The Rafa Thread

[rage]

if he does not compete in the premier league and by that i mean mount a serious title challenge he'll be sacked. oh and fredo, if by some cruel fate we end up in the bottom half at any point once the season gets going he'll be sacked. u can forget your delusions that rafa is bigger than the club - relegated and still have his job - what **** are u on?

[Roboklopp]

No I didn't but I am not paid to know that. Rafa chose to gamble on Kuyt and it hasn't paid off.

Yet, because of their greater finances, Scum & the Chavs can get away with massive & more expensive flops such as Forlorn & Veron & the countless players the Chavs have written off.

Rafa gets hung cos he spent £9m on Dirk, who so far has has a good 1st season & a poor second one. Certainly better than Diego Forlorn anyways.

Regardless of Dirk's strengths & weaknesses, jury's still out on Dirk for me. Hardly a Veron at £28m, SWP at £23m or Schevchenko ar £32m is it?

[Rashid]

Xavi was pretty down on him last week, said Barca unravelled because of his lack of man management skills.

Rafa has worse man management skills, in fact they are non-existent.

[gerbin11]

Guus Hiddink or Frank Rijkaard would be my choice... and I'd have the Swansea manager Matinez (?) in as assistant.

So you would pick either Hiddink, who as only ever won anything in the dutch league and that was almost 10 years ago, a manager that didn't even last a full season at Real Madrid. Or Rijkaard who Barcelona have lost faith with to the extent of replacing him with an unproven youth manager.

[Chrono]

It's an interesting discussion but the one thing I don't get is that so many people on here (including very good posters) are constantly referring to the financial aspect of all of this which I think is wrong. When Rafa won the league in Spain he was up against a far wider financial gap than currently between ourselves and the top 2.

All this metion of what Rafa could afford drives me mad. The figures on net spend mean very little as they are always given a positive or negative slant to suit the purpose but looking at the team we have outstanding players which we financed. We wanted a top DM and got Mascher, we wanted a top striker and got possibly (definitely) the best in the world. We have outstanding young defenders and a the largest squad in the league. It isn't about how much money we have it is about where we use it.

Rafa had a plan with which to rebuild the structure of the team and as far as I can tell it worked and although we still look a bit shoddy I will put that down to being a little rusty (we haven't actually lost a game yet even if we did look ****e).

He start from back to front:

Get a good Keeper - tick
Get good defenders - tick
Get good supporting midfielders - tick
Get a good striker - tick

What is to say that now that we have the core of the team sorted we won't make the wings our next priority? We had to get Keane in this window as although I'm actually not a fan what we had wasn't good enough and if we bought a winger we would have had people moaning that Torres can't be expected to do it alone.

No more excuses this is the first season Rafa has stated his priority as the league so I will wait to see what he can deliver...

[Rashid]

So you would pick either Hiddink, who as only ever won anything in the dutch league and that was almost 10 years ago, a manager that didn't even last a full season at Real Madrid. Or Rijkaard who Barcelona have lost faith with to the extent of replacing him with an unproven youth manager.

Rijkaard spent less and won more with Barca than Rafa has here. They inherited similar ****e teams - indeed Barca were getting beaten by Houllier's Liverpool and hadn't won anything for 5 years.

He got them playing the best football of this generation.

[Reece]

Rafa has worse man management skills, in fact they are non-existent.

Is there anything you rate about him?

[El Jefecito]

Rafa has worse man management skills, in fact they are non-existent.

Just pointing out how someone could take a team of such immense talent, with players far far better than ours, and run it into the ground and win bugger all.

Interesting that you think that qualifies him for our job.

[Rashid]

Is there anything you rate about him?

Good man, honest, has integrity, fantastic tactician in one off games, well organised teams, great record in Europe too.

He just doesn't play the style of football I expect at our club.

[cled the red]

Rafa has worse man management skills, in fact they are non-existent.

How would you know - you ever worked for him??

[Rashid]

Just pointing out how someone could take a team of such immense talent, with players far far better than ours, and run it into the ground and win bugger all.

Interesting that you think that qualifies him for our job.

10 members of the first team were going through a divorce last season at Barca. Their best player imploded, Messi was injured for 3 months, Et'oo only just came back from injury and Puyol was out for ages too. It was a shambles as a club - not entirely Rijkaard's fault. I'd love to see him manage us if only for the football.

[gerbin11]

Rijkaard spent less and won more with Barca than Rafa has here. They inherited similar ****e teams - indeed Barca were getting beaten by Houllier's Liverpool and hadn't won anything for 5 years.

He got them playing the best football of this generation.

Ronaldinho, Deco, Samuel Eto'o, Rafa Marquez and Ludovic Giuly surely they didn't come that cheap and from the youth team Víctor Valdés, Carles Puyol, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta quite lucky having that lot along with Messi in your youth team, I don't think Rafa was that lucky when he took over.

[Woobus]

Rafa has worse man management skills, in fact they are non-existent.

See this is why you get on peoples nerves, how the hell do you know who is a better man manager? There seems to be a right few players at Liverpool who love the way Rafa manages them. Players will respond to different type of management and for him to have won so much in his time you would expect the majority of his players to understand if not enjoy where he is coming from.
Players like Babel & Torres sound like at the start they didnt like it, but once they found there game increased they understood where he was coming from. Alonso also seemed to find his management style alright until; they either fell out or Rafa decided to sell him.

[El Jefecito]

10 members of the first team were going through a divorce last season at Barca. Their best player imploded, Messi was injured for 3 months, Et'oo only just came back from injury and Puyol was out for ages too. It was a shambles as a club - not entirely Rijkaard's fault. I'd love to see him manage us if only for the football.

It's all about results mate. He lost the players and got fired for it. Those are the cold hard facts. And I heard this from a player.

[Parm]

Rafa chooses the players end of.

but now it does appear that the Yanks want to tell Rafa who to buy.