The 'where are they now?' files

[BobTheCharmer]

You've named 6 players If only it was a 5-a-side league. Agree to disagree on the bit in bold I think





He was ahead of his time imo.



Definitely Imagine wanting to switch employers and getting death threats

I named our best players. Any team you put out with those 6 players in should be challenging for titles especially in this league. Time and again we came up short in home games where he was too cautious. We lost the second champions league purely down to not starting with crouch who was pretty much unplayable in Europe that season. He tried to be clever and it didn't work. Great human being. Was a very good manager for us but it wasn't all a bed of roses. He deserved better than having to deal with hicks and gillet. But I used to attend games fairly regularly when he was in charge, and some of those home draws with Fulham, Middlesbrough and Sunderland were ****ing dire. Plus he played kuyt over and over. Horrible footballer with a massive heart.

[Charly]

Kuyt was effective in games against stronger opposition. Less so against weaker teams.

I think Benitez was similar. He could take a weaker team and beat a stronger one through tactical brilliance.

I agree with Crouch though. Awful decision. Crouch was actually very good on the deck, and linked play really well. I was screaming at my telly during the final. Milan were poor, but we did noting to trouble them. Teams in Europe didnt know how to handle Crouch. He was actually kind of useless at heading the ball, but teams tried to handle him like target man, and when he dropped off they opened up.

Missed opportunity.

[wiw]

I named our best players. Any team you put out with those 6 players in should be challenging for titles especially in this league. Time and again we came up short in home games where he was too cautious. We lost the second champions league purely down to not starting with crouch who was pretty much unplayable in Europe that season. He tried to be clever and it didn't work. Great human being. Was a very good manager for us but it wasn't all a bed of roses. He deserved better than having to deal with hicks and gillet. But I used to attend games fairly regularly when he was in charge, and some of those home draws with Fulham, Middlesbrough and Sunderland were ****ing dire. Plus he played kuyt over and over. Horrible footballer with a massive heart.

Agree to disagree I think

[Zapater]

Wasn't backed enough. If he was given half of the resources that future managers received he'd have won the league and possibly more. As he said, when you speak about eras that's the best Chelsea side of all time and not far off the best Man Utd team. That's probably the 4th (?) best Liverpool cycle. They were splashing 15-35m per player whilst we were limited to largely 5-15m signings. He squeezed almost everything out of that squad. When the board back out of buying Alves for 12m over a measly 2m, I think it says everything. Would have won the CL in 08/09 if it wasn't for Riise's madness OG and we'd have won the league if Keane wasn't a little bitch moaning to the press the whole time and concentrated on playing football. We needed a better backup to Ngog and Keane unfortunately couldn't hack it at this level again, as he already proved at Inter.

Just needed a few better difference maker type players with extra quality to win those matches, rather than being too cautious. As Klopp likes to say, they're humans not machines. It's not like you press an attacking button and the play transforms immediately. We tried to win games and fell short a few times, having better attacking options/depth would've allowed that. Our first XI was right up there but I can't say too much about the rest. I rate Yossi and Riera, Babel fell short, then Ngog and El Zhar were never up to it. I really think we should have gambled on bringing Anelka back before Chelsea bought him because that could have made the difference. If not Anelka, then Tevez but we were shopping in a different market. We thought we had Malouda sewed up, but Chelsea came in late and probably offered double the wages.

[Corndog]

It's possible he'd have won the league if he had more money.

I wouldn't say that for certain though. If you look at how Rafa has performed at other teams when he had more backing and more quality all over the pitch, he didn't win league titles. I.e Madrid and Napoli

He had so many revolving door signings who lasted a season. I get that the money for top talent wasn't there but there were times it felt like the club under him would just buy 5-7 players a season in that 5-15 mil range.

Thats not the sign of a stable team and I could never understand why we brought so many in rather than fewer more expensive signings.

I don't think he ever got it right enough when buying wingers, had he had a couple of pacey players who were good 1 on 1, then he'd probably have won the league.

Tbf he tried for malouda who would have been excellent. Riera was good but Yossi was more CAM and Kuyt was a makeshift solution. Pennant just wasn't good enough.

Hard to say as he generally wasn't able to shop at the top end of the market but I'm not certain his / the clubs transfer strategy would have been good enough regardless.

[Zapater]

Really? We were 3 or 4 points off that season and got to a good points total 2 seasons earlier. We put 4 past Man Utd and Real Madrid in the same week. If we could have converted a couple of the draws into wins it'd have been a done deal, which would have happened with a better squad regardless of the tactics. Some of the players that we reportedly narrowly missed out on (Alves and Malouda being two obvious ones mentioned) would have made that by themselves.

Our CL performances and consistency were ridiculous under him winners, final, quarters and semis I think, there was only the one season we went out in the 2nd round. I may not have every detail 100% correct, but he worked miracles with the squad. Saying he wasn't good enough, poor in the transfer market or not adventurous enough is unfair and not true. I swear in 10 years I'll be on here and someone will be telling me that Klopp wasn't that good.

[Corndog]

I'm not saying he wasn't good enough, he definitely could have won the league in that season the team went close, but he didn't.

He did do a very good job, I agree he got more out of the players at his disposal than the vast majority of managers.
He was particularly good in the champions league bit that's not a league competition and I think the format suited him better.

It's too hard to judge from the outside but it's clear that the clubs transfer approach nowadays is night and day better than it was. Money is obviously a big factor in that but not the only one and it's hard to say how much of a day rafa had as an individual.

For me, Klopps achievements are on another level though.
97 point season followed by 99 points, forgetting everything else that is a phenomenal level of high performance consistentency. I'm not sure Rafa would have achieved that under the same circumstances but then again bar 2-3 other managers who could?

[Angryred]

I'm not saying he wasn't good enough, he definitely could have won the league in that season the team went close, but he didn't.

He did do a very good job, I agree he got more out of the players at his disposal than the vast majority of managers.
He was particularly good in the champions league bit that's not a league competition and I think the format suited him better.

It's too hard to judge from the outside but it's clear that the clubs transfer approach nowadays is night and day better than it was. Money is obviously a big factor in that but not the only one and it's hard to say how much of a day rafa had as an individual.

For me, Klopps achievements are on another level though.
97 point season followed by 99 points, forgetting everything else that is a phenomenal level of high performance consistentency. I'm not sure Rafa would have achieved that under the same circumstances but then again bar 2-3 other managers who could?

Some salient points in there, that season 08-09 we were playing catch up to Utd the whole season as they had games in hand so we never really had our noses out in front...We had some injuries to key players which contributed to draws in the bread & butter games we should have won as ultimately finished 4 points behind Utd.

[Mark79]

It's possible he'd have won the league if he had more money.

I wouldn't say that for certain though. If you look at how Rafa has performed at other teams when he had more backing and more quality all over the pitch, he didn't win league titles. I.e Madrid and Napoli

He had so many revolving door signings who lasted a season. I get that the money for top talent wasn't there but there were times it felt like the club under him would just buy 5-7 players a season in that 5-15 mil range.

Thats not the sign of a stable team and I could never understand why we brought so many in rather than fewer more expensive signings.

I don't think he ever got it right enough when buying wingers, had he had a couple of pacey players who were good 1 on 1, then he'd probably have won the league.

Tbf he tried for malouda who would have been excellent. Riera was good but Yossi was more CAM and Kuyt was a makeshift solution. Pennant just wasn't good enough.

Hard to say as he generally wasn't able to shop at the top end of the market but I'm not certain his / the clubs transfer strategy would have been good enough regardless.

Hard to win a league title for a club that sacks you in January of your 1st season. Real were 2 points off eventual winners Barcelona, with a game in hand at the time.

And I doubt anyone else would have overturned that Juventus teams dominance with Napoli in just 2 seasons.

As for his transfer strategy, I think it would have been more than good enough if he could have gotten more of his top targets, when you see how they turned out, Dani Alves, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, etc...

[Angryred]

Hard to win a league title for a club that sacks you in January of your 1st season. Real were 2 points off eventual winners Barcelona, with a game in hand at the time.

And I doubt anyone else would have overturned that Juventus teams dominance with Napoli in just 2 seasons.

As for his transfer strategy, I think it would have been more than good enough if he could have gotten more of his top targets, when you see how they turned out, Dani Alves, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, etc...

Aye, that was a travesty...What Rafa needed was a football director instead of Rick ****ing Parry...instead of backing Rafa with his primary targets, Rick was stuck with **** players on decent contracts & couldn't get rid of them!

[Mark79]

Legit Xabi news

Real Sociedad B head coach for another season at least then.

[ame]https://twitter.com/realsociedaden/status/1375404791245996035[/ame]

[Roboklopp]

People forget we were up against a team who could swap Rooney and Ronaldo for Tevez and Berbatov.

[Venton]

People forget we were up against a team who could swap Rooney and Ronaldo for Tevez and Berbatov.

[SB]

People forget we were up against a team who could swap Rooney and Ronaldo for Tevez and Berbatov.

That’s crazy isn’t it.

[meffin]

Luis Alberto apparently getting a bit of interest across Europe, with an £80m plus release fee- we have a 30% sell on clause so could end up making a few quid.