Rafa Benitez Leaves Liverpool

[Roboklopp]

I will still be gutted about his departure for some time to be honest.

[Rich]

I spent much of last season critising Rafa. I didn't agree with the substitutions, I didn't agree with the formation and two defensive midfielders, I didn't like our displays against the leagues cannonfodder and most of all I didn't like losing. As the evil Chelsea and Man Utd marched on, with the pretenders Arsenal hanging on to their coat tails, we dropped further and further back and I wished that the league would end at Christmas, for all it meant to us.

On the 15th April I sat watching the Hillsborough coverage and the football instantly became insignificant, being a fan of this great club is something special. We've been through so many highs and extreme lows that we have a bond that very few other teams have. Unfortunately, it tends to be trajedy that brings this togetherness, but all the same we have something very special. That day Rafa sung YNWA with the fans in his slightly broken english, he looked a little awkward singing it but he did it. He looked in pain throughout the ceremony, he is one of us of that there is no doubt.

I look back on his time with us with sadness and happyness, I think of him sitting crossed-legged to not obstruct the view of the fans, I think of him drinking in the pub with fellow reds in some irish bar in Cologne and I think about Istanbul. When I look back to my moaning last season, I realise that it was in the same way that I moan about my wife. I will moan about her in one way or another until the day I die, but would I change her? No, never. Whilst that may be a long time in football, I believe that at the very least, our man deserved another season. 1 bad season and he's been kicked out, 1 bad season...it beggars belief. 2 Champions league finals, and FA Cup and second the season before last. In 6 years he's achieved more than most will in a lifetime with less financial backing and we've sent him packing. Its madness and sadness rolled into one.

I'm finding it hard to look in the mirror at the moment, I cannot help but think that my complaints last season and those of many otherss may have assisted with his departure and there will be a little emptyness here unless he one day returns to finish his work and walks on by his own accord, job completed. He may return one day, this is a possibility, no?

Good luck Rafa.

Great post.

[andrewces38]

I concur great post

[destinydude]

You need to get over your guilt, man up and dump the wife.

[red g]

I will still be gutted about his departure for some time to be honest.

I am gutted, but also relieved......and also nervous at who comes in.

THink it was for the best and as much as i love the bloke I honestly believe someone will do better with this squad next year.........

[lancinleeds]

I spent much of last season critising Rafa. I didn't agree with the substitutions, I didn't agree with the formation and two defensive midfielders, I didn't like our displays against the leagues cannonfodder and most of all I didn't like losing. As the evil Chelsea and Man Utd marched on, with the pretenders Arsenal hanging on to their coat tails, we dropped further and further back and I wished that the league would end at Christmas, for all it meant to us.

On the 15th April I sat watching the Hillsborough coverage and the football instantly became insignificant, being a fan of this great club is something special. We've been through so many highs and extreme lows that we have a bond that very few other teams have. Unfortunately, it tends to be trajedy that brings this togetherness, but all the same we have something very special. That day Rafa sung YNWA with the fans in his slightly broken english, he looked a little awkward singing it but he did it. He looked in pain throughout the ceremony, he is one of us of that there is no doubt.

I look back on his time with us with sadness and happyness, I think of him sitting crossed-legged to not obstruct the view of the fans, I think of him drinking in the pub with fellow reds in some irish bar in Cologne and I think about Istanbul. When I look back to my moaning last season, I realise that it was in the same way that I moan about my wife. I will moan about her in one way or another until the day I die, but would I change her? No, never. Whilst that may be a long time in football, I believe that at the very least, our man deserved another season. 1 bad season and he's been kicked out, 1 bad season...it beggars belief. 2 Champions league finals, and FA Cup and second the season before last. In 6 years he's achieved more than most will in a lifetime with less financial backing and we've sent him packing. Its madness and sadness rolled into one.

I'm finding it hard to look in the mirror at the moment, I cannot help but think that my complaints last season and those of many otherss may have assisted with his departure and there will be a little emptyness here unless he one day returns to finish his work and walks on by his own accord, job completed. He may return one day, this is a possibility, no?

Good luck Rafa.

[Reece]

I spent much of last season critising Rafa. I didn't agree with the substitutions, I didn't agree with the formation and two defensive midfielders, I didn't like our displays against the leagues cannonfodder and most of all I didn't like losing. As the evil Chelsea and Man Utd marched on, with the pretenders Arsenal hanging on to their coat tails, we dropped further and further back and I wished that the league would end at Christmas, for all it meant to us.

On the 15th April I sat watching the Hillsborough coverage and the football instantly became insignificant, being a fan of this great club is something special. We've been through so many highs and extreme lows that we have a bond that very few other teams have. Unfortunately, it tends to be trajedy that brings this togetherness, but all the same we have something very special. That day Rafa sung YNWA with the fans in his slightly broken english, he looked a little awkward singing it but he did it. He looked in pain throughout the ceremony, he is one of us of that there is no doubt.

I look back on his time with us with sadness and happyness, I think of him sitting crossed-legged to not obstruct the view of the fans, I think of him drinking in the pub with fellow reds in some irish bar in Cologne and I think about Istanbul. When I look back to my moaning last season, I realise that it was in the same way that I moan about my wife. I will moan about her in one way or another until the day I die, but would I change her? No, never. Whilst that may be a long time in football, I believe that at the very least, our man deserved another season. 1 bad season and he's been kicked out, 1 bad season...it beggars belief. 2 Champions league finals, and FA Cup and second the season before last. In 6 years he's achieved more than most will in a lifetime with less financial backing and we've sent him packing. Its madness and sadness rolled into one.

I'm finding it hard to look in the mirror at the moment, I cannot help but think that my complaints last season and those of many otherss may have assisted with his departure and there will be a little emptyness here unless he one day returns to finish his work and walks on by his own accord, job completed. He may return one day, this is a possibility, no?

Good luck Rafa.

Brilliant stuff mate, brilliant

[squaddie]

Great post Taxi.

[Shaggy]

This is a great piece by Brian Reade. I don't agree with him that Rafa had to go. I felt he deserved the chance to put right his/our one and only truly bad season under his control. Anyway, it's a great article, so many of these points I've argued with people - Reds and non-Reds alike...I could've written this myself.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opin...cle448527.html

Right to the end the professional pundits failed to understand why so many Liverpudlians stayed loyal to Rafa Benitez.

As 500 fans marched on Anfield after his departure, chanting the Spaniard’s name, heads shook at a footballing sub-species bracketed somewhere between romantic die-hards and mawkish morons.

To the “expert” eye, these deluded fools had been conned by Benitez’s cunning and blinded to his failings by the glory of Istanbul and the criminal incompetence of the American owners.

Liverpool fans they said, once among the most knowledgeable in the world, had clearly lost touch with the modern reality, and were now a sad throwback to the days when sideburned men kicked orange balls.

Well, I’d argue one of the saddest aspects of modern football is too many pundits, including ex-players, have not paid to watch a game since those orange ball days. And they’ve lost touch with the fan.

I’m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he’s been a major player in Anfield’s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing.

But to paint his six-year reign as an unmitigated disaster, sustained only by the over-sentimentalising of Istanbul, is analysis at its most skewed and cringeful. By 2004 Liverpool had been relegated to the status of European also-rans. Benitez made the club a genuine world force again.

It wasn’t just that 2005 Champions League win (which is shamelessly downplayed as a fluke despite beating Fabio Capello’s Juventus, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan). Or reaching the 2007 Champions League final and the 2008 semi-final. It wasn’t even UEFA elevating Liverpool to Europe’s top-seeded club due to results under Benitez.

It was beating Real Madrid and Inter Milan at the Bernabeu and San Siro (which the Reds had never before done) and Barcelona at the Nou Camp. Magical victories at the very top of world football, which restored long-overdue respect to Liverpudlian hearts.

Ah say the experts, but he didn’t win the league. True. But he got closer than any Liverpool boss in the past 20 years. A season ago he was a whisker away, taking the highest number of points by a runner-up in a 38-game season and the club’s best points haul since 1988.

And he did so despite having the 5th highest wage bill in the league, the 5th costliest squad, the 5th biggest stadium capacity and a net annual transfer spend of £15million. Which should have made experts ask why Liverpool were ever considered a nailed-on top four side under Benitez, especially when the boardroom was mired in anarchy.

Ah, they say, but he’d long lost the players and the board. So why have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina signed new long-term contracts within the past year? Why last August did managing director Christian Purslow do interviews purring over Benitez and how he was integral to the club’s future?

Ah, the experts say, but that was before he let Xabi Alonso go, which everyone could see was a calamity. These would be the same experts who, for the previous couple of seasons, claimed Liverpool were a two-man team. With Alonso (on whom Benitez turned a £20million profit) never being mentioned as one of those two.

Ah, they say, but Torres apart, he only signed sub-standard dross and ended up with a shockingly-weak squad. Really?

Liverpool are sending 12 players (13 if you count Milan Jovanovic whose Bosman signing is going through) to the World Cup. Or an entire team: Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Rodriguez, Kuyt, Torres. Subs: Kyrgiakos, Jovanovic.

Eleven Chelsea players flew out to South Africa, the same number as Arsenal, and Manchester United sent eight. Does that look like he’s left Anfield bare of talent?

The truth is Benitez leaves a squad worth many times more than the one he inherited, despite spending less in the past three transfer windows than he’s brought in.

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give.

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

Rafa Benitez was many things at Liverpool but unlike every manager since Kenny Dalglish, he was not a failure. Indeed a majority of Liverpudlians will remember him as a legend.

Because like Bill Shankly, on more days and nights than those expert pundits ever care to recall, he made the people happy.

In my eyes Rafa is already a legend. I don't need time for this to sink in. He leaves us as a legend in my eyes.

[Craig_H]

It's a no brainer, anyone who wins a European Cup for us (especially with the personnel he had) is a legend.

[Shaggy]

[Shaggy]

"He made the people happy"

Those wins away at places like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan.....we couldn't have dreamed of that stuff before Rafa. In the late 90s we were losing at places like Strasbourg FFS.

I know he didn't win the league...but **** me that's simplistic. I've been drinking and I'm emotional but he gave us so many great nights. And he won the European Cup in his first season. Legend.

[Craig_H]

Far as i'm concerned, Rafa's etched his name into the Liverpool history books and for all the right reasons.

In years gone by, flags on the Kop will feature his face alongside Shanks, Paisley and Kenny. In fact, that was already happening, and will continue to. Rightly so too.

[Reece]

"He made the people happy"

Those wins away at places like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan.....we couldn't have dreamed of that stuff before Rafa. In the late 90s we were losing at places like Strasbourg FFS.

I know he didn't win the league...but **** me that's simplistic. I've been drinking and I'm emotional but he gave us so many great nights. And he won the European Cup in his first season. Legend.

Well said Muscles

[Shaggy]

Thanks Reecey