Real Liverpool Fans?

[MrMichael]

No, it was the players that screwed it up at Portsmouth.

Indeed it was. The performances and attitudes of some highly paid and much vaunted pros this season has been severely lacking. I personally think the players have let Benitez down on many occasions this year, ok we still wouldn't have been playing particularly convincing football, but individual errors the manager could do little about have cost the team, and our manager, dearly this season.

However, as I said before in this thread, in football the buck for these sort of things ultimately always ends up with the manager. Perhaps it shouldn't as much, but it does, and this season so far has been really extremely poor. And its showing no signs of getting better. For all you might like to look at games in isolation, we're half way through this season now, people are going to start looking at the overall picture. And that picture is bleak. Which means Rafa's position is too.

You might still feel he's the man for the job, I know I still desperately want him to somehow pull the rabbit from the hat, but I don't think its at all fair anymore for you to simply dismiss those who rationally disagree and want a change at the helm.

[Vermilion]

There is NO 'Real' Liverpool fan, we are ALL liverpool fans, but just have differing opinions, not just on football but on everything to do with life in general, that's how it is, it doesn't make anyone more or less of a fan. imo.

And i still wholeheartedly believe we have the right man in charge, because i can think of no one else who would do better all things considered. Just my opinion.

Doesn't make me any better a fan than you though. .

[dww]

You know dude, I respect your undying effort to adopt a glass-half-full mentality, but i'm starting to come round to Scully's way of thinking on this. Its easy to look back with rose-tinted specs, but there was quite a period last season during which we really weren't playing very well, but were generally getting the results. In fact I'm not sure we're playing all that much worse this year in terms of actual performances, but where we had the confidence to hang onto leads or go for late winners, now we're doing the opposite.

I think both sides of this argument tend to use a revisionist version of history. We have always had seasons that have been a mixture of good and bad runs under Rafa but some of these (those at the start of the season in particular) are often similar in character (accounting for underlying quality of squad) to those seen by United and in the last couple of seasons Chelsea.

We have been unable to build a squad deep enough and with enough top end quality to ride out the whole season in my view. That problem has come from the fact we have had to wheel and deal to make our buys and the fact our youth setup has been in a long term malaise.

There have been two big differences this season for me 1/ where we have played the game has been too deep and 2/ our defense has been weak. Rafa has to take the blame for both to some extent but I think there are mitigating circumstances.

I can in fact remember points in each of the last 3 seasons now when elements of our fanbase were becoming rather disgruntled with Rafa's tenure. On each occasion I though they were being premature, and they were usually proven to be so by performances later in the season, but as much as we've had periods under Rafa when we've played some excellent football, we've also had sustained periods when we really haven't. Up until this year however, mental fortitude and belief in an overall plan has seemed to be the thing that's pulled us through, now we seem to have lost a lot of that things to me are looking really quite bleak. You can get away with iffy performances if results are generally good. But when your play is crap and your results are crap.....

And no matter how much its the owners, or the players fault, in football the buck where results are concerned always stops with the manager. I'd love Rafa to turn this around, but for the first time since he stepped through the door at Anfield, I don't have a great deal of faith that he will.

That is a fair point but I think this was the hardest season we have had to improve the team and we maybe had to take a step back to improve in the long run. Prices for good players were driven high by the Real and Barcelona and the fact that most teams didn't want to spend due to the financial climate. Add to that the fact that we would not have got the money from Pompey from the Crouch transfer which further constrained our options for buying top players.

Given all that we had to take massive gambles (if you assume we had to sell Alonso and Arbeloa because they wanted to go and we needed the cash). So far they have gone wrong but I think at least the Johnson one has shown promise.

I said in the summer that for ourselves and Arsenal we have to expect that on average we will be able to challenge at best every other season unless something changes. In a way something did change - other teams were able to invest heavily when we weren't making our position even worse.

I really think that Rafa will turn it round and that much of the trouble is that now previous short termism is costing us now. Pointless battles between Parry and Rafa (whoever's fault) about signings and the development system being the most important.

[-V-]

No, it was the players that screwed it up at Portsmouth.

Even if you were right, how the players perform is always the managers responsibility. He signs them, they are his players and its Rafa thats always banging on about signing players with the right mentality. They are his players and its his overly defensive system. Buck stops with him

[Mattshark]

Even if you were right, how the players perform is always the managers responsibility. He signs them, they are his players and its Rafa thats always banging on about signing players with the right mentality. They are his players and its his overly defensive system. Buck stops with him

Over a season yes, you can't mitigate for individual games though.

[Spionkop69]

Over a season yes, you can't mitigate for individual games though.

[Vermilion]

I think both sides of this argument tend to use a revisionist version of history. We have always had seasons that have been a mixture of good and bad runs under Rafa but some of these (those at the start of the season in particular) are often similar in character (accounting for underlying quality of squad) to those seen by United and in the last couple of seasons Chelsea.

We have been unable to build a squad deep enough and with enough top end quality to ride out the whole season in my view. That problem has come from the fact we have had to wheel and deal to make our buys and the fact our youth setup has been in a long term malaise.

There have been two big differences this season for me 1/ where we have played the game has been too deep and 2/ our defense has been weak. Rafa has to take the blame for both to some extent but I think there are mitigating circumstances.



That is a fair point but I think this was the hardest season we have had to improve the team and we maybe had to take a step back to improve in the long run. Prices for good players were driven high by the Real and Barcelona and the fact that most teams didn't want to spend due to the financial climate. Add to that the fact that we would not have got the money from Pompey from the Crouch transfer which further constrained our options for buying top players.

Given all that we had to take massive gambles (if you assume we had to sell Alonso and Arbeloa because they wanted to go and we needed the cash). So far they have gone wrong but I think at least the Johnson one has shown promise.

I said in the summer that for ourselves and Arsenal we have to expect that on average we will be able to challenge at best every other season unless something changes. In a way something did change - other teams were able to invest heavily when we weren't making our position even worse.

I really think that Rafa will turn it round and that much of the trouble is that now previous short termism is costing us now. Pointless battles between Parry and Rafa (whoever's fault) about signings and the development system being the most important.

Always a realistic view of things.