Rafa Watch

[little dave hedgehog]

the first manager i ever knew was roy evans, so you can imagine how i feel about rafa.

[Cisseshairdresser]

So many Reds I know lately have said to me how much they took Rafa for granted back in the day and now how bad they feel for wanting him gone. They realise it was a mistake and they had a case of grass is always greener syndrome.

A lot of people are changing their tune on Rafa and its took his leavin for people to realise truly what we had.

[Phoenix07]

Wasn't Ian Ayre part of the board which agreed to remove Rafa?

It'd be nice to see him back one day, but I don't think it will happen because of people still at the club. Also, when Hodgson was sacked and fans were calling for Rafa to return, there were reports saying FSG wouldn't consider him.

I hope Kenny's still here for the next 15 years anyway. It'd mean we're winning.

Rafa should get the Malaga job. The ability to build a dynasty there with the backing would be awesome. He'd probably even take Torres there and get him going again.

Reina, Carragher, Hyypia, Alonso, Mascherano, Gerrard, Kuyt, Torres all in their prime. That team needed two more world class players.
All those reports of David Silva and David Villa at the time. He wanted Tevez too, but he picked Man City.

[Shaggy]

So many Reds I know lately have said to me how much they took Rafa for granted back in the day and now how bad they feel for wanting him gone. They realise it was a mistake and they had a case of grass is always greener syndrome.

A lot of people are changing their tune on Rafa and its took his leavin for people to realise truly what we had.

Glad to hear it. Can't say I've experienced the same - a couple of my Red mates didn't like Rafa and neither have adjusted their position. One of them said "if ever comes back I wouldn't go again until he's gone again, which wouldn't be long"

I find it incredible that people took all that for granted. It's also incredible when you forget his achievements on the pitch...the sacrifices he made to essentially save Liverpool FC, risking everything by outing H&G and tackling them head on....yet many Reds don't give him an ounce of credit for that and would rather moan about Degen, Insua, Keane, Dossena etc. It defies belief.

[sean_lfc]

[saj]

the first manager i ever knew was roy evans, so you can imagine how i feel about rafa.

Evans was a very good manager and did a fantastic job given the circumstances. He inherited a squad that Souness tore apart and turned us into the best attacking team in the league. He won **** all though , but to be fair, we should have won the league a couple of times under him.

[cream]

There was a period when we felt invincible under Rafa. In England, people hated us because they feared us. In Europe, people respected us because they feared us. Those were great days.

[Darkon]

Evans was a very good manager and did a fantastic job given the circumstances. He inherited a squad that Souness tore apart and turned us into the best attacking team in the league. He won **** all though , but to be fair, we should have won the league a couple of times under him.

There have been at least once under each of our previous 3 managers (not counting Roy!) that we should have won the league IMO.

A still have a feeling, and it goes for all three, that if we where better at getting the best out of our squad/mediocre players, we would have done it as well. A bit like how Ferguson keeps managing to get the most out of average players, dare I say we for all the good things our past managers have done, we still have lacked the Ferguson type.

Edit: Just wanted to add, that what I mean is that under Evans, Houllier and Rafa there have been at least one season where I feel we had the better squad than the winners, but didn't get enough out of it in the end.

[Jas]

I nearly came to blows with another red last season, he was spouting off saying how he was glad we had sacked Rafa because he was ****, I tried to have a conversation with him first and put him straight on a few points but he just wouldn't have it. Was going to give him a slap but my mates dragged me away. It bloody infuriates me how so called fans just couldn't see how lucky we were to have such a fantastic manager and a truly humble man.

[Shaggy]

Shame you didn't get to floor him

[Daniel 7]

Some people were sucked in by Andy Gray spouting zonal marking bollocks and John Aldridge / Ronnie Whelan having digs through the press.

Bet that red was a Martin O Neill advocate, Jas...

[Darkon]

The zonal marking thing was just ridiculous

[Jas]

Shame you didn't get to floor him

Shaggy I would have loved to have floored him. The guy was so ****ing up himself telling me I didn't know what I was talking about. Would have given me lot of pleasure to have knocked him out.

[Jas]

Some people were sucked in by Andy Gray spouting zonal marking bollocks and John Aldridge / Ronnie Whelan having digs through the press.

Bet that red was a Martin O Neill advocate, Jas...

I don't know about O'Neil, stupid **** probably thought Hodgson was a good manager.

[Vermilion]

Dietmar Hamann book extract: 'Benitez is pure managerial genius'

The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool, by Dietmar Hamann is released on February 2.

In this exclusive extract, the former Reds midfielder talks about his relationship with former Kop bosses Rafa Benitez and Gerard Houllier.

Rafael Benitez isn’t big on relationships, but in my mind he is pure managerial genius.

I still have the debate with some of the Liverpool lads today – Stevie Gerrard and I have had quite intense discussions about this. Rafa’s lack of emotion contrasted with Stevie, whose view was ‘he never praises you’, and he thought it would help some of the other players if they got some positive strokes.

As far as my time at Liverpool is concerned, people may think Rafa broke my heart, because he was in charge when I left. But I could have stayed – he just told me the situation as it was: had I stayed I would have been a bit part player. I couldn’t allow my Anfield career to end with a whimper, it meant far too much to me. But it wasn’t that Rafa broke my heart, it was I wanted to leave in a dignified manner.

Even if Rafa had forcibly removed me from Anfield, he’d still be near the top of my managerial list. Sometimes, talking to Rafa was like when your car windscreen’s iced up on a winter’s morning. You can’t see anything, but when you switch on the de-icer gradually you start to see through the impenetrable barrier of ice, a hazy picture emerges and within two minutes you have a full Technicolor image.

Rafa had the ability to achieve this rapid transformation from total blankness to incredible insight in just two minutes. He was incisive. He had the mind of a prosecution barrister and the words of a Spanish troubadour.

Gerard Houllier’s influence on Liverpool, and on me, was seismic. Forget about the way things ended for him at Anfield, and remember what he did for the club in its proper context. The Titanic was heading for the iceberg and Houllier calmly and carefully took control. He stopped the slide that would have taken the club not quite into oblivion, but into Premier League mediocrity, and laid the foundations for a very successful period in Liverpool’s history.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/mirror-football-blog/Exclusive-Dietmar-Hamann-book-extract-Benitez-is-pure-managerial-genius-article855368.html