Rafa

[el matador]

if madrid come in for him and pay 20m to buy out his contract then we need to move on. this season is like houllierslast and that was painful enough.

as much as I want benitez to turn this around I just can't see it happening. im losing faith and losing it fast.

on another note it would hilarious if benitez ended up at madrid where xabi moved to get away from him.

****ing depressing.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

if madrid come in for him and pay 20m to buy out his contract then we need to move on. this season is like houllierslast and that was painful enough.

as much as I want benitez to turn this around I just can't see it happening. im losing faith and losing it fast.

on another note it would hilarious if benitez ended up at madrid where xabi moved to get away from him.

****ing depressing.

Ronaldo would not be happy under a manger like Benitez IMO so would they risk it?

[fred_plasticine]

We have spent enough money the only problem is a lot of it has been spent on players who are not up to scratch. History has repeated itself this season as it is the same as 2003!

that's rubbish mate.

[Leyton388]

that's rubbish mate.

Sorry mate but i disagree Rafa has had over £200m to spend and our squad is no stronger than when houllier left. Yes fair enough we have the likes of torres ,benni and mash but when they are out our squad is not strong enough and considering it has had over £200m spent on it i fail to see where we have got value for money from the squad as a whole.

In 2002 we finished second and were expected to go on from there in 2003 and put a strong title challenge in but it went tits up fast after spunking millions on Diouf, diao and bruno while letting Anelka go. This season we have had a pretty poor transfer window after expecting so much and again we were expected to get stronger and go for the title and it has gone tits up again. So tell me where i am wrong instead of just saying it is crap?

£27m spent on keane and reira!
£11m spent on babel
£7m spent on dossena

Signing Voronin
Signing Degan

Name me any other top 4 team in the prem that would have looked twice at degan and voronin! We have spent £7m on dossena and i have not seen him in the first team since we played united at old trafford.

Rafa signed keane and sold him 6 months later at a loss and never replaced him even though we only have 1 established striker in our squad which was the same when we had owen in houllier's last season.


Chelsea have Drogba and Anelka
United have Owen, Rooney and bebetov
City have Tevez, Adebayor, Bellamy, Santa cruz, Robinho

We have Torres, Ngog

[Darth Marty]

Chelsea have Drogba and Anelka
United have Owen, Rooney and bebetov
City have Tevez, Adebayor, Bellamy, Santa cruz, Robinho

We have Torres, Ngog

To be fair mate thats a **** poor arguement because by comparing us to those 3 you have only highlighted the ever increasing gap financially.

Id say thats a pretty big FAIL!

[Leyton388]

To be fair mate thats a **** poor arguement because by comparing us to those 3 you have only highlighted the ever increasing gap financially.

Id say thats a pretty big FAIL!

But they are the teams we are competing with for a top 4 finish who would you have me compare us too? Villa and everton? United, chelsea, arsenal and city are our rivals for a top 4 finish.

[Darth Marty]

Again I think your missing the point. What gives us the right to think we should be competing against those 3? Realisticaly we are comparable with Everton, Villa, Spurs with Arsenal somewhere in the middle due to their new stadium.
We have no god given right to be challenging for top honours because the simple fact is we cannot compete financially with those 3 clubs.

[Leyton388]

Again I think your missing the point. What gives us the right to think we should be competing against those 3? Realisticaly we are comparable with Everton, Villa, Spurs with Arsenal somewhere in the middle due to their new stadium.
We have no god given right to be challenging for top honours because the simple fact is we cannot compete financially with those 3 clubs.

Believe it or not that was my point at first but i guess i got sidetracked. I just cannot see how people can just say something is crap and not back up their words with facts. All i was trying to point out was that after spending so much money our squad is not where it should be with regards to depth in strength and with out the likes of torres, mash ect we don't have a lot to show for the investment that has gone in.

[Darth Marty]

Mate I am not going to argue against that, the lack of squad depth is apparent to all at present. I am just saying that in reality its probably exactly where it should be given the current financial climate. Sad state of affairs but I honestly cant see any other manager in the world doing a better job under these conditions.

[Leyton388]

Mate I am not going to argue against that, the lack of squad depth is apparent to all at present. I am just saying that in reality its probably exactly where it should be given the current financial climate. Sad state of affairs but I honestly cant see any other manager in the world doing a better job under these conditions.

I agree mate i said in another thread even with someone like hiddink in charge he would still have to work under the same constrains as rafa.

[barnes10]

we should be competing against them because we are. pretty obvious that is it not?

we finished 2nd last season and 3rd prior to that. why on earth would we not compare ourselves to them?

the problem we have is that nobody consideres that the reason we are competing with them is that Rafa is overachieving based on the finances. we're a th/5th placed club yet have finished 3rd and 2nd for the past few seasons. and latter stages of the CL.

Sacking Rafa is an idiot thing to do. however with those two pricks in charge, we will be at risk of missing out on the top 4.

over the course of the season we'll have good spells and bad. we've had both so far. i do expect things to improve once key players are fully fit. Gerrard, Torres, Aquilani, Agger, Riera are those players. We're bound to miss those and interestingly, of the net 100 mill Rafa has spent, thats about 50 of it right there.

the bottom line is our squad doesnt have the depth and last year was the exception it seems. shame as we looked to have really kicked on. in reality, its probably as much chelsea's early season form as it was our own brilliance that allowed us to finish 2nd.

[5europeancups]

A lot of people need to take off the red tinted glasses. We are nowhere near the all powerful club we use to be. David Moores has seen to that from the day he stepped through the door in 1992. Rafa has made mistakes but he can only work with what the owners allow him to have. £20m a season for transfers is not enough when we have to compete with united, Chelsea and now man city.

This season has been an absolute disaster and it is only november 1st. This time last season we only had the 1 defeat in the league. Now we are out of the carling cup, out of the league title race on the back of 6 defeats out of 7 games and about to go out of the CL. Our season is ALMOST over and its only november.

Liverpool are screwed as we have two bloodsucking owners who are using LFC to pay off a massive loan and as a result we cannot compete on the transfer front and will never have a new ground IMO until they are both gone.

However rafa has to take alot of the blame for the footballing side of our problems as he is the man who signs the players and without our first team players we have nothing in reserve and look terrible without the likes of gerrard, torres and benni. He sold Keane after only 6 months at the club and never replaced him.

In the summer we were crying out for another striker who could partner torres and fill in for him when he was out and for the second summer in a row our transfers were not up to scratch.

Even with another manager in charge like hiddink he will still have to work under the same restrictions as rafa and we will still not be able to compete with the other teams in the league.

Sorry but Rafa has been given plenty of money to spend, he has spent well and spent badly. Sure he's a great technical manager but these season has been catastrophic so far. Its sad to say that i fear the league is already gone, and at best we can hope for now is a good FA Cup run and qualification for the next phase of the CL looks doubtful.

Rafa has failed to build a CONSISTENT side. This is where Liverpool have flattered to decieve. THey will have a good run, but always when it is too late.

What Rafa has won has primarily been on the back of Gerrard Houlliers team.

Sure we have made progress in the league but last year we should have won it. Last year was very difficult to swallow coming second.

to be honest, if we dont qualify for the next phase of the champions league then he has to go.

We cannot keep saying lets give him till the end of the season. The buck stops with the manager.

[cream]

A decent read

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article6897323.ece

[Lee]

Sorry mate but i disagree Rafa has had over £200m to spend and our squad is no stronger than when houllier left.

That's not true mate.

Compare Houlliers final squad of 03/04 and Rafa's current squad in 09/10.

When Rafa took over, money was no issue for Chelsea, and United had already spent mega money on players and had a better youth setup. He had a heck of a lot of catching up to do.

Rafa has signed some players where it didn't work out, but he ships his duds out almost as soon as he can, and - bar one or two players - he's made a profit. Houllier spent a lot too, the thing is with his duds, we had to give them away.

Both Rafa and Houllier have made good signings and terrible signings - but hasn't every manager? To suggest that our squad is not as strong is wrong though - and you can't really compare Hyypia, Babel, Finnan and Hamann in the 04 list because they're now mid 30's and needed replacing because of their ages.

On the whole I think Rafa's done a good job.

[Exiled_red]

we should be competing against them because we are. pretty obvious that is it not?

we finished 2nd last season and 3rd prior to that. why on earth would we not compare ourselves to them?

the problem we have is that nobody consideres that the reason we are competing with them is that Rafa is overachieving based on the finances. we're a th/5th placed club yet have finished 3rd and 2nd for the past few seasons. and latter stages of the CL.

Sacking Rafa is an idiot thing to do. however with those two pricks in charge, we will be at risk of missing out on the top 4.

over the course of the season we'll have good spells and bad. we've had both so far. i do expect things to improve once key players are fully fit. Gerrard, Torres, Aquilani, Agger, Riera are those players. We're bound to miss those and interestingly, of the net 100 mill Rafa has spent, thats about 50 of it right there.

the bottom line is our squad doesnt have the depth and last year was the exception it seems. shame as we looked to have really kicked on. in reality, its probably as much chelsea's early season form as it was our own brilliance that allowed us to finish 2nd.