Liverpool owner John W Henry: Dalglish doing “very well”

[Arn]

Wasn't it Tomkins that talked for hours with Henry about Rafa and the club IIRC.

I think Tomkins mentioned that a few times on his site.

[Glenn Hysen]

Reading that article, doesn't sound likely Rafa will be getting a sniff of coming back certainly for a while.

Great, we need to move on. Is that guy in Portugal still successfull? Mourinho number two (without arrogance)?

[cream]

Great, we need to move on. Is that guy in Portugal still successfull? Mourinho number two (without arrogance)?

Porto won the league with five games to spare and zero defeats.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

Some sites and media imagines up their own headlines, blaming Rafa and not Roy and Purslow. Rafa built short term, expensive, long term deals to squad players etc.

Really laughable.

If it is one thing Rafa didn't do then it was building short term. He built it so much long term that short term almost didn't exist. If a player wasn't good enough then he was sold and replaced by a player worth more money.

Building up the value of the squad. That worked excellent until key players had to be sold and not replaced with less expensive players so we could pay the massive interest.

In position after position we replaced quantity with quality.

Look at the season we finished 2nd.. We looked very good, we needed to spend and keep improving, instead we regressed massively and yet people still expected us to kick on. Rafa's team was finally coming together until Hicks and Gillett started asset stripping anyone can see that surely.

[dww]

Look at the season we finished 2nd.. We looked very good, we needed to spend and keep improving, instead we regressed massively and yet people still expected us to kick on. Rafa's team was finally coming together until Hicks and Gillett started asset stripping anyone can see that surely.

The trouble we have had for a long time has been that we have not had a stable long term platform to build from. Even the season we finished second some problems should have been obvious - the reliance on Alonso for our style of play for example. Once we lost him we were bound to need time to adapt or serious investment.

The same problem has dogged our youth system with changing overall policies, philosophies and structures preventing any real advances being made. We finally seem to have arrived at a point where things are joined up which is promising. Even so the short period of time the current team have been in place make it unlikely we would be able to continue without substantive change if one of the two ex-Barca coaches left.

[RichC]

Great, we need to move on. Is that guy in Portugal still successfull? Mourinho number two (without arrogance)?

yup, had an amazing season with Porto villa boas, if not Kenny I'd love to see this guy!

[Fredo]

This is mostly Rafa's fault and why I'm glad that we now have Comolli in place.

**** off, it's an entirely different situation now.

[Rowan]

Look at the season we finished 2nd.. We looked very good, we needed to spend and keep improving, instead we regressed massively and yet people still expected us to kick on. Rafa's team was finally coming together until Hicks and Gillett started asset stripping anyone can see that surely.

Rafa has/d many good point but squad building (at Liverpool) wasn't amongst them. The lack of depth we displayed in the squad at time was criminal. He had 5 years to sort the flanks out and the best he could muster was Pennant and Riera, not to mention the insistance on sporadically using the criminally crap El Zahr. He bought about 500 young players of whom only Insua got a reasonable run in the team. He was the man who gave us Voronin, Jovanovoc and the stil oft used Degen. Not to mention the 15 scounts he must have had to employ to find the 600 keepers he bought over the years (of whom only one proved to be better than even Mike Hooper).

Ok, when he had a bit of cash it wasn't as bad but his filler fetish has contributed to where we are now. That Roy chose to maintain this policy (but for first teamers) just compounds things!

[Arn]

**** off, it's an entirely different situation now.

He is my groupie. He follows me around on different forums and try and wind me up with his comments about Rafa.

[RedReet]

Rafa has/d many good point but squad building (at Liverpool) wasn't amongst them. The lack of depth we displayed in the squad at time was criminal. He had 5 years to sort the flanks out and the best he could muster was Pennant and Riera, not to mention the insistance on sporadically using the criminally crap El Zahr. He bought about 500 young players of whom only Insua got a reasonable run in the team. He was the man who gave us Voronin, Jovanovoc and the stil oft used Degen. Not to mention the 15 scounts he must have had to employ to find the 600 keepers he bought over the years (of whom only one proved to be better than even Mike Hooper).

Ok, when he had a bit of cash it wasn't as bad but his filler fetish has contributed to where we are now. That Roy chose to maintain this policy (but for first teamers) just compounds things!

Was that entirely his fault though? He treid and failed for Maluda, Simao, Alves, Silva, Quaresma etc. How many of these failed signings were Rafa's 1st/2nd choices?

[Fredo]

Rafa tried to buy Daniel Alves in his second season. Apparently he never saw eye to eye with Parry (and later on Purslow). Basically it was a question of money, not about lack of squad building skills.

[banditos]

Rafa has/d many good point but squad building (at Liverpool) wasn't amongst them. The lack of depth we displayed in the squad at time was criminal. He had 5 years to sort the flanks out and the best he could muster was Pennant and Riera, not to mention the insistance on sporadically using the criminally crap El Zahr. He bought about 500 young players of whom only Insua got a reasonable run in the team. He was the man who gave us Voronin, Jovanovoc and the stil oft used Degen. Not to mention the 15 scounts he must have had to employ to find the 600 keepers he bought over the years (of whom only one proved to be better than even Mike Hooper).

Ok, when he had a bit of cash it wasn't as bad but his filler fetish has contributed to where we are now. That Roy chose to maintain this policy (but for first teamers) just compounds things!

What a load of cock custard. Rafa never had much to spend because of the financial situation the previous owners left us in. He was always having to rob Peter to pay Paul. There's a reason the best he could get for LM was Pennant and Riera. The club couldn't afford better (Eg. Simao). The three turds highlighted were all freebies. See the pattern.

I can't believe there are still LFC fans out there that think its mostly Rafa's fault our squad is ****e. I'm not saying he didn't make mistakes, but he was working with massive financial constraints.

[Reece]

Yay. Haven't had a Rafa debate for a while.

[RedReet]

Benayoun and Riera were both good players anyway and very effective when they played.

[RedReet]

Yay. Haven't had a Rafa debate for a while.

TBH, I'd rather go back and read over all them old threads than discuss our depressing on-field problems.