Lots of negative stuff about Rafa

[scouse lad]

Who says we're going to play 'like that' all the time though?

cause we have done for the past 3 years

[paulcooper4]

cause we have done for the past 3 years

Really? are you sure?

[wavydavy]

I must admit I'm not Rafa's biggest fan at the moment and think it was his rotation against Portsmouth and Birmingham which removed our momentum totally. However sacking him now wouldn't even come into consideration. The fact is it's way too early to be talking about how the PL is gonna end up.
Arsenal have played 7 games at home against mainly weak opposition and only 4 away. Admittedly they've beat these teams unlike ourselves. They've played three tough games and have won precisely none of them and trailed heading into the final few minutes of two of them. Meanwhile the pundits on Sky etc have gone into ****ing bias overdrive as the likes of Winterburn, Parlour, Platt et al witter on about how they had a funny feeling Arsenal were gonna come good this season. Er, what team did you all play for?
As for the Mancs. Ronaldo doesn't look as good this year and I daresay they're gonna have a wobble or two this season. Chelsea under AG are doing ok for now against **** teams but I reckon it will all end in tears at the end of the season. I think they'll struggle in the big head to heads.
I think it's hearing ex pros constantly doing us down that's fuelling the current mood of a lot of the disgruntled posters on here. There's no doubt that the PL is much less polarised this year. Teams like Villa, Portsmouth and Man City have spent big and are already taking points off the big 4. I suspect that Rafa's plan is to stay in touch with the leaders and hopefully come March-time, with a fresh skwad, force his way past in the run in. As someone posted in another thread if we can beat Fulham and Newcastle this month(???!!!??)our fixtures in December and The New Year if we can put a bit of form together could be quite fruitful.
I'm not slitting my wrists just yet. For once the international break could actually do us a favour this time.

[Rashid]

daniel agger
xabi alonso
fernando torres.
best ball playing defender
bast ball playing midfielder
best forward
all missing
have some ****in patience

Against Arsenal United had Scholes and Neville out with Carrick just coming back from a long lay off - that's their captain, their best two CM not really contributing.

This season, Man United have missed Rooney for 6 weeks s or so, and Ronaldo was out for a quarter of their games through suspension.

They have also had Carrick out for 2 months, and Hargreaves the same and at the moment Scholes is out for 3 months. That's before we mention sick note Saha.

Finally, their captain has been out for most of the year too.

Every team has injuries coop - in fact much worse than ours.

[einar]

To paraphrase a once great man, i may as well take a break from breathing too...

*actually hears the feelings of agreement from the nasty folk*

It's not terminal, of course not. But there's a huge difference between the levels we NEED to be at and the one we're at now.

As i said before, i didnt make a single complaint about the Arsenal or Cardiff performances, not one. Neither were particularly great.

So, in the cold light of day, be a man and admit you're wrong when you say that i complain 'at every opportunity'

Yes, about 6 points I belive.

[pezzzer]

Against Arsenal United had Scholes and Neville out with Carrick just coming back from a long lay off - that's their captain, their best two CM not really contributing.

This season, Man United have missed Rooney for 6 weeks s or so, and Ronaldo was out for a quarter of their games through suspension.

They have also had Carrick out for 2 months, and Hargreaves the same and at the moment Scholes is out for 3 months. That's before we mention sick note Saha.

Finally, their captain has been out for most of the year too.

Every team has injuries coop - in fact much worse than ours.

i look forward to your posts when we win a game!
your strangely missing then!

[Sir Bob]

Whilst Rafa drives me mad at times I wouldn't even consider sacking him for at least the end of next season. He has a vision for the club which needs time to mature.

If at the end of next season we are no nearer to challenging for the title then serious questions will need to be asked.

As for now I wish to God he wouldn't rotate so much. I wish he'd play Crouch more. I wish he'd he'd sell Kuyt, Momo and Riise. I wish we'd play with more pace and style. However, I still have faith in him. His record is still top notch and you don't get rid of a top manager until you're sure he has no more to offer. For me we aren't near that point with Rafa yet.

[RedProf]

Whilst Rafa drives me mad at times I wouldn't even consider sacking him for at least the end of next season. He has a vision for the club which needs time to mature.

If at the end of next season we are no nearer to challenging for the title then serious questions will need to be asked.

As for now I wish to God he wouldn't rotate so much. I wish he'd play Crouch more. I wish he'd he'd sell Kuyt, Momo and Riise. I wish we'd play with more pace and style. However, I still have faith in him. His record is still top notch and you don't get rid of a top manager until you're sure he has no more to offer. For me we aren't near that point with Rafa yet.

Excellently put

[Craig_H]

Yes, about 6 points I belive.

That's six point over eleven games.

You think we'll be 6 points off the top in 10 games time, if we keep playing as we have been?

[Craig_H]

Whilst Rafa drives me mad at times I wouldn't even consider sacking him for at least the end of next season. He has a vision for the club which needs time to mature.

If at the end of next season we are no nearer to challenging for the title then serious questions will need to be asked.

As for now I wish to God he wouldn't rotate so much. I wish he'd play Crouch more. I wish he'd he'd sell Kuyt, Momo and Riise. I wish we'd play with more pace and style. However, I still have faith in him. His record is still top notch and you don't get rid of a top manager until you're sure he has no more to offer. For me we aren't near that point with Rafa yet.

This is interesting.

He's doing things which you yourself think are wrong. Yet, you have faith in him. That's a bit confusing.

[willa1975]

Is Rafa incapable...

...of coaching attacking football/attacking players? I've been going on like a broken record the last couple of days, but it bothers me that, despite an undoubtedly better squad, we're every bit as inept in attack as we were two years ago.

Being able to score a couple of goals here and there would do us a great deal of good. How many points have been unnecessarily dropped over the past two-plus seasons due to our inability to score goals? People go on about how poor the squad was when Rafa inherited it, but it only took him a season to turn our defense into the league's meanest, while our attack has made, essentially, no progress whatsoever...

I would also like to raise the question of whether or not the consistent failures of our attacking players are the result of an amazing string of bad luck with players, or does it possibly reflect on Rafa's coaching and the style of football he employs? I'm starting to believe it's the latter, as the law of averages dictates that some good luck would have come about by now. I won't include Kewell in the analysis because of his injury problems, nor will I include Baros because he left the club immediately after Rafa's first season. But, looking at the attacking players who have been with us since Rafa came, it seems that only Crouch and Garcia have had any sort of success under him, and Garcia is off to Atleti and it seems that Rafa's in the process of running Crouch out of town as well. The other attacking players that come to mind...Cisse, Pongolle, Morientes, Zenden, Gonzalez all haven't cut it. Pennant hasn't quite cut it. Kuyt, if anything, has gotten worse since he's been here. I can't believe that he was as bad a player as he's been for us lately when he was scoring goals for fun at Feyenoord. Babel's struggling. Voronin, after looking like a useful player in the beginning, has turned to ****. Leto's given us nothing so far. Gerrard's been in an offensive funk since the 05-06 season. And I wouldn't be surprised if Rafa manages to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear with Torres by season's end.

I'm starting to doubt that we'll ever become a potent attacking side under Rafa. And I'm starting to doubt that any attacking player we sign will have any success playing for us. Arsene Wenger took boring boring Arsenal and turned them into a superb footballing side in less than two seasons. Rafa's now in his fourth year with us and we've made no progress. I'm not asking for us to produce breathtaking stuff every time we touch the ball...I'd just like to see us score a few goals that come about because of our play, not in spite of it. I'd like to see our players actually moving when we have the ball in the opposing half. I'd like to see us create chances and present some danger before we're in the 85th minute and it sets in that, once again, we're about to lose to or draw with a lesser side.

I'm just really ****ing frustrated. If we don't finish within 10 points of the top, and don't manage more than 60 goals, Rafa's got to go...I'll always be grateful for the Champions' League run, and the memorable FA Cup run in 05-06, but our football has been embarrassing the last couple of years, and we're simply not getting the results to justify it.

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

What really concerns me is the instincts, or the lack of it, of the players he's signed to pass and move.

Take Mascherano for example. For Argentina he's always showing for ball and popping up in the box from time to time, and left and right midfield. They play a fluid pass and move style and he looks at home in it even though he's the holding midfielder. Yet for us he rarely gets forward and you often see him look to pass the ball forward and there's no option on so it goes back.

Is it the lack of pace in the side, lack of movement, or lack of skill?

Of is it the way Rafa wants us to play?

Which leads me to my next question; are Rafa's tactical instructions restricting our attacking freedom?

He also coaches the first team. Yet why is it that we seem to be so far behind the Arse and scum in particular in passing and moving fluidly? Our team shape seems to be so rigid, the only player who moves around is Gerrard when he plays behind the front man and Benayoun when he plays. It makes us easy to defend against.

Bottom line is that we don't score enough goals to win the league. A simplistic view might be that it's down to having some of our best players out and that it's also tactical, but is it deeper rooted in the club psyche? I suspect it might be.

[Shaggy]

Take Mascherano for example. For Argentina he's always showing for ball and popping up in the box from time to time, and left and right midfield. They play a fluid pass and move style and he looks at home in it even though he's the holding midfielder. Yet for us he rarely gets forward and you often see him look to pass the ball forward and there's no option on so it goes back.

I've been thinking about the same thing regarding Masher.

Mascherano is often outstanding for us and IMO he's genuinely world class, but his form for us is still a bit up and down.

Almost without exception, whenever I've seen him for Argentina he's been outstanding.

I think, simply, it's because they're a miles better side than we are. They're so fluid, so free-flowing when on-song, and almost everyone around Masher is 100% comfortable on the ball. In fact more than comfortable - most of them are brilliant. He has options galore - their movement is on a different planet to ours. We're often so annoyingly static that Masher doesn't have many options and so has to be a bit bolder with his passing, which results in him giving it away more often.

[Sir Bob]

I think Rafa is essentially a defensive coach, he'd rather win 2-0 than 4-2. His view on SG typifies this, he still doesn't like to play him in CM as he feels his forward runs leave us exposed at the back if we lose possession.

I don't think we'll ever play as Man U or Arsenal do under Rafa, its much more likely to be a la Chelsea under Mourinho, with an ultra strong defence, a defensive minded CM but with pace out wide and up front.

Quite simply we do need more attacking options. Lets face facts only SG & Torres offer a genuine & consistent goal threat whereas Utd & Arsenal can score fram many more positions. Having said all that Chelsea won titles based largely on goals from Lampard & Drogba.

In short, I still think a title under Rafa is possible but it'll be more Chelsea than Man U or Arsenal

[andyinswinton]

I don't think Rafa was an attack minded manager when he was at Valencia but his teams played some good football and they obviously did very well.

Whilst they weren't that attack minded, they did play with Aimar and that kinda player is something we are seriously missing in my opinion. To have that kinda player in our side would improve our style of play greatly and increase our chances of scoring, especially if we play with intelligent strikers up front.