Rafa Benitez Leaves Liverpool

[red g]

i dont think it was one bad season it was a horrific season. If we were getting in hiddink, cappello or mourinho or someone of that ilk I dont think we would see so many want rafa back i think its more the stark reality of Hodgson coming in which has lead to this upsurge in Rafa;s support

[Shanks]

I genuinely feel that given a few more years we would have started to reap the rewards of the youth system/policy.

A few more of these, should have been pushing through the ranks..
Ayala done well to be fair, as did Darby for a while.


Peter Gulasci
Martin Hansen
David Martin
Chris Oldfield
Dean Bouzanis
Emmanuel Mendy
Daniel Ayala
Stephen Darby
Steven Irwin
Martin Kelly
Chris Mavinga
Chris Buchtmann
David Amoo
Damien Plessis
Zsolt Poloskei
Francisco Duran
Jay Spearing
Victor Palsson
Vincent Weijl
Alex Kacaniklic
Gerardo Bruna
Vitor Flora
Lauri Dalla Valle
Daniel Pacheco
Jordy Brouwer
Nikola Saric
Nathan Eccleston

[CJ]

i dont think it was one bad season it was a horrific season. If we were getting in hiddink, cappello or mourinho or someone of that ilk I dont think we would see so many want rafa back i think its more the stark reality of Hodgson coming in which has lead to this upsurge in Rafa;s support

bad horrific that semantics.

I do agree that for some its the fact we arent getting a cappello type and also the way it happened. However for alot of people they believe that Rafa was the man to turn it round.

[Shanks]

Come on, you're ignoring the fact that both Alonso and Arbeloa wanted to go (let's not go over the reason why Alonso wanted to get again).

Would we have been able to buy Torres without selling the likes of Bellamy?

Keane by most accounts was not really wanted by Rafa in the first place, but either way he didn't work out, and we got a decent percentage of the money back for him.

And Rafa wanted to keep Crouch, but Crouch wanted to go.

I think the points you make are too black and white, and ignore the grey areas surrounding them.

So Crouch, Arbeloa and Alonso wanted to go.
Why?

I know this has been done to death so I don't expect to fill another thread of this but they were three decent players that he could have kept, if not for his mis-man management. I think..

[Reece]

So Crouch, Arbeloa and Alonso wanted to go.
Why?

I know this has been done to death so I don't expect to fill another thread of this but they were three decent players that he could have kept, if not for his mis-man management. I think..

Mis-management?

Arbeloa was first choice right back - he wanted to go because he wanted to go back to Spain.

Crouch was second choice behind Torres (bear in mind before Torres came to the club Benitez completely backed Crouch despite him not scoring in his first ~15 games or something). Rafa said in many an interview that he wanted Crouch to stay, but Crouch wasn't happy being on the bench. Which is kind of where he ended up at Spurs, but that's a different matter.

Alonso is arguable obviously so lets not go there again.

[CJ]

So Crouch, Arbeloa and Alonso wanted to go.
Why?

I know this has been done to death so I don't expect to fill another thread of this but they were three decent players that he could have kept, if not for his mis-man management. I think..

a spaniard wanting to go back to spain? clearly rafas fault. Mascher wants to go is that Rafas fault oh and he may follow Rafa to inter. So players want to go for a number of reasons. its not that strange for someone from somewhere hot and dry with a relaxed lifestyle might not want to stay in the northwest for ever.

it might be helpful if you dont just pluck at things to support your view on Rafa. some things do support it but not everything does and it doesnt help your argument imo.

[Shanks]

a spaniard wanting to go back to spain? clearly rafas fault. Mascher wants to go is that Rafas fault oh and he may follow Rafa to inter. So players want to go for a number of reasons. its not that strange for someone from somewhere hot and dry with a relaxed lifestyle might not want to stay in the northwest for ever.

it might be helpful if you dont just pluck at things to support your view on Rafa. some things do support it but not everything does and it doesnt help your argument imo.

Pluck at things??

FFS.. So lets say Rafa stayed and next season Gerrard went to Madrid and Torres went somewhere were they play CL.. Lets just say for discussion sake..

Why would/did they leave??

and back up your reason for Rafa staying..

[Reece]

Pluck at things??

FFS.. So lets say Rafa stayed and next season Gerrard went to Madrid and Torres went somewhere were they play CL.. Lets just say for discussion sake..

Why would/did they leave??

and back up your reason for Rafa staying..

How does it help the discussion to come up with hypothetical situations and reasoning?

You seem happy to ignore the counter arguments myself and Marsh have put across regarding the reasons behind certain players leaving.

[Shanks]

How does it help the discussion to come up with hypothetical situations and reasoning?

You seem happy to ignore the counter arguments myself and Marsh have put across regarding the reasons behind certain players leaving.

He didn't bring in the right replacements when Arbeloa, Alonso and Crouch left the club. imo

He continued to play negative football against weaker opposition.
Don't get me wrong, we had our good days..

His substitutions often beggar belief. (I'm sure you could pull up a few quotes from the match threads)

There, how does that sit?

[Reece]

He didn't bring in the right replacements when Arbeloa, Alonso and Crouch left the club. imo

Again, a grey area. Was he given the adequate funds to bring in the right replacements?

I'm not getting into your other points, because they're not relevant to the points I was picking up on from your original post.

[Shanks]

Again, a grey area. Was he given the adequate funds to bring in the right replacements?

I'm not getting into your other points, because they're not relevant to the points I was picking up on from your original post.

Ok.

Adequate funds mean nothing when you spend that much on Johnson and Aquilani. (without going into detail)
Some would say we were unlucky with their injuries.

[red g]

Ok.

Adequate funds mean nothing when you spend that much on Johnson and Aquilani. (without going into detail)
Some would say we were unlucky with their injuries.

others would say it was stupid going in with masher and lucas as first choice midfield pairing even for a couple of months athough this may have been financially based.......just like soto insteead of turner for the sake of a few million

[CJ]

He didn't bring in the right replacements when Arbeloa, Alonso and Crouch left the club. imo

He continued to play negative football against weaker opposition.
Don't get me wrong, we had our good days..

His substitutions often beggar belief. (I'm sure you could pull up a few quotes from the match threads)

There, how does that sit?

He certainly hasnt adequately replaced alonso. not sure who he could replace him with. Aqua may turn out to be a waste of space but i think he needs next season to be judged.

Arbeloa. Well only now do we know how good he is. Though buying Johnson looks to be the right move but again need a settled defence to find out.

Crouch its obvious we need another stiker its more difficult to think who. and did rafa think he had the money to buy one then didnt?

if Torres was not injured it wouldnt appear so bad.

what i am doing here is thinking and reasoning rather than saying its bad because of this. Sometimes you need to dig a bit deeper. Whats the route cause?

Now your point was poor man management caused all those players to leave and in reality it didnt. it caused one to leave Alonso. Remember we couldnt sel him for 15m the season before that last season he played out of his arse. Now he may not have if we handnt tried to sell him etc. Alot of ifs buts and maybes but these are questions you need to ask yourself when saying he should have done this and should have done that. you may still have the same asnwer at the end but it would stop you saying arbeloa went because of man management and bellamy did two. In no way do those two support your argument and so your point gets a little bit lost. Whereas if you had just said Alonso and maybe keane (not sure where that one falls) your argument stands up alot more.

also then when this is pointed out moving to he didnt adequately replace those players well that was not your point? if it was why not say that to start with. its things like that, that make me think your acting out of emotion rather than being a little more thoughtful about it.

[CJ]

others would say it was stupid going in with masher and lucas as first choice midfield pairing even for a couple of months athough this may have been financially based.......just like soto insteead of turner for the sake of a few million

if you dont have that few million it makes quite a difference.

why buy a ford focus when for a few thousand more you can have a BMW 3 series? well if you dont have the money to buy 3 series what can you do?

and soto did well lst season a poor start but he played his part i thought. Turner how did he do for Sunderland? and why did he end up at Sunderland?

[DannyMan2006]

others would say it was stupid going in with masher and lucas as first choice midfield pairing even for a couple of months athough this may have been financially based.......just like soto insteead of turner for the sake of a few million

Bang on.

I knew from the start Mascher and Lucas would not work due to a lack of creativity. Though when I look to the Benfica game, it does make me wonder if Rafa asked lucas to play with the brakes on, so to speak.