Rafa should be sacked....

[Mattshark]

And the zonal marking, OMG, pls wake up Rafa

Yeah, what about all those season where we had the bed set piece defence in the league?


Don't let things like that get in the way though. Or you know, how we did last season.

[Exiled_red]

So you're telling me as long as we get a good price for our good players then we should sell them? Cool, how about we sell some other players who would go for a decent fee and keep the lower end of the scale of our squad. That'll go well.

Crouch wanted to go because he wasn't getting games, Rafa wanted to keep him, but in the end it wasn't an option and we got a decent fee for him.

Keane wasn't good enough for us when he played. He's getting on a bit a good offer came in and we sold him, if we'd turned that offer down and hung on to him for longer and he'd been as bad we would have got less for him, and Rafa would be getting slagged for not accepting the higher offer.

[Exiled_red]

Its not really the selling thats the problem. Its the replacing of those sold. We sold a midfielder ( who benitez upset) and replaced him with another midfielder. He sold a right back and replaced him with another rightback. He sold strikers and replaced them with... wait.

I'm confident that something happened to the transfer budget in the middle of the summer that changed Rafa's plans. We had signed Johnson and were going after the likes of Tevez and Silva. Then we sell Alonso and buy Aquilani and only have £1.5m left. Why were we looking at the likes of Tevez and Silva if we had no transfer funds?

While Johnson is awesome, wouldnt it have been SMARTER to focus on our useless strike force instead of slamming all the money into him? We had Darby and Kelly who could do well enough. At the very least no worse then Arbeloa. Kelly I'm sure is easily better then him too. But right back wasnt our most pressing problem. He keeps not focusing on the real problem areas. Buys too many cheap players. Our squad is filled with rubbish because of this. You go and Sell voronin, Ngog, Babel,Dossena, Degen, and while you wont get 40million out of it you'll get a decent amount that can go towards another player that can fill a problem spot instead of keeping all that deadwood and wasting more money on wages ontop.

Darby and Kelly had no experience, selling your only (fit) right back and replacing them with unproven kids is crazy. Arbeloa was a good player. When he wanted to leave right back became an important position to fill.

[vlahka]

Yeah, its extremely crazy. I mean its not like he's actually using them in games, or even champions league games where experience is essential, and that they arent doing well in these games also. You dont win anything using kids.

[Big Dave]

Yeah, its extremely crazy. I mean its not like he's actually using them in games, or even champions league games where experience is essential, and that they arent doing well in these games also. You dont win anything using kids.

And you think that Nemeth should be starting for us!? Make your mind up

[vlahka]

And you think that Nemeth should be starting for us!? Make your mind up

You obviously didnt read my post properly.

[barnes10]

This is incredibly true. Everyone laughed when Pennant made a comment that Rafa makes them play like robots but it is completely true. Watching yesterdays game Lyon played with flair and not once did we do anything other than the standard regimental passing. Rafa clearly does not let players express themselves and I have no doubt in my mind that however useless Babel is he would have been a star under Wenger.

they didnt play with flair and inventiveness, they were well drilled with pace. their moves were copies of each other. they just did the same thing over and over. what they beat us with was pace and sharpness, not unpredictability.

we were more inventive in terms of the moves we made and angles of attack. we just didnt have the final touch.

ngog needs to look at himself. he can hold a ball up but thats it. he's our new heskey. rafa needs to look at himself for playing him up there alone.

[Chrono]

Don't agree mate. They were running at players, doing flicks, long range shots and lobbed passes, etc. Even saw a Marsielle 360 in there.

They were not better than our team but they certainly played with more creativity.

[Baracus]

No, that is tripe. Past performances ignored for gossip? Are you serious? He was dire in his first season. Benitez sent him off and he did ok in europe elsewhere, not stunning, just ok. He decided to hold on to him because he brought experience to the team. He even mentioned that in interviews I think. If he wanted him sold he would of sold him or loaned him out again. He clearly believes Voronin can do a service for us. If he didnt why the hell would he play him frequently. If he wanted him sold he'd be in the reserves and ignored or loaned out. Benitez kept him in favour of others.

Mate, that’s tripe Hertha Berlin agreed fees and pre-deals with us on a couple of occasions, for them to only pull out of the deal, due to not qualifying for the champions league.

Rafael said no to loan deals only a sale would do for him, when dealing with Herta Berlin, they wanted a loan deal after, Rafael didn't look it up.

Rafael was simply being diplomatic in the whole situation. He's hardly going to come out and say he doesn't want him at the club. Just look at the Crouch, Keane, Arbeloa and Alonso situation. He has consistently said there good players and they offer possibilities.

Voronin is currently playing now because of the dire injury list and there are no viable alternatives, and if Benitez kept him instead of others, the only true viable ones was nemeth.

[vonk]

Why do people keep going on about 2 players

Last night we were without
Torres, Gerrard (for most of the game), Johnson, Riera, Aquillani,

Had Agger on his first game back from injury

Macher and Insua after travelling half way round the world and playing for their countries world cup survival.

Any team is going to suffer with that amount of injuries/tiredness.

Add to that the lack of confidence at the moment and there are issues. To suggest sacking the guy that has put us into a position were we 'expect' again is ridiculous. Yes he makes mistakes, yes he can be infuriating at times but to suggest getting rid is insane.

Don't let facts get in the way of your point mate.

Agger played 90 minutes at Sunderland and 2 games for Denmark the previous week. We aren't the only team to have players coming back from Internationals you know. It's a poor excuse. Riera being included in this list of magical players we are missing is weak, as he is not even first choice now, and most would feel that he is not the answer. Sure we have injuries for this match, but it doesn't get away from the fact that when we have had a very strong lineup this season it has made no difference. We have been poor. Over on RAWK, don't dare to criticise Rafa, you'll be sworn off the board. I give Rafa until the end of the season no matter what. But those who want him gone are not saying it because of one game. They are saying it because of the players he has bought, the dross football we have been playing since preseason and most importantly, the results. Not just on one game.

[tomasjj]

I read somewhere that Rafa had deals lined up in the summer for both Dossena and Voronin, but that he backed out of them as the owners wouldn't guarantee that he could spend the income.

That said, thanks to vlahka for making this thread a stand out quality thread brimming with intelligent insight, free of any agendas what so ever.
Well done.

[tomasjj]

Don't let facts get in the way of your point mate.

Agger played 90 minutes at Sunderland and 2 games for Denmark the previous week. We aren't the only team to have players coming back from Internationals you know. It's a poor excuse. Riera being included in this list of magical players we are missing is weak, as he is not even first choice now, and most would feel that he is not the answer. Sure we have injuries for this match, but it doesn't get away from the fact that when we have had a very strong lineup this season it has made no difference. We have been poor. Over on RAWK, don't dare to criticise Rafa, you'll be sworn off the board. I give Rafa until the end of the season no matter what. But those who want him gone are not saying it because of one game. They are saying it because of the players he has bought, the dross football we have been playing since preseason and most importantly, the results. Not just on one game.

I agree that tiredness from internationals is no real excuse. Injuries are though.
Every team has international players, it's just that our squad is too thing, so we are more vulnerable of course.

I agree that we have been quite poor on the pitch this season. This was actually the case last season too, even though we did look better in pre-season.
However, I do think that when judging the manager, we should also look past these 4 losses, which were down to many factors. Do keep in mind that we have improved gradually in the league since he came here.

[Le Chef]

That said, thanks to vlahka for making this thread a stand out quality thread brimming with intelligent insight, free of any agendas what so ever.
Well done.

And people wonder why lurkers don't post that often !

[vlahka]

That said, thanks to vlahka for making this thread a stand out quality thread brimming with intelligent insight, free of any agendas what so ever.
Well done.

I'm expecting a gift in the mail for my service

[Guest]

I'm expecting a gift in the mail for my service

And the mail is on strike.