Rafa Benitez - the kingmaker

[Mostar]

He had a vision & a style that he wanted us to play in, but knew he didn't have the players to implement it, nor the resources to go out & get it quickly. Consequently, he played to the available players strengths, whilst continually wheeling & dealing to improve his squad. We remained competitive whilst going through a transitional phase.

He definitely made mistakes but these were compounded, if not intensified by the pillaging of our club by Hicks & Gillette.

Well said.

That pic gets me emotional every time I see it.

This is picture he took with Margaret Aspinall yesterday. Very few have done so much financially for HFSG as Rafa did.

[dww]

I'm down on our style of play under Dalglish precisely because there was no control and it was ineffective. There's a balance - pretty football with control and that gets results is what I want. If any one of those three is out of whack then I find it terrible to watch.

At times under Dalglish we did play some lovely football. There were some matches we'd open up brilliantly, passing well, pressing the opposition high up the pitch, forcing and capitalising on mistakes, it was great to watch. But other times we just looked ****e. And there was no way to correct it. And even if we did start well, if we didn't score, we always looked vulnerable and usually conceded.

If it didn't work right away, we looked like we didn't know what we were doing. It was dreadful to watch. By the end I had no faith that Dalglish was able to make a difference in matches.

And the Roy Evans' side wasn't that great either. Yes, it was better than last year's dog and pony show - we were more effective and the results were better - but the balance was still wrong, we had no control and when McManaman was nullified, we often had nothing else to offer. Of course at times it was a joy to watch but it was incredibly frustrating to watch so much attacking talent dragged down by such a persistently crap defence.

I tend to agree with a lot of that. I just think that if people take it on purely aesthetic grounds the football was not bad a lot of the time when it is stated to be universally dismal. I think the collapse at the end of the season has a lot to do with it and my feeling is that it came from the same lack of control we agreed with earlier.

I can see the point about the end feeling like Kenny was helpless. I tend to feel that we had no on pitch general and that made it hard to alter the games. I would be very interested to know what he was planning to change if given another season. I still think choosing Adam as the fulcrum of the side was the biggest mistake he made.

[el matador]

just ordered the new book off amazon.

im sure it will make very interesting reading.

[barnes10]

bleedin ell. I agree with neil. 100%

[Neil Young]

How did you resist?

I looked something up on Urban Dictionary yesterday and a couple of the synonyms were "cluster****" and "dog and pony show". I originally put cluster**** but then thought I'd make use of my new knowledge.

[Neil Young]

As for Rafa having to go because of his role in the cluster**** the club had become, I don't think that holds water. Yes, he was arguing with everybody and the owners and the board were going nowhere. But that's not the issue. When he went the cluster**** got worse. We got Bronto Hodgson, a 98 year old goalkeeping coach and PFK. Things didn't improve off the pitch either...until the new owners took over.

The only possible rationale for getting rid of Rafa is that the owners wanted it and it was one battle the board didn't want to fight because it had another, more important one on its hands. If that's true, then I don't have a problem with it.

But none of them have ever said that. Purslow for instance hasn't come out and explained it in those terms. If that's what happened, I don't understand why he doesn't explain it. For me, the fact it hasn't been said indicates that's not what happened. In which case the board has no excuse.

The cluster**** wasn't caused by people bitching and arguing. It was caused by lack of money because two f*ckheads bought the club with its own money and tried to suck all the blood out of it. Rafa was fighting for the same thing the fans wanted - success.

Maybe supporting him or not wouldn't have made any difference but a united front against the villains wrecking the club is the least he deserved then and still deserves now, from the fans and those well rewarded but apparently disloyal players.

And FWIW I disagree with calls to bring him back. He's a great manager and I wish he hadn't left but he has and we should look forward, not back.

[Rich]

I'm down on our style of play under Dalglish precisely because there was no control and it was ineffective. There's a balance - pretty football with control and that gets results is what I want. If any one of those three is out of whack then I find it terrible to watch.

At times under Dalglish we did play some lovely football. There were some matches we'd open up brilliantly, passing well, pressing the opposition high up the pitch, forcing and capitalising on mistakes, it was great to watch. But other times we just looked ****e. And there was no way to correct it. And even if we did start well, if we didn't score, we always looked vulnerable and usually conceded.

If it didn't work right away, we looked like we didn't know what we were doing. It was dreadful to watch. By the end I had no faith that Dalglish was able to make a difference in matches.

And the Roy Evans' side wasn't that great either. Yes, it was better than last year's dog and pony show - we were more effective and the results were better - but the balance was still wrong, we had no control and when McManaman was nullified, we often had nothing else to offer. Of course at times it was a joy to watch but it was incredibly frustrating to a lot of attacking talent and such a persistently crap defence.

How did you resist?

[Neil Young]

Arsenal may be the sole exception to the general rule. But even they have been pretty awful to watch some seasons. The season we finished second they were particularly turgid IIRC.

I don't think things are as simple as you make out. It is perfectly reasonable to equate quality with winning, however about the better quality of football if we assume you mean more entertaining then I think that is far from true. I'm sure you remember the particularly galling period where United won a string of games 1-0 playing boring, unattractive, largely attritional football imaginable (was that also the season we finished second, seems likely to me).

Last season was odd. We played some nice stuff but without control or clinical finishing - the worst combination in terms of getting results. People are more down on our style of play under Dalglish than is really true IMO because of the results.

I'm down on our style of play under Dalglish precisely because there was no control and it was ineffective. There's a balance - pretty football with control and that gets results is what I want. If any one of those three is out of whack then I find it terrible to watch.

At times under Dalglish we did play some lovely football. There were some matches we'd open up brilliantly, passing well, pressing the opposition high up the pitch, forcing and capitalising on mistakes, it was great to watch. But other times we just looked ****e. And there was no way to correct it. And even if we did start well, if we didn't score, we always looked vulnerable and usually conceded.

If it didn't work right away, we looked like we didn't know what we were doing. It was dreadful to watch. By the end I had no faith that Dalglish was able to make a difference in matches.

And the Roy Evans' side wasn't that great either. Yes, it was better than last year's dog and pony show - we were more effective and the results were better - but the balance was still wrong, we had no control and when McManaman was nullified, we often had nothing else to offer. Of course at times it was a joy to watch but it was incredibly frustrating to watch so much attacking talent dragged down by such a persistently crap defence.

[destinydude]

I still believe that after all the disagreements Rafa had with the owners, he'd have stayed/be let to stay had we finished fourth.

But then again had we qualified for Champions League, we'd just have paid the money to the banks and continued to exist in turmoil.

In a way it happened for good and had we been careful last summer with the money, we could have been where we should be (which is the UCL).

We are far far healthy as a club now than we have been in the last 6-8 months under G&H.

[Eric Swindler]

A quick Google search verifies that (I had copied links but Explorer crashed). Not to mention all the phone ins etc.

Much of that was down to the Lucas/Aquilaini farce which did Rafa no favours that season, but did that lead to his sacking? Hardly.

[Eric Swindler]

At the end of his last season, Rafa stated that he had gone in to work expecting to outline the plans for the following season only to be told that he was not going to get a single penny to spend on players. This let to a short and frank exchange of views after which Benitez was sacked. The owners wanted him out. That's it. End of story. They didn't give half a ****e about any fans - even at that time Rafa had a huge amount of support from much of the fanbase.

[RedReet]

A quick Google search verifies that (I had copied links but Explorer crashed). Not to mention all the phone ins etc.

[Kenneth]

I recall a few games ending with boos.