Should Rafa be replaced by Guus Hiddink?

[cream]

Financially Neutral!!!! Brilliant!!!! [/QUOTE]


What does that mean, no money for transfers?

[FatTony]

Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow has told Rafa Benitez that his job is safe despite the elimination from the UEFA Champions League.

The Reds won 1-0 at Debrecen on Tuesday, but Fiorentina succeeded against Lyon in Florence to join the French side in progressing from Group E to the last 16.

Liverpool will therefore take an on and off-field hit as a result of slipping into the Europa League, while a place in next season's Champions League is far from certain amidst domestic struggles.

But Benitez is not facing the sack, according to Purslow, with late goals in a defeat and draw to Lyon earlier in the competition meaning Liverpool were already facing a tough task to qualify prior to events in Budapest.

Purslow told Sky Sports 2: "You can never predict last-minute goals, which have cost us dear in the Champions League. That's no basis to make managerial decisions.

"We don't run our business in that respect. I'm on the record as saying Rafa's signed a new five-year contract, he's four months into that contract so to discuss that is not appropriate."

Purslow has also offered financial reassurances by insisting that Liverpool co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks have budgeted for failure in the Champions League.

Asked about the monetary impact, he said: "It's limited actually. Assuming we have a reasonable run in the Europa League then we are financially neutral for this year."

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11945_5717484,00.html

Financially Neutral!!!! Brilliant!!!!

If we continue this form in the Europa, we'll be dumped out of that too at the first hurdle.

[Chazza]

Financially Neutral!!!! Brilliant!!!!

What does that mean, no money for transfer?[/QUOTE]

Guessing that means no money for transfers, sell before you buy, unless the yanks are gonna stump up some funds.

[cream]

Guessing that means no money for transfers, sell before you buy, unless the yanks are gonna stump up some funds.

[vonk]

We don't need to replace Rafa, we just need better players.

We need another striker, someone like Pandev who can play on the left and upfront when Torres is not playing.

We need someone to play on the right.

We need Aquilani to replace Lucas

We need A new leftback.

Benny, Kuyt, Riera, Lucas, Insua and Aurelio all need to be on the bench.

New players won't make a bit of difference. I firmly believe that now. He can put out 11 internationals and still can't motivate them. Let's face it, there were 11 decent players out there today against one of the poorest side ever to grace the Champions League, yet we were abysmal. Two defensive midfielders? He just cannot change the system no matter what the game. Why did he even buy Aquilani if he is not going to play him. Send him back if he can't take a tackle.

The players look bereft of confidence and there is no improvement in our play in the attacking third. Make no mistake about it, the Rafa apologists will still claim he is the greatest manager in history because of 6 minutes and a penalty shoot out which he has been living on. Arsenal have won nothing recently but at least they play decent attacking football. What I'd give to see that right now, instead of the drivel we are watching. At what point do we say that he can't motivate the players or change the tactics? We are so reliant on Torres and Gerrard it's unreal.

I ****ing hate to say it, but look at the teams the scum put out against Chelsea and the bitters. A lot of those players I wouldn't have in our team and they are fairly ordinary players, yet they outplayed Chelsea and crushed Everton. It's because whiskey nose knows how to organise and motivate no matter what kind of players he has available. Rafa is in a rut. The second half of last season is proving to be the exception rather than the rule. I'd love it if he could get us winning consistently but its not happening. Even if went unbeaten for the rest of the season, how do you explain the dross we have been served up the last few months. It's hardly a blip, we've been out of it by Christmas in 5 or his 6 seasons.

At some point it has to come down to the belief instilled in the players, rather than whether the player is a 10m or a 30m player. Our players seem to have no belief at all and that's the job of the coach.

Sick to the teeth of this season. It's getting too painful to watch.

[johnp]

or maybe we should go for McLaren because he also failed to get a favourite to the world cup finals.

[anfieldanfield]

Purslow told Sky Sports 2: "You can never predict last-minute goals, which have cost us dear in the Champions League. That's no basis to make managerial decisions.

That's an absolutely bizarre comment.

Last minute goals are the same as goals at any other time in the ****ing game.

So, what the **** is he actually saying ?

[FatTony]

That's an absolutely bizarre comment.

Last minute goals are the same as goals at any other time in the ****ing game.

So, what the **** is he actually saying ?

Rafa said as much himself, only he also added that we could've won all the games

"If you analyse the games, two late goals against Lyon were a massive difference."

"You have the first half against Fiorentina and the two late goals but that's football and sometimes you can't control things. We had chances in all of the games - we could have won all of them.

[-V-]

Yeah but we didn't take the chances because 1- they weren't clear cut and 2- we had ****e players on the park who are not capable of taking the chances.

Last minute goals wouldn't not effect us Rafa if we killed off teams by attacking them and making good substitutions at the right moments instead of leaving ineffective players on the park and subbing the top performers.

Complete lunacy

[Guest]

Gus ****ing Hiddink. Way too old and ugly. Overrated.

[Guest]

Gus ****ing Hiddink. Way too old and ugly. Overrated.

Pardon me for taking the piss a bit but I just cannot fathom those kind of threads, because to me it smacks of 'knee jerkness' and devoid of any constructiveness.

We've had a **** season, we've been shipping in goals unlike any other time during Rafa's tenue but despite our fantastic defensive records all those years, all I am reading is that zonal marking is crap and should be replaced, Rafa is past it etc ....

Of course Hiddink is a very capable manager, no one will dispute that fact as his record speaks for itself, but **** me, him as our next manager? The guy is over 60, nearly 70, and even though his record is good there is no guarantee he'll do better with the current squad.

It is also wrong to make parallels to the latter days of Ged's tenure because I don't think Rafa's reign is suffering from the same fate, this is just coincidence and the facts that we have been suffering from an horrendous injury list and our best players being out of form, add credence to that.

No one is happy, even for someone like me who will support Rafa through thick and thin, but that doesn't mean that I'm settling for second best! We just have to look at the bigger picture, of which some undeniable facts can be taken from:

- We have arguably a better first 11 compared to last season. Johnson is an improvement on Arbeloa.
- Ngog is a better player with one more season under his belt.
- Aquilani when fully fit will give us more strength in midfield as well as giving us a more attacking threat.
- Rafa has taken control of the academy and is implementing his long term vision there. The groundwork has been done (buying a lot of young players to fill the gap in quality that we had there). The reserves are doing well, must be a good sign.

I can probably think out of some more positives but I think the general gist is there.

And we WON last night. We couldn't have done more. We were let down by shoddy defending against Lyon and a poor first half against Fiorentina when the team were not at the races, which was strange because we were coming into this match on the back of 6 consecutive wins and scoring goals for fun.

For some reason this has dented our confidence and we had a very poor run of results.

[red g]

Oswaldo de Oliveira is 3rd favourite on Skybet at Momen ahead of hiddink.

Daglish and mourinho head the betting

[anfieldanfield]

I'd take Roy Hodgson.

[-V-]

No ****in way. If anybody it should be Capello after the world cup

[dww]

I still haven't seen anyone mention anyone who I think we could realistically get and who would be a better long term bet than Rafa given our, relative, financial constraints. With almost all of the people such as Hiddink or Mourinho who are listed as great hopes I would want to see a director of football appointed to insure the long term development of youth etc. I'm sure people will point at King Kenny but he has been out of active coaching or development at the top level for a long time before he came back to us and that could be a major disadvantage.