Mourinho 'keen on Benitez's job'

[Kopite_Colin]

Wenger won the league in his first full season, along with the cup, so I fail to see why we need to give him 10 years a la Wenger.

Is there enough talent in our squad to win the league? Serious question?

We have the best keep er in the league.
We have the man who I believe to be the best defender for 3 seasons at the back-carra.
We have one of the most consistent full backs in the league for the past 3 years-Finnan
We have arguably the most complete midfielder in the premiership- Gerrard.
We have the best passer in the premiership -Alonso
We have the hottest striker in Europe - Torres

Apart from those players we have 2 internationals for every position pretty much. If this squad realised it's potential, they are capable of winning the league with very few additional playing staff.
The problem is, virtually NONE of them (except Pepe, Torres and Carra) are living up to their potential, and you have to ask the question why.

Chilli there are facts in what you state. the biggest (and most fundamental problem is 3-fold though:

1) We have very poor attacking midfield players (SG excepted) who don't delivver and don't score enough
2) we have very poor strikers (Torres excepted) whose scoring record is woeful
3) We have a manager who rotates, changes formation for the sake of it when there is no need, which affects our consistency and fluency and whose 1st thought is often a defensive one, and changes things too late in a game. He is also too stubborn to change this attitude (I sincerely hope he will but suspect he won't|)

But this squad of players will not win us an English League title. It simply isn't good enough. The 1 st 11 along needs at least 3 or 4 top class additions before we can do that: LB, CB (cover), RM, LM, Striker. We could probably carry Babel or Benny as one of the widemen but we would need a top wideman on the other side.

[sonsofthedesert]

....on the back pages review that the back pages of 2 of the Sunday rags & the Sunday Express that Rafa feels he will be gone in the summer. Similar to the story run in the Observer, just posted earlier.

Looks of it mate all the papers have it today.

[Kopite_Colin]

Mods please merge the thread with the Mourinho thread - thanks

[desertscouser]

There is a lot of hypocrisy on the net. People moan at others for not supporting players yet the possibility of a new manager (JM or JK) on the horizon and people are not going to support him until he wins and maybe not at all. I will support whatever manager is put in place if Rafa leaves or is sacked. To do otherwise is akin to what fans at Newcastle, Chelsea and the like do.

Absolutely 100% spot on. I've read comments made by posters on here that they wouldn't support a certain manager if they came in after Rafa. Outrageous really.

I'm a LFC fan, first and foremost. I would support any incoming manager no matter who he was. All managers deserve a chance.

On another note, some people are allowing their intense dislike of Mourinho to cloud their judgement. Mourinho is a superb manager, one of the best in the business. Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves.

[Dalglish]

The Laws of Probability indicate you're going to end up getting 4 eventually.

[sonsofthedesert]

Absolutely 100% spot on. I've read comments made by posters on here that they wouldn't support a certain manager if they came in after Rafa. Outrageous really.

I'm a LFC fan, first and foremost. I would support any incoming manager no matter who he was. All managers deserve a chance.

On another note, some people are allowing their intense dislike of Mourinho to cloud their judgement. Mourinho is a superb manager, one of the best in the business. Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves.

That point seem's to be forgotten by some people, saying that I would have concerns about Maureen due to the way he behaves.

[Fowler_God]

I used to think you were a decent poster Red_Chilli but your recent little war against all things Rafa lately...... well
Plus you trying to sort of defend that Portuguese tw*ts record at Chelsea. He should not be allowed within 99miles of our club

[Kaip]

There is a lot of hypocrisy on the net. People moan at others for not supporting players yet the possibility of a new manager (JM or JK) on the horizon and people are not going to support him until he wins and maybe not at all. I will support whatever manager is put in place if Rafa leaves or is sacked. To do otherwise is akin to what fans at Newcastle, Chelsea and the like do.

Absolutely 100% spot on. I've read comments made by posters on here that they wouldn't support a certain manager if they came in after Rafa. Outrageous really.

I'm a LFC fan, first and foremost. I would support any incoming manager no matter who he was. All managers deserve a chance.

On another note, some people are allowing their intense dislike of Mourinho to cloud their judgement. Mourinho is a superb manager, one of the best in the business. Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves.

I will always support LFC but you cant just switch your feelings off for a certain person..............if you could/did then in my eyes you'a be abit of a hypocrite

[Fowler_God]

saying that I would have concerns about Maureen due to the way he behaves.

Part of the reason Chelsea got rid of him was his behavior. His stupid outbursts and actions were funny for the first month but after that i feel he constantly embarrassed Chelsea as a club.
I want someone with a bit of ****ing dignity managing our club, not some walking media whore.
Anyway this is all by-the-by as Rafa will win this war with they Yanks, im sure of it.

[kop-al-74]

Imo,rotation has cost us in certain games and we have dropped points.Ok we have been unlucky in others like Citeh away and Chavski,Wigan,Blackburn and Brum at home.But,he hasn't helped himself either with his team selections and formations.

Someones already mentioned that with the players we have,the ability is there to win the premiership.But i think the players don't actually draw confidence from Rafa in the fact that it doesn't matter how well they play,they not sure when the next time they will get a start in the team.

I have seen Crouchy for eg,play really well,then dropped the next game.Torres scores and then dropped the next game.You just don't get that with Arsenal,chavski and utd.

Imo,play your best team thats available every bloody game.Thats how it used to be and thats how we were most successful.Rush and Dalglish was never "rested".If they pick up an injury then they can have rest.Too much science and looking ahead these days.Someone once said football is a very simple game and it really is.Only these modern coaches complicating things.

I think Rafa is a great coach and there is nothing more i would want than for him to be the one to win us the premiership,but i am slowly losing a little confidence in him.I hate to say it.

The formation the other night against Wigan really put me on a downer.Yea,ok on paper it looked really good but after 45 mins you can see it's really not working,you need to change.When you see players not performing (Kewell,Aurellio,Alonso)you have to make decisions and change it.He took far to long to make the changes.Once Wigan equalised the panick set in and we ended up with the team that we proberbly should of started with.

Today against Luton there should be no resting of players.Torres and Gerrard Mascha,Carra and Reina should all be playing in a 442 formation imo.I don't think Gerrard is injured.

[Neil Young]

I will always support LFC but you cant just switch your feelings off for a certain person..............if you could/did then in my eyes you'a be abit of a hypocrite

IMO everyone around here is too defensive (and too aggressive).

So some people don't want Mourinho, others say they would accept him if he becomes manager because they're LFC fans.

I don't see these as mutually exclusive positions.

[desertscouser]

I will always support LFC but you cant just switch your feelings off for a certain person..............if you could/did then in my eyes you'a be abit of a hypocrite

That's true Kaip. But we're all a little hypocritical when it comes to football. Most of us for example despise Drogba butif he signed for us all those years ago instead of the Chavs and won us the league, the majority of us would over look the fact that he's a diving ******* choosing to look at him instead as being one of the best strikers in world football and a hero for bringing home no 19.

[ronan]

This season isn't over, and we're better off at this stage of the season than we ever have been before. It's one of the best starts to the campaign but we can't stop other teams strengthening, and that's what Arsenal, United and Chelsea have done.

Rafa needs time, there is no logic in getting rid of. If we want to compare him to the other 3 teams then we either give him 20 years in charge ie. Fergie, 10 years in charge ala Wenger, or give him £225m to spend without having to worry about selling before buying ala Chelski

agree with every word of that.

There is a lot of hypocrisy on the net. People moan at others for not supporting players yet the possibility of a new manager (JM or JK) on the horizon and people are not going to support him until he wins and maybe not at all. I will support whatever manager is put in place if Rafa leaves or is sacked. To do otherwise is akin to what fans at Newcastle, Chelsea and the like do.

cannot agree with that at all al,whatever about bringing in klinsmann,which i am against as well as he has done nothing to earn him the right to manage us.morinho is a scumbag and i for one dont want him near the club,i dont give a damn what he's done in the past ,the media's lovechild can ****off as far as i'm concerned.
Cannot believe the ammount of you that think we should get rid of the manager,one who has gotten us to 2 european cup finals as well as 2 domestic cups,winning one each while only spending fractions of what his competitors buy at regualr intervals.
sooner the yanks sell and pissoff to ruin some other "franchise" the better.

[Kaip]

IMO everyone around here is too defensive (and too aggressive).

So some people don't want Mourinho, others say they would accept him if he becomes manager because they're LFC fans.

I don't see these as mutually exclusive positions.

Neil, i've got a rather large stella hangover, so could you make that post abit easier to read please

[Kopite_Colin]

Here goes....I'm going to lay my cards on the table..and this isn't done lightly to spark a row.

As I've said above, my preferred position is:

1) DIC to buy LFC
2) Rafa to be retained as manager
3) Rafa to be backed financially enough to compete with the Top 3
3) Rafa to change his mindset with regard to rotation / formation changing etc.

However, IF Rafa goes, I would welcome Mourinho with open arms. The reasons?

1) the man is a born winner
2) the man has the confidence and arrogance of a born winner
3) the man is intelligent & multilingual (communication is imporrtant)
4) he is one of the top echelons of managers currently available who could (theoretically) manage our club for years and take us into a new era (Rafa could too)
5) he has managed in the Premiership and knows what it takes to win it

I honestly believe Mourinho is a modern day Shankly. What a lot of people object to on here is what I love about him. Some call it classless, I call it outspoken. For those of you who are old enough, Shankly said some outrageous things to other players, and about other teams - but it was no different to Mourinho's more recent outbursts. But we loved it - because he was ours. But the biggest reason we loved it? Was because he had one thing Mourinho doesn't appear to have..HUMILITY. He was a man of the people. But these days football is so far removed from the people that there is no way Shankly could relate to us supporters in the modern era. Let's face it - HUMILITY in general has gone from our society. In general, everywhere you look it's all about "me, me,me". Mourinho is an intelligent man. I beleieve he wanted to join us before he went to Chelsea, but money talked and we simpley couldn't compete - the Abramovich revolution was in full swing...and be honest, which manager wouldn't have jumped at that opportunity at that time? Our own local boy captain was within a hair's breadth of joining it. IF Mourinho joins LFC, he will be smart enough to know he would't be able to get away with the antics and soundbites he used at Chelsea. He will quickly realise that most Scousers are very different animals to Cockneys, and will act accordingly. But hew will also know his football history. He will know about, Shankly, Paisley, Fagan & Dalglish. He will have seen the 2005 CL celebrations in the City and been absolutely dumbfounded. He will realise just how much he will be loved and revered he will be if he brings the title back to Anfield, again and again. Yes, ideally we want somebody whose "only done it for us in England" (I don't like the thought of us being taken to the title by a Chelsea cast off, but I don't like even more the thought of us going more than 26 years without a league title). I would love to see Rafa stood in a Shankly-like pose with his arms outstetched to the Kop, but if it's Mourinho holding the trophy when he does that - I'll applaud the man. If we have a title to celebrate at the end of the last season at Anfield or after our first season in our new stadium, I'll be a happy man.

So IF (and I mean IF) Mourinho is our next manager (and I honestly belive he will be - I've been saying it for weeks), I'll give him every chance, same as I did with Rafa.

Long live the Rafalution and a change of cirumstances and most of all mindset.