Benítez says he needs fresh investment to compete for title

[5europeancups]

Not that i agree with the name calling, but it's not just one bad season.

A remit of any Liverpool manager is to challenge for the title and rafa's managed it once in six seasons. The good league campaign is the exception to the rule.

I totally agree.

Rafa has failed to troubled the top two or three in all but one of his seasons in charge and he should be bette judged on the percentage of players that he has signed that have had a positvie impact on the club.

Right now I can think of

Reina
Torres
Mascherano

and maybe Kuyt or Agger

thats its.

How many players has he signed?

[Vermilion]

Agger.
Garcia.
Yossi.
oh **** this there are loads.....this just go's round in circles..and there will never be agreement...no matter what either side says or does. imo.

[Lecter]

My own perspective is that he is hiding behind boardroom shenanagins and he has actually failed as a manager.

His only successes to date have been with an inherited team and there have been no signs of progression year on year that one would expect with minimal investment.

He inherited a top four side that over achieved with the chamos league and despite signing a great goalie, striker and midfielder he has failed to create a team that can challenge.

You cant take the plaudits one year for a relative successful season finishing second and then not expect to take the blame for finishing poorly the season afterwards.

After all

What is a good manager about?

Spending money or managing teams??

Rafa has failed at Liverpool and should be replaced. He is not a civil servant ...

Hang on

Last year we finished 2nd surely that was progress

What "minimal investment" there has been zero money invested in the side in the last 18 months in fact Rafa has traded at a profit over the last 2 seasons

You should also apply the same judgement criteria to our owners who you defend so valiantly.

Spade in the ground in 60 days
No debt on the club
Investment in the playing staff

We have so much debt placed on our club they make Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling look like misers

[Craig_H]

I dont think there can be any doubt about the failings and lies of the yanks. They're scum.

Rafa's intentions have been infinitely better than the yanks, of course and nobody could have any issues with what he's TRIED to do, his actions have been according to what he thought was best for the club.

But his judgement has proved wrong too often, for me.

[BobTheCharmer]

I thought BTC was on about someone else...i won't name who i thought of though.

So Barclays eh...what next ?

I was!

[Lecter]

I totally agree.

Rafa has failed to troubled the top two or three in all but one of his seasons in charge and he should be bette judged on the percentage of players that he has signed that have had a positvie impact on the club.

Right now I can think of

Reina
Torres
Mascherano

and maybe Kuyt or Agger

thats its.

How many players has he signed?

He could sign a million players but if the value of those players is less than what other teams are spending what do you expect?

Seriously you expected the team / squad to improve on last season when teams like Wigan, Stoke, Burnley, Fulham et al are investing more in the team than we are (in net terms)

Football is constantly changing and to even tread water there has to be year on year investment in the squad. That has not been evident for two seasons at Liverpool, we've treaded water whilst others have bought nice shiney speed boats and overtaken us

I must admit I didnt imagine we'd fallback as quickly as we have BUT I expected us to fall from grace "sooner or later" with the current owners modus operandi in terms of transfer budgets / expenditure and it was something I was predicting at the back end of last season (yes when we were sitting in 2nd place)

[Lecter]

I dont think there can be any doubt about the failings and lies of the yanks. They're scum.

Rafa's intentions have been infinitely better than the yanks, of course and nobody could have any issues with what he's TRIED to do, his actions have been according to what he thought was best for the club.

But his judgement has proved wrong too often, for me.

Again his judgement (in transfer terms) can be judged in terms of what hes had available to spend

I tend to sympathise with Rafa's statement the other day in that if he signs a £15-20 million player he cannot afford to make a mistake. Other managers can sign 3 or 4 of players in that value and afford for at least one of them to fail

[5europeancups]

Agger.
Garcia.
Yossi.
oh **** this there are loads.....this just go's round in circles..and there will never be agreement...no matter what either side says or does. imo.

he sold garcia

agger has the potential but has hardly been mainstay of the tean and poor old yossi nrver gets picked to start

[Vermilion]

I was!

****, i owe Fredo an apology then...

edit: ooops!

[Kenneth]

I for one though Madrid overpaid for alonso and thought we'd actually be better for the cash. Rafa made the wrong calls. RB was the wrong focus and aquilani was a bum buy. Buying an injured player was just daft. Relying on Ngog was lunacy. We could have bought an experienced striker as backup for very little money.

[Vermilion]

I for one though Madrid overpaid for alonso and thought we'd actually be better for the cash. Rafa made the wrong calls. RB was the wrong focus and aquilani was a bum buy. Buying an injured player was just daft. Relying on Ngog was lunacy. We could have bought an experienced striker as backup for very little money.

GJ if he'd stayed fit all season, would imo have made a difference in our attacking qualities.

Very hard to say what would have happened if this or that had been done, bought, or not bought, also we don't know at what stage Rafa had his budget cut by 20mill, and who he'd already bought, or lined up.

[BobTheCharmer]

He could sign a million players but if the value of those players is less than what other teams are spending what do you expect?

Seriously you expected the team / squad to improve on last season when teams like Wigan, Stoke, Burnley, Fulham et al are investing more in the team than we are (in net terms)

But what if Torres was sold for £100m and Rafa brought in 5 £20M players. We'd have paid £100m on new players compared to Fulham's £5m or so. Regardless of the Zero net spend, I'd expect the 5 new quality players to have dramatically improved our squad to easily improve on this season.

Its not like Rafa has had to sell off top players to stay afloat like smaller teams at the foot of the table have always had to do. Alonso is the only one I can think of and he was the one wanting to go after Rafa played him the summer before.

[wiw]

This "Wenger has shown he can consistently challenge for the title" stuff. Look at our record compared to Arsenal's since Chelsea came into town

2004/5

Arsenal 83 pts - 12 points off the top
Liverpool 58 pts - a million ****ing miles from the top

2005/6

Arsenal 67 pts - 24 points off the top
Liverpool 82 pts - 9 points off the top

2006/7

68 points each, 21 off the top

2007/8

Arsenal 83 pts - 4 points off
Liverpool 76 pts - 11 points off

2008/9

Arsenal 72 pts - 18 points off
Liverpool 86 pts - 4 points off

Obviously 2009/10 Arsenal are challenging and we aren't


What's that, 2-1 then?



The stuff about Rafa's lack of "winning mentality" - his win percentage is comparable to Paisley's - which to me points to the fact that the bar has been raised considerably over the last few years. There's absolutely no way we can keep up without more investment.

To me we're at least on the road to recovery footballing wise. Rafa has admitted his shortcomings which he was right to. This season is well and truly ****ed but if we won the Uefa cup we could at least go into next season with some renewed hope and some fire in our bellies. We can then at least hope that the vast majority of our attacking won't have such woeful seasons like they did this year

[5europeancups]

Hang on

Last year we finished 2nd surely that was progress

What "minimal investment" there has been zero money invested in the side in the last 18 months in fact Rafa has traded at a profit over the last 2 seasons

You should also apply the same judgement criteria to our owners who you defend so valiantly.

Spade in the ground in 60 days
No debt on the club
Investment in the playing staff

We have so much debt placed on our club they make Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling look like misers

you could argue that based on the fact we have won nothing since the FA Cup that last year was a blip. I honestly thought that last year was progress but what the hell happened this year??

if you look at Rafas record ther is no doubt that he has built some good teams and that he is a great tactician but ther is more to managment than being a tactician.

This has been Rafa's undoing.

Maybe we could argue that by be given long enough time he will get it right, but for my mind his track record of falling out with managment and his eccentricities should be held against him bearing in mind his lack of success.

His behaviour is positively bizarre at times. On his salary and as a manager of Liverpool today he is expected to achieve more.

What are liverpool about?

Strong defensively?

Flowing football?

Great attacking football?

Building a great young team for the future?

No one knows anymore.

This is why Rafa has to go.

[Vermilion]

This "Wenger has shown he can consistently challenge for the title" stuff. Look at our record compared to Arsenal's since Chelsea came into town

2004/5

Arsenal 83 pts - 12 points off the top
Liverpool 58 pts - a million ****ing miles from the top

2005/6

Arsenal 67 pts - 24 points off the top
Liverpool 82 pts - 9 points off the top

2006/7

68 points each, 21 off the top

2007/8

Arsenal 83 pts - 4 points off
Liverpool 76 pts - 11 points off

2008/9

Arsenal 72 pts - 18 points off
Liverpool 86 pts - 4 points off

Obviously 2009/10 Arsenal are challenging and we aren't


What's that, 2-1 then?



The stuff about Rafa's lack of "winning mentality" - his win percentage is comparable to Paisley's - which to me points to the fact that the bar has been raised considerably over the last few years. There's absolutely no way we can keep up without more investment.

To me we're at least on the road to recovery footballing wise. Rafa has admitted his shortcomings which he was right to. This season is well and truly ****ed but if we won the Uefa cup we could at least go into next season with some renewed hope and some fire in our bellies. We can then at least hope that the vast majority of our attacking won't have such woeful seasons like they did this year

Many Utd fans were saying the same negative things about Fergie till his 7th year, so to say Rafa will NEVER win us the Prem is premture in the extreme. imo, and he had just one real challenger, a challenger that was about to self distruct, so to speak.