THE Benitez thread.....

[thesilverfoxlfc]

Missing Agger,Torres and Xabi is a massive loss

Torres sets the tone as the players look to him upfront he just runs the show upfront and playing behind our other striker which arent the same class doesnt set them up in great confidence

[thesilverfoxlfc]

We play ****e, boring, defensive football...dont know whose fault it is (although u have to start with the boss dont u?), but thats what I see when I watch us.

Derby game was crap wasnt it.....but i get your point

[Larakin15]

Derby game was crap wasnt it.....but i get your point

Derby are a horrible side, and are not the sort of opposition to judge your own performance against. Yes that was fun to watch, but it was Derby.

[paulcooper4]

Rafa is the best manager around. As soon as our players stop playing like bellends we will be fine.

[Dan]

Welcome back Coops.

I'd pretty much agree with that

[paulcooper4]

Welcome back Coops.

I'd pretty much agree with that

They best pack it in before sunday though or arsenal are gonna tear us a new arsehole

We need Alonso so much its unbelievable. No other **** in the squad can pass a ball

[Marky]

Rafa is the best manager around. As soon as our players stop playing like bellends we will be fine.

The players need to have a long, hard look at themselves, every single one of em.
I thought the merseyside derby win would get us going again but now we're back to square one and face possibly the most in form side in Europe on sunday, i know we say this in the run up to every game but a massive performance(and blimin result) is needed.
The manager can only do so much, up to the players when they cross that white line.
Ps i'm not saying Rafa can't be criticised for his management either

[paulcooper4]

The players need to have a long, hard look at themselves, every single one of em.
I thought the merseyside derby win would get us going again but now we're back to square one and face possibly the most in form side in Europe on sunday, i know we say this in the run up to every game but a massive performance(and blimin result) is needed.
The manager can only do so much, up to the players when they cross that white line.
Ps i'm not saying Rafa can't be criticised for his management either

Of course Rafa can be criticized, but on here it seems like the players get a free ride. Some of his decisions lately have been a bit baffling to say the least, but to be fair, any decision you make while your playing **** and not winning is gonna be called the wrong one.

My anger at the moment is solely reserved for the players, they know they can play better and need to start pulling their fingers out and repaying Rafas faith in them.

This is the most important time when we should be getting behind the *******s, support the ****s and they will come good. If they dont, **** them off at the end of the year.

[JCase]

So what ? CL isn't our priority. Hope we finish last and concentrate in the league now.

I don't think we'll get the 10 points to qualify. Saying that I hope we finish last so we don't have to play in the Euro Disney 2nd tier comp. Its become like that after we last won in in '01

[paulcooper4]

Thanks to the reds tonight, I had to witness the sight of a fat bitter in work dancing around with a felt-tip goatee drawn on his face and a bit of carpet draped over his arm singing "im a fat spanish waiter"


PULL YER ****IN FINGERS OUT LADS!!!

[MrMichael]

There's some ridiculous posts in this thread, and on the forum as a whole tonight.

Gonna let all the handbags go for now 'cause people have obviously needed to blow off steam, so lets not have a flurry of reported posts either please (you know who you are), but the virtual hair-pulling better not continue into the morning.....

[Nicey]

THose with a reasonable memory will recall that about 3 months into his first season I declared that Rafa was the Spanish Eric Morecambe.

I stated that he was clueless, we would never win the league under him and that we would be at this point sooner or later.

What say ye now?

I also say **** Off .. :whatever:

[Harv]

Its all so similar to the Houiller days when he lost the plot. Like idea's and creativity, assistant manager leaves and everything starts to fall apart, manager making strange comments, manager being stubborn over decisions.

Its very similar. I can only see it going one way too.

We just look so void of attacking ideas. What really gets me is when Rafa says "oh we had over 60% possession, we just didnt take our chances". Possession doesnt count for ****, we need to create 10 chances to score one....thats the ****ing problem.

We are so void of ideas in the attacking third is rediculous, Kuyt has gone from a 30 goal a season striker in Holland to a labourous workhorse(donkey) under Rafa. Voronin is ****, all this "feed the crow" stuff needs to stop, because he is not good enough to be starting. Even with Babel, you can see he doesnt know what to do in the attacking half. He looks like he has been told purely his defensive duties, but has no ****ing idea on what to do when we have the ball. (I actaully seem to recall him saying this too)

There is no fluidity in our game at all. Its embarassing to watch and there are no signs that it will stop.

If Hiddink or Capello were available i would take them in a flash. Hiddink in particular would work wonders with us. He actaully knows that to win a game of football, you need to score goals. He has done a brilliant job everywhere he has been. PSV where great to watch under him, and won the Dutch league season after season.....they were also very stiff to not beat Milan in the Champions League.

I dont have to mention the job he did with Australia. Since he left us we have become a shambles.

Capello has won everywhere he has been, and while he generally plays a defensive style, his teams are still very fluid in the attacking half.


I love Rafa, i have stood by him through the bad times, but its becoming clear that he really lacks that attacking nous. Defensively he is superb, but he needs to get an assistant in quicksmart that knows the attacking side of the game. Thats the only way i can see us changing.

[bigfooty]

I said most of what I felt needed to be said in the other "What's the point" thread. I was disappointed with last night but it wasn't a huge surprise, I thought we would get a draw and we probably deserved that as the difference was that Besiktas just made their few chances count. We were however fortunate they didn't get more as they missed more clear-cut chances than we created.

I've commented more than a few times that Rafa's treatment of Crouch I think has almost been linked to my faith in his ability to bring us #19. His dropping after scoring in matches last season coupled with obvious favourtism towards Kuyt's effort rather than Crouch's craft. The ridiculous non-selection for Athens, a mistake that was only exagerrated by introducing him so late in the game. His treatment this season as a clear 3rd-choice despite being top scorer last season. Tonight's 7-minute cameo when we were chasing a game and it was clear the current strikers just weren't doing the job from almost before half-time really.

The fact the game is at home on Sunday, that we are under pressure, should make a difference. We should compete and if anything after getting beat tonight I'm a bit more confident that we can get some kind of result against Arsenal as I think we'll raise our game and that one of the attackers is due a top-class performance - similar to Crouchy's effort last season.

What fascinates me the most is where George and Tom are in all this. Certainly at the Texas Rangers the approach Hicks has was that he didn't really care about winning, he was more interested in seeing loads of home runs scored by the big hitters. In short - Entertainment. One thing you can certainly say is that this season Liverpool have been pretty far from entertaining and it's going to be interesting how long they hold off before making their views on our current play public.

[Harv]

I said most of what I felt needed to be said in the other "What's the point" thread. I was disappointed with last night but it wasn't a huge surprise, I thought we would get a draw and we probably deserved that as the difference was that Besiktas just made their few chances count. We were however fortunate they didn't get more as they missed more clear-cut chances than we created.

I've commented more than a few times that Rafa's treatment of Crouch I think has almost been linked to my faith in his ability to bring us #19. His dropping after scoring in matches last season coupled with obvious favourtism towards Kuyt's effort rather than Crouch's craft. The ridiculous non-selection for Athens, a mistake that was only exagerrated by introducing him so late in the game. His treatment this season as a clear 3rd-choice despite being top scorer last season. Tonight's 7-minute cameo when we were chasing a game and it was clear the current strikers just weren't doing the job from almost before half-time really.

The fact the game is at home on Sunday, that we are under pressure, should make a difference. We should compete and if anything after getting beat tonight I'm a bit more confident that we can get some kind of result against Arsenal as I think we'll raise our game and that one of the attackers is due a top-class performance - similar to Crouchy's effort last season.

What fascinates me the most is where George and Tom are in all this. Certainly at the Texas Rangers the approach Hicks has was that he didn't really care about winning, he was more interested in seeing loads of home runs scored by the big hitters. In short - Entertainment. One thing you can certainly say is that this season Liverpool have been pretty far from entertaining and it's going to be interesting how long they hold off before making their views on our current play public.

The other thing with yanks is they are not scared to change it up.

Rafa has had plenty of time, and each season we have been better than the last (in the league)...but we play such a **** brand of football, and i reall cant see G&H sticking by Rafa is things go sour. Their is no loyalty in American sports....and i cant see why they would change their tune over here.