Rafa

[St.Anger]

Nice read. Sacking Rafa would send us to the neverland of Spurs and Everton...

[Roboklopp]

Top article that. Shoudnt it be in the "Rafa" thread though.

[Roboklopp]

Saw this posted elsewhere (it may have already been posted on here but I haven't seen it):

Please see my post above.

[tsb]

This is partly because Wenger has built capital with three league titles and four FA Cups since his arrival, but in the current climate of short-termism and collective amnesia, that counts for less and less.

Don't agree with that at all. Surely, the primary reason he doesn't get as much criticism is because of the trophies - playing style counts for a bit but is not the deal clincher.

[pondus]

The lack of reasoning, short-termism & loyalty of some of our "fans" is almost as depressing as results on the pitch.

[FatTony]

Talksh*te now is all about us. There have been some cracking LFC fans on there having a right go at Durham and that prick Gough.

[Bender]

Talksh*te now is all about us. There have been some cracking LFC fans on there having a right go at Durham and that prick Gough.

don't bother with that anti-lfc station ....same goes for that freak collymore

[Marky]

If anyone wants to listen in:

http://new.talksport.net/mediaplayer/media_player.asp?sListenLive=yes&c=&t

Durham is strongly defending Carragher. Haha

[dww]

I still think Rafa is the man for the job and long term and I believe we will regret it hugely if we went for another man who was not willing to invest time and energy building the club from the bottom (youth etc.) up. I honestly can't think of a single candidate right now who I think would set us better long term, even if in the next few games I can see a few more natural motivators who could bounce us out fo a slump more easily/quickly.

I agree with redder's earlier comment that I don't think anyone has changed their minds on any of the important issues and in general people are rehashing old arguments here.

The whole of Rafa's philosophy has always been about the long grind of a season and hence judging him now is unfair. I also think that ourselves and Arsenal have had to accept that without spending highly we would have to aim to build teams slowly and/or accept regular rebuilding phases. We had a fully built team with a small squad last season and offered a title challenge. To have another challenge while losing Alonso who glued our team in some ways always meant that we needed at least another leader to come into the squad or someone to blossom from within.

The question becomes how did Rafa spend his money and in someways I think he did well within constraints but in others I think he took gambles that the size of our squad couldn't accommodate.

I've always said I feared this season might be a transitional one and now I think that has more or less been forced upon us one way or another. I don't see that anyone else coming in will be any better suited to getting out of the pattern of struggling to create a legacy side where a top quality core is in place and only slight shuffling is needed season to season. I think we need to model ourselves on a mix of United and Arsenal and in future look to have young players who can come in and continue a style of play.

[Roboklopp]

Another good post DWW