuit when he travels around.

[dww]

Seemed strange that he wore a tracksuit at the Newcastle game he never did that before in a main match probably wasnt all that bothered about it after all the fighting........

I'm yet to fully convince myself that all of this isn't a carefully constructed plot to boost sales of those new tracksuits. It looked rather good I thought.

[thesilverfoxlfc]

Parry usually wears the same sort of tracksuit when he travels around.

Yeah but Raf always wore a suit, only time ive seen him wear a tracksuit at a match was in Pre Seasons matches he kinda looked a man that looked doomed

[MrMichael]

Totally agree.

Though chanting the managers name is fine - obviously, but there seems to be a protest scheme underway having persued various forums today against the yanks. Masked as support for Benitez.

If so, it will do Rafa's position with the owners no good whatsoever. They could well, rightly or wrongly, lay the blame for that at his door. We risk playing right into the hands of those who would love to see us fail again, by making what could all have just been a badly dealt-with cultural misunderstanding, whipped up by the lowest elements of the media, 10x worse. To join in with general theme of making sweeping generalisations based on nationality, its not like Americans have a great reputation for openly backing down from a fight is it?

[Dhav]

Well, just playing devils advocate a bit.... wasn't it Rafa who brought all this into the public domain? Therein seems to have come most of the problem. Ok, so in response Hicks basically told Rafa to shut it and concentrate on the important games coming up. Games which will firmly shape the direction of our season, and dictate whether transfers in Jan should involve strengthening for an end of season title push or not. Where's the ultimatum there? Rightly or wrongly, they are Rafa's bosses. He criticised them in public. Wrong. They had a go back. Also wrong. The whole thing got whipped up and almost went out of control. Wrong.

I'll tell you what betrays the ethos of the club. Muppet "fans" who call 606 after a couple of draws abusing our own players and saying Rafa should be sacked. I heard it on the radio, and I read similar on here too. Frankly, all the way over in Texas, I can understand how, just a few weeks ago, Hicks and Gilette may have been getting the impression that the fans of the club were anything other than behind Rafa. His judgement over transfers, his tactics, his selection policy, all were being heavily questioned by the media, fueled by a general sense of simmering discontent amongst the fans. Don't make me go searching this forum for some choice quotes, we all know it was happening.

What I'm trying to say is that its the sort of fans who go off on one at the slightest thing, who demand instant success, who believe everything they read in the Sunday S*n or have spoon fed to them by Sky, that need to do a bit of looking at themselves rather than constantly chucking the abuse about at whoever is today's villan of the piece. There's been wrong on all sides of this spat, if we can just pull ourselves out of pantomime mode for a minute and act with some of the dignity our owners unfortunately seem to have lacked slightly in this whole episode, we might just get an awful lot further.

Completely understand what you are saying and I don't necessarily disagree.

You are right about muppet fans giving the club a bad name. Some of the comments were embarrasing in the extreme, esp on 606, and I've been surprised by them. I've been surprised by the fickle nature of some of our fans, and sadly it is has not been restricted to 606 and internet forums.

But if you believe there is no smoke without fire (and in this case we're not just talking about a bit of smoke but a whole lot) then IMO it is clear that some kind of reaction from the fans is necessary to show the owners where we really stand and how much faith there is in Rafa, especially if it is indeed the case that they have misjudged the mood of the fans.

Rafa was wrong to come out in the press and say what he did, but clearly he is frustrated at his plans having to be put on hold and transfer targets jeopardised as a result and may be he felt this was the only way he felt he could get his way. I bet Rafa has also been made promises behind the scenes that the yanks have failed to keep (eg player-specific budgets, snoogy doogy etc). IMO Hicks' comments have only served to inflame the situation and make it about 10 times worse.

The whole dirty linen in public thing is so not-Liverpool.

[FT9]

Parry usually wears the same sort of tracksuit when he travels around.

Did the squad travel directly from Melwood to SJP in the morning?

[Dhav]

I was watching the game in Cyprus oblivious to all this speculation about rifts between the manager and owners and was wondering why the hell Rafa was wearing a tracksuit. In hindsight clearly it's continuing the line of Rafa only "focusing on coaching his players" and nothing else.

[MrMichael]

Completely understand what you are saying and I don't necessarily disagree.

You are right about muppet fans giving the club a bad name. Some of the comments were embarrasing in the extreme, esp on 606, and I've been surprised by them. I've been surprised by the fickle nature of some of our fans, and sadly it is has not been restricted to 606 and internet forums.

But if you believe there is no smoke without fire (and in this case we're not just talking about a bit of smoke but a whole lot) then IMO it is clear that some kind of reaction from the fans is necessary to show the owners where we really stand and how much faith there is in Rafa, especially if it is indeed the case that they have misjudged the mood of the fans.

Rafa was wrong to come out in the press and say what he did, but clearly he is frustrated at his plans having to be put on hold and transfer targets jeopardised as a result and may be he felt this was the only way he felt he could get his way. I bet Rafa has also been made promises behind the scenes that the yanks have failed to keep (eg player-specific budgets, snoogy doogy etc). IMO Hicks' comments have only served to inflame the situation and make it about 10 times worse.

The whole dirty linen in public thing is so not-Liverpool.

Now that I do agree with, good post mate

Undoubtedly, there has been some sort of problem, and it seems that the role Hicks has played in addressing it was not a good one. There are definite concerns, and the owners srill have a lot to prove before we should believe the club is safe in their hands. I just don't think the sort of emails to Parry and so on, printed on here today, and protests of any sort along the lines of simple abuse, are the way forward, or may not prove to be wholey counter-productive.

Anfield should rock for 90mins on Wednesday with Rafa's name. Show our total support for the man in a positive fashion. But a mob calling for Hick's head on a stick would also be so not-liverpool, especially not yet.