Rafa Benitez, Football Manager

He's the worst manager to ever win the biggest prize in club football, or the best manager to ever finish 7th in the premier league.

Let's have it.

Bonus points for views on his demeanour towards the press, or during interviews.

demeanour towards the press?

Extra bonus points for mention of 'Net spend' or comparisons with Arsene Wenger.

what's the point in you starting this thread if your mind's already made up?

well, I was gonna say PR skills, Chris, but I didn't want to prejudice the attitude that the press 'had it in for' Benitez, so I went with that instead. I was trying to be fair, tbh.

i think it's fair to say that the press did have a problem with rafa. their problem being that he didn't cosey up with them and give them what they wanted.

It's to discuss it.

Seriously.

It always clogs up other football threads, and Matt's very right in saying that the WC thread is absolutley no place for it.

I'm not going to have my mind changed, it's true- neither are you, I guess. but while we're gonna have it out let's have it out in a nice space where we don't repeat ourselves at least.

I think it's fair to say that Rafa tried to pull off many many rubbish excuses in many many interviews that very many people were sceptical of, and he would always blame the press for this.

which excuses?

are we discussing his abilities as a football manager, or how he handles the press? ferguson and wenger aren't exactly immune to making ridiculous excuses. what manager doesn't make excuses/moan?

Bonus point

love this guy & his sideline demeanor

dont give a shit about british soccer but he reminds me of a mean dad

How you handle the press can be a positive skill or a fault if you're a high-level football manager, come on. Mourinho, Ferguson can both be accused of being childish, far from admirable etc in their dealings with the press, but they're still masters at using it for their own means.

Wenger, less so. Rafa, less so again.

Abilities as a football manager- what we're discussing. That's more than tactics.

rafa benitez excuses

Advanced searchAbout 46,400 results (0.30 seconds)

Quick list c&p from 2007:

IN

Josemi £2m FAIL
Antonio Nunez £2m FAIL
Xabi Alonso £10.7m SUCCESS
Luis Garcia £6m Success?
Mauricio Pellegrino Free WAS CHEAP I GUESS
Fernando Morientes £6.5m FAIL
Scott Carson £750,000 FAIL
Antonio Baragan Compensation fee WHO?
Jose Reina £6m SUCCESS
Mohammed Sissoko £5.6m FAIL
Boudewijn Zenden Free WAS CHEAP I GUESS BUT THEN HIS WAGES...
Peter Crouch £7m LOL
Jack Hobbs £750,000 FAIL?
Godwin Anti Free WHO?
Miquel Roque Free LOL AT THIS LIST
Jan Kromkamp Swop for Josemi LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Paul Anderson Swop for John Welsh FAIL
Daniel Agger £5.8m SUCCESS
Craig Bellamy £6m DID THAT ONE THING AGAINST BARCELONA
Gabriel Paletta £2m FAIL
Mark Gonzalez £4.5m FAIL
Fabio Aurelio Free DID OK I GUESS
Jermaine Pennant £6.7m LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Dirk Kuyt £9m MATTER OF OPINION AT BEST
Alvaro Arbeloa £2.64m SUCCESS
Andriy Voronin Free LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL 50k a week wages
Lucas Leiva £6m FAIL SO FAR
Sebastien Leto £1.5m FAIL
Fernando Torres £20m HAS PLAYED ABOUT SIX MONTHS OF FOOTBALL FOR LIVERPOOL
Yossi Benayoun £5m SUCCESS
Ryan Babel £11m FAIL
Charles Itandje Free FAIL

---------

£127.44m

Up until last season he was in charge of the second highest spending team of the decade. For that he had... Torres, Gerrard (hg), Masch, Skrtel and Reina that would made them better than Spurs, man for man?

I'd take Skrtel off of that, Spurs don't get away with murder so he's pretty worthless to us.

ok yeah my bad.

There are problems with copying and pasting a list of players like that. Rafa was quick to recognise when players weren't working out, and got rid of them, making a profit on quite a few of them. Your opinions on 'fails' are just that. Lucas, in my opinion, is a success. You don't win Brazilian player of the year for nothing. People who think Lucas is a bad player know fuck all about football. If his name was Claude Makele people would be jizzing their pants.

Itandje for example, was a reserve GK. I'm, not sure what your expectations are for a reserve GK, but he seemed to do the job pretty well. Until of course he acted like a fool at the Hillsborough Memorial Service last year and was banished for doing so.

Sebastian Leto ffs, he was a kid with potential who spent most of his time at the Academy. Didn't develop in the way Rafa hoped, sold him for a profit.

Not being able to bring yourself to put - Torres-Success just marks out how bullshit your list is tbh.

You don't win Brazilian player of the year for nothing.

He didn't win this btw, he won most promising youngster which as an Arsenal fan, I can tell you is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot different.

Also yeah I think insulting everyone at the Hillsborough Memorial Service is enough to make him a fail, considering his job is basically to sit there and NOT insult people.

Fabio Aurelio "did ok"? fucking awesome in my opinion, but has been blighted with injuries and has moved on.

yeah crazy of me to think spending 20m and 90k wages on a player would expect more than him either not playing or just looking ridiculously unfit for 7/10ths of a season.

Barragan, another Academy kid who the press have jumped on, not researched, expected him to be fucking lionel messi and wet themselves when he didn't play regularly. if you want a proper discussion then at least do some research and don't just copy/paste a list and make ridiculous calls on players you obviously know nothing about.

Given that Crouch pretty much single-handedly kept them in the Champions League one season you're being a bit harsh on him.

Peter Crouch wasnt happy playing 2nd fiddle to Torres so moved on.

Sissoko, fail, REALLY?

Positives-

Made them a beast defensive outfit, tough to beat and successful in games against top 4
Tactics pwned all over Europe, his continental record was amazing
Got the best out of Gerrard most years
Signed Torres, Reina, Alonso and Mascherano
Safely delivered 2nd when Chelsea and Arsenal had terrible seasons

Negatives

Consistency/record against mid-lower teams was p. poor
Stretches of collapse every season under him
Never looked like a league winner, claimed otherwise every year
PR disaster when beaten/under pressure- Often hung players/owners/club out to dry when it suited him
Football dour & ugly
Aside form the players mentioned above, transfer record alarmingly poor
Record of bringing players through- non existent
Alienated key players needlessly throughout his term, notably Alonso.

No better than Houllier domestically.

yeah my bad i should do more research than benitez ever did.

"press have jumped on"??? haven't they been too busy saying LOL ROBBIE KEANE OR GLEN JOHNSON OR AQUILANI OR ETC ETC ETC ETC

Jack Hobbs, fail? ffs. Academy kid who signed when he was 16. has gone on to captain Leicester.

Yeah what a great success he turned out to be for Liverpool in their Leicester City captain role.

rafa knew robbie keane's price was ridiculous and didn't even want him. missed some horrible sitters, poor positional play, 'Arry bought him back for £16m (!) and sent him on loan to Celtic. Nice one.

If the world is allowed to say lol jeremie aliadiere then jack hobbs + the 40 other no name 16 year olds benitez bought shouldn't be above judgement.

Pretty good cricketer though

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/furniture/in_depth/cricket/2001/ashes/legends/jack_hobbs.jpg

i think you'll find a lot of the fans are made up rafa hung the club/owners out to dry to be fair.

(Sorry Chris I'll be kind of in and out on this one for a while)

Rafa was quick to recognise when players weren't working out, and got rid of them, making a profit on quite a few of them

His job wasn't to rectify his mistakes, it was not to make so many of them all the time. He never stopped making them.

Lucas, in my opinion, is a success. You don't win Brazilian player of the year for nothing. People who think Lucas is a bad player know fuck all about football. If his name was Claude Makele people would be jizzing their pants.

Perhaps you should stop judging Lucas on his brazilian POTY status, especially with reference to how Rafa Benitez has managed him. His name isn't Claude Makelele, and the acknowledgement that he's been pretty poor in the majority of his games at LFC is a very important step towards reason imo.

We can hopefully try to stay away from the 'You know fuck all about football' trope. It's almost exclusively used on the Rafa side of this debate ime, but let's all admit that we're none of us complete morons, and that we all watch and judge games on their own merits here pls?

aliadiere at least played for arsenal's first team. you're judging jack hobbs on what exactly?

Didn't Rafa publicly court Keane which made Levy all pissy and add another couple million to his price tag?

So Aliadiere did better than 2 caps Hobbs... how is that not a failure of a signing??? WORSE THAN ALIADIERE.

i think you'll find a lot of the fans are made up rafa hung the club/owners out to dry to be fair.

― The referee was perfect (Chris), 09 July 2010 15:10 (7 seconds ago) Bookmark

:) no doubt, but it was more from the 'Benitez doesn't own up to, nor in fact move to rectify, his obvious mistakes' which imo is fairly characteristic of his time at LFC.

i'm judging lucas on the fact that last season he contributed to a number of vital goals, he's intelligant, has great awareness, is disciplined, and his passing and tackling rates were amongst the highest in the league. i like him.

I think we've come to the point in following football where we can understand that Makelele isn't the only anchor man in the game. Lucas doesn't even play like Makelele, a role that Masch is more inclined to fill since he's been there.

Jack Hobbs- kind of a youth team product?

I wouldn't rly be judging benitez on this kind of thing under 'transfers', but he'd certainly be questionable on bringing through the level of talent expected from youth/reserves- especially as his transfer hit-rate was, by and large, pretty poor.

Lucas- a prospect, but not at DM, and shouldn't be played alongside Mascherano for 90% of games like he has been. Benitez' handling/selection of him has done him no favours- and that's allowing that he might be a better footballer than he has shown so far.

Yeah I don't think anyone is writing off Lucas's career and I think under Woy he could turn out to be quite an important part of Liverpool's set-up. He just failed as a Rafa player/signing.

as i keep saying, i wouldn't blame rafa for failing to bring through talent. the talent simply wasn't there, and that was down to archaic scouting practices and poor coaching.

talent simply wasn't there? from the same place that could be seen as on a par with utd and west ham in great players for the past 20 years? (owen, mcmananananananaman, fowler, carra, gerrard etc.)

the talent is all over the other 1/2 mile of Stanley park? won't wash.

Will Roy do better or worse than Rafa in the league, Chris?

i will say though that yes, perhaps rafa should have given the likes of dani pacheco more of a chance, and i would have liked to see him start a few more games, but if he feels he's not ready then i guess that's his prerogative. rafa gave martin kelly his debut in the champions league and looked solid. would have been a good replacement for glen johnson but he had injury problems. dani ayala made 5 appearances at centre back.

^^^golden generation.

will roy do better or worse than rafa? i don't have a crystal ball i'm afraid.

!

ask paul the octopus!

Coming to this thread late but...

Fernando Torres £20m HAS PLAYED ABOUT SIX MONTHS OF FOOTBALL FOR LIVERPOOL

Quoting you here - LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Have you checked his scoring record for the club?

I was about to say that I cannot help but feel that you guys could all spend your time in more productive ways, but 1. I'm reading it, for some reason, and 2. lol ILX.

I want y' all to know that when it goes tits up in 5 years time and Mick McCarthy gets sacked after we fail to make the Champions League, I will be defending him in the most relentlessly butthurt fashion possible.

Safely delivered 2nd when Chelsea and Arsenal had terrible seasons

Liverpool got 86 points that season - enough to win the League most years and the same number Chelsea got last season under Ancelotti. So that's bollocks and all.

2007– Liverpool 79 (56)

So Liverpool play what... 60 games a season? So he did very very well in 2/5ths of his time at Liverpool.

'Benitez doesn't own up to, nor in fact move to rectify, his obvious mistakes'

When f'rinstance, has Ferguson owned up to his many many many mistakes in the transfer market? And doesn't move to rectify them? R Keane was back out of Anfield before the door had closed on his way in.

rafa made mistakes. he had flaws. i know that, his biggest fans know that, HE knew that! it's why he made notes whenever we scored. why he wasn't happy when we were hammering villa 5-0 because it should have been 6. i love that. he strove for perfection. an imperfect perfectionist. he had a clear vision of what he wanted the club to be. in his 1st week at the club he asked for a 5000 seater stand to be built at the academy. he and his family worked tirelessly for the community, which means as much to me personally as him masterminding 3 points on a saturday. he sat cross-legged on the floor during the chelsea semi-final penalty shootout so the fans behind him could see. he is such a lovely guy, and he gave me some of the happiest moments of my life, seriously life-changing moments. and for that i am eternally grateful.

difference is ferguson wins things? and sells players for £80m.

Lucas- a prospect, but not at DM, and shouldn't be played alongside Mascherano for 90% of games like he has been.

Which is strange considering the same pundits who savaged Rafa for this have spent all this World Cup banging on about the effectiveness of having two holding DMs.

xposts that's only Torres league standings - overall it's 116 (72).

xpost

Rafa has also "won things". And Ferguson works for a vastly richer club.

first time i've ever seen the lovely guy aspect been used to defend him, kudos. never actually seen one thing said about his community work, so it must have been super lowkey, yeah? good to see that 5k stand has made their academy turn out superstars for their first team. being annoyed at not scoring 6 at villa != the same guy who got like a million 0-0 draws and sold all his strikers.

Rafa won two things... Fergie won both of those things in 1 year when he also won the league! AND LIVERPOOL SPENT MORE THAN UTD FFS.

xposts that's only Torres league standings - overall it's 116 (72).

― stand under Eljero Elia, Elia, Elia (Merdeyeux), Friday, 9 July 2010 16:39 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So he's missed at least 1 season worth of games?

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/bear.gif

@ this thread, kudos d-mac & ahh

Safely delivered 2nd when Chelsea and Arsenal had terrible seasons

Liverpool got 86 points that season - enough to win the League most years and the same number Chelsea got last season under Ancelotti. So that's bollocks and all.

― Venga,

Leagues work in a slightly different way than this, FWIW.

I want y' all to know that when it goes tits up in 5 years time and Mick McCarthy gets sacked after we fail to make the Champions League, I will be defending him in the most relentlessly butthurt fashion possible.

― We All Live in a World of Petty Goves (Noodle Vague)

be right there with ya man

Lucas- a prospect, but not at DM, and shouldn't be played alongside Mascherano for 90% of games like he has been.

Which is strange considering the same pundits who savaged Rafa for this have spent all this World Cup banging on about the effectiveness of having two holding DMs.

― Venga, 09 July 2010 15:39 (9 minutes ago)

It's kinda effective depending on what's in front of & behind you.

When all you're defending is another league-throwing 2 pts dropped against Stoke, well, that's not something I'd be referring out to mystery WC pundits to criticise, I can do that in-house tbph.

Also, took Ferguson 6 years to win the league didn't it?

'Benitez doesn't own up to, nor in fact move to rectify, his obvious mistakes'

When f'rinstance, has Ferguson owned up to his many many many mistakes in the transfer market? And doesn't move to rectify them? R Keane was back out of Anfield before the door had closed on his way in.

― Venga, 09 July 2010 15:37 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

AHH addressed this- Benitez doesn't get to act like the bully on the playground, because he keeps getting his pants pulled up over his head in October of every school term.

Ferguson took over a mid-table side of alcoholics, back when money != success in anything like the same way, rly.

Ferguson took over a mid-table side of alcoholics

Never realised what had attracted him to the club in the first place.

I think if you can attack Rafa for anything it's:

- Appalling man management
- Failure to fill gaping holes in the squad
- Freezing out players who could have filled those holes, even temporarily
- Stubbornly sticking to things that don't work

I don't think Rafa's a top class manager - he's just not in the Ferguson/Mourinho/Ancelotti bracket. But he's not bad, and he's been in a pretty bad financial situation that was out of his control. Although spending £32m on Aquilani and Johnson was not the wisest of moves under those circumstances - I think it's possible that he was suddenly told there was no more money after making those signings.

He'll probably do quite well in Italy but following Mourinho is pretty much impossible.

rafa made mistakes. he had flaws. i know that, his biggest fans know that, HE knew that! it's why he made notes whenever we scored. why he wasn't happy when we were hammering villa 5-0 because it should have been 6. i love that. he strove for perfection. an imperfect perfectionist. he had a clear vision of what he wanted the club to be. in his 1st week at the club he asked for a 5000 seater stand to be built at the academy. he and his family worked tirelessly for the community, which means as much to me personally as him masterminding 3 points on a saturday. he sat cross-legged on the floor during the chelsea semi-final penalty shootout so the fans behind him could see. he is such a lovely guy, and he gave me some of the happiest moments of my life, seriously life-changing moments. and for that i am eternally grateful.

― The referee was perfect (Chris), 09 July 2010 15:37 (13 minutes ago)

He had serious rapport with the fans, and look, on a personal level he seems like a guy with a sense of humour & whatnot. I was roaring for Lpool on the european nights in 2005 along with just bout everyone else. I thought he'd be a huge improvement on Houllier when he signed, in fact it was me telling my LFC supportin mates what a great job he'd been doing in Spain.

but what can i say, 5 years of passive-aggressive public snark instead of football club management converted me fully.

Matt DC OTM, in a very understated way.

Also, took Ferguson 6 years to win the league didn't it?

― The referee was perfect (Chris), Friday, 9 July 2010 16:50 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually did it though? And has built quite an exciting young team for Utd to live on for the next 10 years, incl. some young exciting academy players like Gibson and Welbeck. Whereas Rafa spent the past 6 years making Liverpool into something similar, I assume?

(can't believe we got matt into this thread FWIW)

Matt DC OTM, in a very understated way.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Friday, 9 July 2010 16:54 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah it took ferguson 6 years to win the league- he did win the FA cup in 1990 when it was a big competition, but he was also on tenterhooks for most of that campaign and was within a game of losing his job in the replay against palace that year.

Also do not believe that Rafa/upper management were so imcompetent to as to only notice there was no money after AA/GJ signed. Surely every manager in the league is told there is [x] in the bank for transfers, [y] for wages, [z] for bonuses before they start calling up other clubs?

But then either way they come off looking bad at their jobs.

i reckon it's too to early to call Aquilani. was told he'd be out for a month when he signed, took the docs on their word, what can ya do. he's looked good and i'm excited to see what he can do next season with a full pre-season under his belt.

xxp, this is LFC we're talking about.

Do you remember last season at all? Because I remember AA getting fit by October and then him playing about 5 games after that because Rafa decided he didn't actually like him.

I agree that it's too early to call Aquilani, but he's had serious injury doubts cast over him throughout the past few years. Definite discount material, and I'm not sure did ye get that discount.

this is the lfc that rafa made sure he took over all transfer decisions after rick parry cocked up a couple times in the 80+ transfers he sorted for rafa.

AA made 26 appearances, started 13 of those.

practically up there with world's best striker fernando torres

this is the lfc that publically courts other managers, does everything they can to undermine the manager, shadows the manager in press conferences to make sure he doesn't let slip that his bosses are slimy cunts, sits in on team talks and goes into the changing room at half time, says that money made from players sold will be available to buy other players and then uses it to pay off debt, hides behind the media to defend it's decision to sack the manager, employs a chelsea fan who can't even attend matches but somehow makes time to sip champagne at chelsea's player of the year awards, and the lfc that doesn't have the bottle to tell the manager to his face that he's got the sack.

it's also the lfc that told the press rafa had cancelled 2 meetings with the chairman when in fact he was on a train across europe because of a cloud of ash, and then couldn't physically meet the chairman because he didn't want to attend the chelsea match.

Dude if they were playing Chelsea I really think Rafa should've gone.

this is the lfc that publically courts other managers, does everything they can to undermine the manager, shadows the manager in press conferences to make sure he doesn't let slip that his bosses are slimy cunts, sits in on team talks and goes into the changing room at half time, says that money made from players sold will be available to buy other players and then uses it to pay off debt, hides behind the media to defend it's decision to sack the manager, employs a chelsea fan who can't even attend matches but somehow makes time to sip champagne at chelsea's player of the year awards, and the lfc that doesn't have the bottle to tell the manager to his face that he's got the sack.

― The referee was perfect (Chris), Friday, 9 July 2010 17:09 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sounds like 95% of other clubs tbrr.

we're not 95% of other clubs though. there's a way of doing things at liverpool which has been conveniently forgotten in the last couple of years.

So bad manager at badly run club. Story of newcastle/athletico/lazio/spurs/etc. amirite?

good manager at badly run club.

Still don't understand what makes him a good manager tbh. Feel free to have a go at explaining this without referring to the club messing up all the things he should have been doing.

Pros- won the CL.
Bought Torres, Reina, Alonso, Masch, Benny Noon.
Beat lots of 10 men teams (Inter, Everton, Utd spring to mind.)

Weaknesses- can we blame his inability to understand wide positions on the board?

Maxi's turning out to be a pretty good wide player. Glen Johnson and Emiliano Insua have been encouraged to get forward and provide width.

encouraged to get forward, provide width and lose all ability to defend.

Am going to fully support this dude next season btw. Can't wait to see what he does for Balotelli's career.

you can't be in 2 players at once. lucas and masch fill in when johnson/insua go forward.

you can't be in 2 players at once. lucas and masch fill in when johnson/insua go forward.

― The referee was perfect (Chris), Friday, 9 July 2010 17:29 (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

think some wags have perfected the art actually.

also lol at the idea that full backs cannot both defend and attack. have you ever seen cole or evra or sagna or maicon or warnock etc. etc. etc.

http://browniestories.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cat-ping-pong.jpg

apparently former liverpool goalkeep nikolay mihaylov (another academy kid/flop whichever way you look at it) got caught up in some shit with the bulgarian mafia when he was dating miss bulgaria.

this thread has not been a huge success since i went to the hospital and back tbh

NV where'd you come up with that pic, and is it g johnson defending/attacking, or is it this thread, or some happy double jeopardy type of general mishmash?

this is the lfc that publically courts other managers etc

Uh yes, I agree with all that. I think you're arguing the pro-Rafa case here. The present board at LFC are dismantling the club brick by brick and are the reason for its recent decline. It has not been as a result of Rafa's management.

Present board who gave him a huge contract and all the power to... spend £35m on two knackered players he doesn't like and come 7th?

I've always been able to separate the shite going on behind the scenes and Rafa's management of the situation he was in for a salary of 6m a year.

xxxpost

was looking for a game of ping pong to symbolize thread rhythm and made the happy discovery of cat ping pong

Rafa is an excellent European Cup manager. He has outsmarted Mourinho in the past and I think he is more than capable of doing so again in the CL with Inter.

(And Mourinho did seem to have an easier ride in Italy with Juve and AC down and seemingly directionless. But I only follow Italian footie if its on terrestrial/freeview)

So much battling to make the wildest claim on this thread, as such not worth commenting on beyond that.

Present board who gave him a huge contract and all the power to... spend £35m on two knackered players he doesn't like and come 7th?

― fuque santa cruz (a hoy hoy), Friday, 9 July 2010 20:50 (Yesterday)

Are you referring to Aquilani and Glen J? I've genuinely not heard that Rafa 'doesn't like' either of them. Where have you heard this?

Just assumed by the way he didn't play Aquilani?

Ronan this is all for you man, don't leave us here all alone

yeah i can talk bullshit about rafa in my sleep, i need some real competition to start busting out the proper challops.

Rafa is an excellent European Cup manager. He has outsmarted Mourinho in the past and I think he is more than capable of doing so again in the CL with Inter.

(And Mourinho did seem to have an easier ride in Italy with Juve and AC down and seemingly directionless. But I only follow Italian footie if its on terrestrial/freeview)

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 10 July 2010 09:24 (7 hours ago) Bookmark

Pfft every time a manager's team beats another manager's team they're smarter now? Rafa's always managed his fair share of one-off wins- cup manager imo.

Mourinho's easy ride at Inter could be equated to Benitez having it very soft in only having a poor united to beat the season before last, tbh. He still got lauded for failing then.

I had thought Spurs did well last season until now - hadn't really considered that maybe they only just stumbled into 4th in the weakest premiership field ever assembled

Shit, I promised myself I wouldn't feed this thread ...

weakest premier league ever assembled

rafa's liverpool finished 7th.

go on.

Heh, don't change the subject. Just reading a piece saying Spurs have to pay an extra £7m if Keane plays a certain number of games - hadn't seen that before and it doesn't say how many games, but it'd explain why Harry's so keen to keep him out of harm's way

fuck.

german goal btw

fuck playing keane another game in any situation, his attitude has been rank since his return bar all but two or three games.

we overpaid to take him back as is. let him off, if anyone will pay his wages. another thing to blame on rafa, the cunt's wages.

last post totally on-subject btw

Yossi Benayoun tells us where he stands on the topic:

http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_6255511,00.html

Poor Yossi. My heart bleeds.

Yossi Benayoun, July 2008: “I have very good chemistry with Benitez. He loves me. He bought me. I really enjoy being with him, moreover, I had an excellent season. I even surprised myself."

hm, well I suppose you could argue that keeping your staff happy is an important part of any manager's job

yossi otm. and chris, isn't his whole point that he didn't speak out negatively because he is a good pro. this doesn't surprise me at all, the lack of faith in creative players and wingers is rafa's biggest fault. he did "break" riera, managed to fuck the two closest things to wingers the club had, both of them.

perhaps he had lack of faith in them for the reason. i'm more inclined to trust rafa than someone who was moaning after 3 games, 3 games!, that he wasn't playing enough.

*a reason, not 'the' reason.

is yossi otm about albert riera? if someone's a disruptive influence then it makes sense to leave them out. xabi alonso - he was performing badly and rafa looked to replace him. xabi responded brilliantly, got his head down, and put in an awesome season for us before moving on. he still speaks highly of rafa, and didn't go crying to the NOTW.

best this one is handled internally by the liverpool supporters imo.

Yeah but both Rieira and Benayoun had pretty decent assist rates, didn't they? I am specifically thinking of the 2008-09 season ie the one where Liverpool nearly won the league.

You can't defend Rafa on this imo - his job is to get his playing staff playing together to the best of their ability. Alienating them and making them unhappy is only going to do that with very rare individuals, much better to keep them happy and ticking over. He seems to have so little interest in doing that, from what we know, that it's kind of bewildering how he did so well.

The book I'm reading has a piece on Anelka's move to Real Madrid - when he arrived there no-one introduced him to the other players, no-one showed him around, they didn't even clear out a locker for him. The point is that sure, he might still be a sulky dick as an individual, but he'd've done a lot better if he was a sulky dick who thought people put in a bit of effort for him. Why wouldn't you do that?

every manager falls out with players. lovely fluffy roy hodgson fell out with roberto carlos at inter. sir alec kicked a boot at david beckham's head. shit happens. some footballers think they know best, they can't understand why they don't start week in week out. if it were that simple then i'd be a football manager. i'd like to think that a manager knows his players better than anyone else. yossi loses all credibility when he spouts shit like "he deliberately tried to break me". really yossi? ok. have fun picking splinters out of your arse at chelsea.

re. anelka, if you're suggesting liverpool don't employ people to look after new players and help them relocate then i know for a fact that they do.

it appears that a lot of you have lapped up the shite that the press have served up about evil, cold, alienating rafa.

He's OBVIOUSLY a terrible man manager. You can see it in the way the players played when they were given a chance. When fringe players get their chance to play in the first team at Man United they seize the opportuntity and really go for it - they're not getting a game but they're still motivated.

When Rieira got back in the team last season he looked like a player with no confidence. And Rieira and Benayoun are certainly not any worse than, say, Park Ji-Sung or Darron Gibson.

he's OBVIOUSLY a terrible man manager because when ryan babel had a moan on twitter (twitter ffs), he supported him and got him playing out of his skin for the 2nd half of the season.

he's OBVIOUSLY a terrible man manager because he stuck by lucas when he was getting pelted by the press and the fans and then publically praised the lad for his hard work and effort and for proving people wrong.

he's OBVIOUSLY a terrible man manager because torres, reina and mascherano have thanked him publically for turning them into the world class players they've become.

said it a million times, riera's attitude stank/stunk/stinks. that's not rafa's fault, that's just how albert is. simples.

can't be bothered with this any more. have fun!

Chris: Fucking hell. This is not Carlos (supreme dickhead by all accounts) and Beckham (wanted out, under performing in the eyes of everyone, thought he was bigger than the manager). Benny Noon never spoke out in the press and was treated like shit for what was seen by everyone bar Benitez as good performances.

Babel playing out of skin? You the only person to notice this?

Umm... also didn't Torres head the Gerrard/TORRES/Carragher player movement to get Benitez out and has obviously been mystified by his actions for his career, especially this season?

Also quoting a meerkat is hella lame.

lol was wondering how the benayoun interview would play out.

chris, he is, obviously, a terrible man manager. come on.

Torres and Mascherano were world class players before they went to Liverpool. Think Reina would have made it at most clubs as well, it's not like there was some magical stardust that Rafa sprinkled over them. It's his failure to get the best out of less talented members of the squad that was the problem.

There will be dispute over whether west ham's mascherano and perennial failure at atletico torres were world class before they went to benitez.

the dispute will be incorrect, but it will exist nonetheless.

perennial failure at atletico

How so?

six goals a season etc etc

(not my line, just to be clear- but i've heard it offered along with gerrard's goal rate and mascherano coming from hammers bench as examples that benitez develops players/his man management is up to standard)

82 goals in 214 games? Club captain at 19?

lol rafa develops players.

jeez tom i'm tellin you it's not my ridiculous point, mayne!

You come out with so many it's hard to tell sometimes

weak zing imo

*holds hand up*

Pfft every time a manager's team beats another manager's team they're smarter now? Rafa's always managed his fair share of one-off wins- cup manager imo.

Not exactly what I said, but he is hardly a one-off in CL. Wouldn't surprise me if he won it again with Inter (or got close but still beat Mourinho along the way).

yeah i'd give him a year or two winning things with mourinho's team alright

Earth-shattering LOLs at the gullible press-believing football "fans" on this thread.

Yeah, Rafa's an evil machinating cold-eyed dictator who's not even fit to breathe the same air as the "arm round the shoulder" man management genii of the Premier League like "Big" "Sam", 'Appy 'Arry and Taggart Ferguson.

Chris has played a blinder on here.

Earth-shattering LOLs at the gullible press-believing football "fans" on this thread.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Sure that's what Mourinho would say, d.

heh well it's true mourinho is a cert to throw a similar type-jab back behind him over the next while. no love lost between those two.

darragh u are such a troll itt i fuckin <3 u

ha seriously i can't help it, i just hate benitez so much. i blame my lfc supporting mates, who have broken my heart on emails this past 4 years.

but it's all love, guys. just a fun debate imo.

Can I say how much I fucking hate this 'if you say something the press also happen to say you must have no opinions of your own' bullshit. How about that they may have actually been correct once in a while?

well yeah i've called that a few times. how bout we all accept we're arguing our own opinions, and not that of the sun on one side or the LFC propaganda office on the other.

Get a life the lot of you :)

ha you read it all and you know you did

didn't at all...posted the above while i was waiting for a file to digitise...as opposed to eg ripping a fingernail off or making faces at my colleague through the blinds of the edit suite.

Has anyone ever thought of Rafa as an international manager? It seems like the major failings he's accused of - bad transfers, poor player development - wouldn't be factors, while his great strengths would be?

The delays/limited time to work on tactics would eliminate maybe his greatest strength though?

i'm sure he'll eventually end up Spain manager but they usually wait to hire someone 70+

"It's a real challenge," said Benitez in a press conference at the Pizza Hut Park in Texas

On the state he left Liverpool in, Benitez said: "We left a good team, a very good team. A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic.

"When I left the club, (Javier) Mascherano, (Yossi) Benayoun and (Albert) Riera were there."

what a horrible little snake of a man.

i still love him.

love's like that i suppose

i love that he says that when HE was the one who fucking never played riera/yossi. wtf would have been wrong with yossi on the right and riera on the left. oh i know, TACKLING BACK AND BEING A CARTHORSE are the only qualities that matter to rafa.

srsly why hate benitez, he's less of a shit than most high-level managers, even if he is amusingly intransigent and strange

his inter team are playing better football than mourinho's lot last year, despite losing one of their most entertaining players over the summer

The whining, the blame-shifting lies, the football, the rubbish decisions for no reason, and where mourinho's steez is trolling that makes me lol, rafa's steez makes my teeth grind.

all high level managers are shits, fine- i just have a personal favourite.

hey remember when he generously gave sami hyypia a whole eight minutes at the end of a meaningless home fixture for his final appearance? great guy, good times.

they'd still be in the CL if they kept hyypia

yeah i watched a leverkusen game last year and he could certainly still cut it. dunno about now but in any case that's the kind of guy you keep around the club, or so you would think.

Roy Hodgson said he wanted to bring him back.

he was offered a contract with a coaching role at the end of it but he wouldn't have been guaranteed a game every week. great player.

he's less of a shit than most high-level managers

he's dangled the carrot and i've had a big wet bite. go on then nakh, like who? if people are going to be cunts then being upfront about it should count for something i feel.

Giving you a good honest bollocking >>>>> passive aggression and silent treatment.

zactly

I mean, you KNOW Fergie will be a complete cunt to you if you're not playing well but at the same time how often do you hear players whingeing about having to play for him? Same with Mourinho.

i would agree except it'd make me a massive hypocrite. give 'em a hell they can barely notice Raf!

josé mourinho is a complete cunt, remember his comments re ronaldo circa 2007 about his lack of class and education (like....almost all footballers from poor backrgrounds ie 90% of them)

ferguson by all accounts is extremely unpleasant

mancini is similar

advocaat / spalletti are happy to work for zenit who refuse to sign black players

lippi tried to force players to sign for his son's agency

mircea lucescu burns down orphanages

manuel pellegrini denies the armenian genocide, just for the lulz

for all his 'issues' benitez is supposed to be fairly humble/affable at a personal level

Trying to think of actually successful managers that aren't complete cunts. Guardiola and Ancelotti seem alright. Hiddink maybe, apart from the whole sex tourism thing.

robson, rijkaard, hodgson, aguirre, pellegrini, ranieri, trapattoni maybe (have managed at a high level although 'successful' is arguable)

think wenger is 'unjustly maligned', shares some of benitez' thin-skinned aversion/paranoia but is personally honourable and sincere....too honest in his dishonesty tho

mircea lucescu burns down orphanages

manuel pellegrini denies the armenian genocide, just for the lulz

Hiddink maybe, apart from the whole sex tourism thing.

^^^how do you guys even hear about these sort of things? Like I still am unsure of what the CONTROVERSIAL MOD EDIT to do with Keegan is let alone everyone elses dark secrets? i.e. i want into the secret underbelly goddamnit!

dunno about hiddink but the two i cited were in jest......

see with football increasingly turning into professional wrestling storylines, i couldn't tell :( just assumed they were actually that evil

yeah i think if lucescu rly did do that, you would have heard

You guys. Would imagine Hiddink keeps quiet about the armenian genocide though tbh

arry redknapp is a d-day denier

he's a nicer person than fergie, who is obviously a mean, rude, classless bastard. but i'd imagine fergie is a "nicer" read as fairer manager. rafa has fucked up some careers.

yeah i think it's not enough to just say 'irl' about this as if that's what we're all gonna make the call on.

"I think that Mr Hodgson, he doesn't understand. Every single press conference is even worse than the last one. He's talking about things that he doesn't know. And some people cannot see a priest on a mountain of sugar."

no idea what this means but it's a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub8NeH_eQ8k

ay! el azucar robado!

Wow that is the best quote. Gonna start using "cannot see a priest on a mountain of sugar" in regular conversation.

This guy is batshit mental, esp. considering I think every press conference of his Liverpool career was kinda worse than the last one form.

is it sort of a "some people wouldn't know a x if it hit them in the face"?

Don't think Rafa made a weekly habit of offending the fans and playing staff in public. Hodgson lied about Rafa banning Kenny from Melwood and implied that Rafa didn't want anything to do with him. Not got a problem with Rafa setting the record straight and telling Roy to button it. In fact I'm fucking delighted.

i'm not over the moon with roy and have serious doubts about him, but looking around forums etc there is quite a vitriolic hatred for him from liverpool fans. it's not going to do us any good....

liverpool fans/fans on forums in acting ott shocker

yes unlike the moderate and civilised debates of other football fans. on arsenal forums it's a furious struggle to decide if wenger is more ornette coleman than pharoah sanders...

"/fans on forums"

Also Wenger is so more Pharoah than Ornette.

football forums are like some outer circle of hell

tb

RIP

just in case i'm not online when the inevitable happens

http://imgur.com/yRLsi.jpg

he'll leave football a very rich man. Astounding, tbh.

He'll get them knocked out of everything else but end up appeasing the fans by winning them the World Club Cup, essentially condensing his Liverpool career down into six months.

this week: spurs win group, rafa fucking things up, jol out, devil with dmac's soul

jol quit, but yeah the hens are repatriating in order to chill

Every time this thread is bumped and he hasn't been sacked breaks my heart a little bit more.

Threads needs my favourite banner for completeness:

http://imgur.com/QaPhC.jpg

http://www.footballfancast.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Ferguson-and-Benitez.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2010/12/15/1292453643310/Rafael-Benitez-001.jpg

only a matter of time before he's in a thomas the tank engine movie imo

the fat controlfreak

http://www.iol.co.za:80/polopoly_fs/intermilan-1.1002782!/image/3240558531.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300/3240558531.jpg

best manager to win the biggest prize in club football, I think that settles it

fuv. This cun that is all imll

cinider thay updaye frm 9tpub

yay

now he's talking in the third person

not a tez h8r but picking fights with moratti is making him look like a recidivist choad

chill big man, don't pick fights with bigger men

Yes, but he only needs to buy "4 or 5 good players" to make it right. Again.

What's he gone and said now? Blaming it on the guy who's bankrolled five straight scudetti and the Champions League, does that really have the air of a successful strategy?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/gossip_and_transfers/9302348.stm

"There are three possibilities for the club," the former Liverpool boss said in Abu Dhabi. "One, 100% support for the coach and buy four or five players to build a stronger team with competition among the players to be able to carry on winning matches and trophies.

"Two, carry on like this without a project, without planning, and go ahead with one person to blame, for the whole season.

"The third," he added, "is to speak to my agent to reach an agreement if there is not this support. Simple."

I'm sure Ronan or Darragh will have the detail, but wasn't he only 4 or 5 players from winning the title right up until he left Liverpool?

But Inter's president Massimo Moratti told his coach: "It's not the moment to ask for reinforcements."

That'll be a no then.

How is he meant to work there with a chairman like Moratti clearly undermining him and his abilities?

I know, it's unbelievable, isn't it?

when he gets sacked from inter he'll have earned prob about 15 mil this past twelve months for refusing to do his job

treble winners + rafa + £100m transfer fund = might just about scrape a champions league place.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa omg.

this guy is a fucking loony bin.

like i just thought he was a bad manager before but this is shocking.

how the fuck can you take over a treble winning side only minus a balotelli (albeit with an added coutinho) and say there is no plan? HOW DO YOU THINK THEY WON THE FUCKING TREBLE?

This guy IS THE WORST FUCKING MANAGER.

Also, you might think that 'having a plan' would be the manager's job, at least on some level

this is really quite strange, or would be for any other manager. maybe he knows he is going to be fired but wants to make the best case possible, combining moratti's harsh words after the defeat to werder bremen with some supposed withholding of support to make it look like constructive dismissal.

there isn't really any way to cut it that doesn't make 'four or five players' sound ridiculous. certainly inter's squad is fairly old, and the injury to samuel shows that they could use a little cover, but the same applies to just about any team. he does however have coutinho and biabany -- surely preferable to balotelli in benitez eyes, can you imagine those two working together? adding several new players of similar quality would give inter a ridiculously top heavy squad.

still i find it interesting in the context of benitez' control freakery. mourinho is another who would like total control, and he overstepped the mark at chelsea when he thought he could leverage his personality cult among players & supporters against abramovich. but these days he seems basically aware of his own limitations, whereas benitez clearly asks for the impossible.

by contrast his inter team this year have sometimes been playing a chaotic free-flowing football that is quite unlike him. it's almost like he knew he had signed up for a suicide mission in taking over after mourinho's treble, and consequently has a sort of carefree lucidity. it's difficult to see how his career recovers now, but in his yearning TOTALCONTROL of all aspects of the team, individual psychologies entirely neglected and players treated as mere automata, he sat set a high water mark for determinist folly in football.

benitez_howling_at_the_cosmos.ogg

wonder what odds you can get on rafa eventually becoming england manager

12/1

That has to happen, surely? Would be the best thing ever.

thing is that my 'houllier is a better manager' line is being dismantled at villa

roy hodgson wants 5 or 6 new players in january.

yes but he took over a shit team and his first move was to sell his best player because the club was going broke

no no roy hodgson took over a team that had finished second only 18 months before iirc

lol, clutching at straws maybe. point is, reckon it's fair enough to say they need more quality in the event of an injury crisis. maybe not the best timing. i am starting to enjoy some of the fury rafa brings about though.

ah yeah he burns off calories sure

ps were you around for jol?

"injury crisis" inter in their last game:

Julio Cesar, Chivu (Stankovic 54), Maicon, Cordoba, Zanetti, Lucio, Motta (Mariga 87), Cambiasso, Eto'o, Milito (Biabiany 70), Pandev.
Subs Not Used: Castellazzi, Sneijder, Muntari, Materazzi, Alibec, Benedetti, Santon, Nwankwo, Orlandoni.

Hmmmm must be so hard to start 11 internationals incl. eto'o, milito, lucio, cesar and maicon while having sneijder on the bench.

totes feel his pain, wouldn't swap not having cesc, vermaelan and rvp for only having to play your first team.

RIP

just in case i'm not online when the inevitable happens

― calpolaris (nakhchivan), Sunday, 21 November 2010 18:04 (4 weeks ago)

surprised it's taken this long already

moratti must be preparing some really long fuck you speech when he reads him the riot act

rafa confuses me. won la liga twice with valencia, but subsequently seems he's shite?

tactically he is brilliant, he just can't manage for shit

tbf barca were combusting post-rivaldo/luis enrique and lol galacticos too busy being drunk and famous to be great

see i wasn't paying much attention to spain at the time. his signings are a good laugh generally.

he had a p good director of football at valencia iirc

"Benítez e' Fuori!" [Benítez is out] read the front page of this morning's Gazzetta dello Sport. The paper names Zenit St Petersburg manager Luciano Spalletti as favourite to replace Benítez, with former AC Milan manager Leonardo as an alternative.

"There are three possibilities for the club," said Benítez after the game. "One, 100 per cent support for the coach and buy four or five players to build a stronger team with competition among the players to be able to carry on winning matches and trophies.

"Two, carry on like this without a project, without planning, and go ahead with one person to blame, for the whole season. The third is to speak to my agent to reach an agreement if there is not this support. Simple."

Oh wow, just wow. If only he'd inherited a treble-winning squad or something, then he might not be in such a difficult position.

I wish I could remember what game it was, but earlier in the season was the first time I'd seen Coutinho and Inter were something like 4-0 up and rampant (I don't think it was against Spurs but it could've been). Coutinho was fabulous, trying all sorts of audacious things and having great fun, until Rafa came charging out to the edge of the technical area and started directing the lad around. He didn't have a clue what he was supposed to do and eventually ended up static somewhere at left midfield. He kept looking round for guidance, getting none and then shuffling forward or sideways five or six yards as if hoping that would make everything make sense. It was kind of heartbreaking.

sounds exactly like the spurs game

when this happens can we lock thread and declare me winner of all long-running hotly contested ilx footy debates pls

If Rafa does leave Inter, there are suggestions that the Italians will target England boss Fabio Capello which has obviously resulted in the British media suggesting that Roy Hodgson would be favourite to replace him.

KOPTALK sources claim that John Henry and Tom Werner have shortlisted Rafa as a possible candidate to take over from Hodgson - who will be replaced at the end of the season if not before - but we can't see that happening as things currently stand. Just because they haven't ruled him out (as yet) doesn't mean that they will seriously consider bringing him back.

Supposedly Rafa's daughter was reregistered at her old school on the Wirral a couple of weeks ago :/

just you darragh? team game iirc

that would be beyond hilarious

its too much

Roy to Inter, Capello to Liverpool, Rafa to England.

Capello to Inter, Moyes to England, Rafa to Everton

Rafa for England, Big Sam to Inter, that'd work too

Capello to Blackburn would be ;_;

rafa to sheffield united

'arry to Engerland, Rafa to Spurs.

rafa to newcastle, pardew to arsenal, wenger to barcelona

England opting for Hodgson over Redknapp has a ring of likelihood to it, especially given the first thing Hodgson would say upon getting the job would be "we have to be honest about the fact we are not one of the best teams in the world" which would be both true and A+++ trolling.

keane/staunton dream team for ingerlad, payback for big jack

Man, the tabloid response to that first Hodgson press conference would be brutal. The FA should just give Harry a life contract if that's the priority.

I think we can easily say that making fun of an unfortunate twitch is yes, the priority

MILAN - (ANSA) "Stay relaxed. I'm not going to speak today, I don't want to create arguments with anyone." These were the only comments spared by the Inter president Massimo Moratti for the journalists waiting outside the Saras offices. (ANSA)

"I have not been sacked. Many people that read the newspapers have called me up to ask me if I had been dismissed.

"It's not true, I am surprised that it has been reported as a done thing.

"I am currently on holiday to rest and then to begin again.

"For months I have heard and read things that are not true."

The Spaniard's rant following Inter's win on Saturday was not welcomed by Moratti but Benitez defended his position and even re-emphasised his desire for financial backing.

"The president (Moratti), with whom I had spoken prior to that press conference, had already left Abu Dhabi, and the only possibility was to publicly say something which was evident," said Benitez.

"I don't want to put the president under pressure, but I had spoken to him in the past about my project.

"My project was to include a series of useful players immediately as well as young players for the future.

"Moratti, with whom I have a correct and respectful relationship, liked it.

"The president has to take a decision regarding the line we want to follow.

"While I am here (at Inter) I will work in the best possible way in order for the team to continue to win.

"But in order to win and to do well it is necessary to bring in reinforcements.

"Injuries have hindered us and I don't want this to happen again.

"The transfer market begins soon and hence, this is the time to speak openly about acquisitions."

you shuff yer maaf you filfy caaah

Apparently his sacking has been confirmed by his daughter posting about it on Facebook. Obviously learnt nothing from the Konchesky family.

hodgson- this is not my mess
mourinho- benitez should thank me for world club cup

The demise of this man makes me smile.

Inter were fucking stupid in the first place, glad they didn't wait too long to sort their mistake.

dunno if paying him 3 yrs ridic wages to leave after 6 months is any kind of victory

that v. relegation and losing yr best players and bankruptcy

even i dont think he'd have gotten them relegated tbf. he'd def have kept them top 15.

well over his full contract obv

oh ya, def

this is like the most slow motion dismissal in history

just fucking get done with it

not his mo, rly

moratti basically said earlier that rafa would have got got long ago, but he's learned to be patient with managers

right attitude, wrong instance

god i feel so impatient

he's just sitting there with a .44, reading the complete works of petrarch to a fatally wounded benitez before administering the coup de grace

KILL KILL KILL

nah u got him all wrong, it's the last rites. this is where benitez absolves himself through ritual mantras before passing on.

kinda like the last year at liverpool what what

hodgson saying this isn't his mess is bullshit though. his tactics have sucked and he's full of shite.

http://www.joe.ie/football/football-news/rafa-benitez-has-been-sacked-confirmed-008166-1

I assume this is not Darragh and is kosher.

Oh wait, Sky Sports have caught up.

Moratti, asked if Rafa Benitez is still the Inter coach: "Yes, he is, at this precise moment"

Liverpool as a Christmas present then?

Has any other club reappointed a manager they sacked that quickly? I have a vague memory of someone recently (2-3 years) changing owners and bringing the same person back in <6 weeks but can't think who it was?

Seriously, why would Liverpool reappoint him?

NESV are already on record as saying he's #1 on their list as manager. If Roy was sacked he'd be theman they were after.

Or, an alternative reading, having told Roy today he's got nothing to spend in January (and reading his press conference this doesn't seem outlandish) they were only waiting on Rafa being available, which he now is.

They really said that? Truly I don't understand football. If it does happen, I hope he pays back the £6m at least.

That would require some honour.

Plus they've also said their priority is building on the reserve and youth teams. As is aid on the takeover saga thread

Players bought for the reserves/youth team under Benitez:

Antonio Barragan, Godwin Antwi, Bezian Idrizaj, Jack Hobbs, Miki Roque, Paul Anderson, Ryan Crowther, David Martin, Martin Hansen, Astrit Ajdarevic, Alex Cooper, Jordy Brouwer, Fransisco Duran, Ronald Huth, Andras Simon, Dean Bouzanis, Krisztian Nemeth, Ryan Babel, Daniel Pacheco, Sebastian Leto, Gary Stevens, Mikel San Jose, Daniel Sanchez Ayala, Garard Bruna, David Amoo, Damien Plessis, Emiliano Insua, Charles Itandje, Lauri Darra Valle, Vincent Weijl, Vitor Flora, Diego Cavalieri, Nikola Saric, Emmanuel Mendy, David N'Gog, Peter Gulacsi, Zsolt Poloskei, Christopher Buchtmann, Victor Plasson, Chris Mavinga and (arguably) Danny Wilson.

he's clearly got an eye for the young boys so seems tailor made for the job.

sorry, "I said"

and what an eye it is too

bet damien commoli just spends his days wandering round melwood wondering how on earth he could possibly add to this argosy of talent

damien commolli who nesv are "on record" as just hiring for the long-term and and under whom benitez would refuse to operate btw

if i was jwh i'd just wait til the end of the season and get owen coyle in tbh

or maybe that villas-boas if he's really for realsies

And since the last post I've made...

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01790/rafa_1790651b.jpg

£50,000 in compensation.

spanish lack of succession

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1429/photopd.jpg

It's strange how a manager with a proven track record and multiple trophy wins, such as Benitez is portrayed as an incompetent buffoon., whilst a bloke with a single FA cup win in 25 years of management,such as Redknapp is portrayed as a genius.

No one thinks of Redknapp as a genius.

cant believe redknapp didnt win league at bournemouth tbh.

Benitez makes tactical/managerial/pr decisions that most fans would consider stupid/questionable. Enough of these decisions prove sufficiently memorably counterproductive that a manager like redknapp, that makes fairly obvious decisions, seems the picture of common sense by comparison.

Simple enough concept, imo. Rafa overthinking everything neither makes him a genius nor a better manager than redknapp. And rafa being a cunt (publicly, publicly) harms his effectiveness far more than his vaunted tactical ability gains him.

The middle bit's about right. The odd thing for me is that tactically Rafa's outstanding, but put him in a scenario beyond the intricacies of winning a particular football match - man management, strategy, allocating resources - and it goes to shit as often as not. He'd be the ideal number two, or to have a director of football handling the high-level stuff, but it appears that he'd never countenance either of those things.

i'm not actually convinced of the tactically outstanding part, tbph, but it's accepted wisdom at this stage.

Thing is for tactics to really work they have to fit the players you've got and their mentality, otherwise it's just abstract theorising.

i suppose when you take out pr, man management and transfers, if you accept that he's professional-management level at all then you logically have to tick 'tactical genius'

benitez p much inspired the thread i started about the modern managerial skillset.

Ismel prob right on 'coach' being rafa's position. Under commolli (lol) he might be half decent.

"Tactical genius" = mostly assigning your best players to their preferred positions and assigning somebody to kick the shit out of the opposition's creative outlet.

second part redundant when that actually is mascherano's best position tbf

I think the greater part of tactical knowledge is being able to respond to developments in a game in progress and adjust what the team is doing accordingly. Stubborn managers frequently struggle in this respect and infuriate the fans with bizarrely timed substitutions and failure to adjust to glaring on-pitch failings.

what i'll give rafa, for his whole time at liverpool, that was in any way above what you'd expect from anyone in his position;

Dour negativity worked brilliantly in europe

Torres, reina, alonso and mascherano all worked out

Had the perfect publicly contrarian personality to get fanatical scouse support

Making them tough to beat and realising that carragher couldnt get censured in any way in the league was good enough for second in a terrible league that one time.

Stop denigrating Liverpool 2009, they were great (long sequence of uninterested draws in Jan/Feb apart). By all means attack the other five years if you must.

the thread i started about the modern managerial skillset

Did I miss this or am I just forgetting? Would quite like to see it broken down - Redknapp would score highly on man management I feel, and possibly strategy, but not so much on tactics. And he doesn't appear to see allocation of resources as part of his job at all.

i'm sure i did start one, but would struggle to locate it while surfing on the phone tbh.

I think the greater part of tactical knowledge is being able to respond to developments in a game in progress and adjust what the team is doing accordingly. Stubborn managers frequently struggle in this respect and infuriate the fans with bizarrely timed substitutions and failure to adjust to glaring on-pitch failings.

This is why Mourinho wins, basically.

xp could have just been a detour on one of several threads, tho- off season, wc2010, maybe this one.

mourinho's plan a is usually p good, read quotes from fatty lumplard to the effect that each player gets a folder before each game on the opposition.

ismael, you're failing miserably as a biter here btw. I suppose chris, venga and ronan et al will all show when i'm on lunch

Sorry, I am too placid and reasonable to be a good goadee. Also too fickle and unscouse in my affections - Rafa used up my goodwill a long time ago, and I really don't want him back.

course he could end up at spurs pretty easily if capello goes. Him or woy.

Genuinely tough call imo, obv like woy more, and we've always worked better under a man manager than tactician imo.

but it would be nice to see jenas and bentley get rafa'd

Bentley's basically been Rafa'd anyway.

nobody does it better tho

Actually being Harry'd = get dropped for a year and come back twice the player. Being Rafa'd = get dropped and never heard from again.

I hear Aquilani is currently running tings in the Juve midfield though.

all woys fault, that

Would be happy with Rafa going back to Anfield and running a sweepstake on how quickly he can get Liverpool fans to turn against NESV for "not investing seriously".

He'll probably use the same excuse when the Benitez children are vocally disappointed with their Christmas presents.

"I am fully focussed on buying you Kinectimals for the Xbox 360 and the Gossip Girl DVD box set for Christmas"

"i asked for a playstation and i received a game gear. You will need to ask fr christmas why"

Hahaha.

I love Rafa but I don't think I'd want him back. Not yet. The press would make his job impossible, there are still fans who don't like him, and this thread would be unbearable! He needs to take some time out, recharge his batteries, spend time with his family, and stay out of the spotlight for a while. I'd have loved him to have stayed at Inter and won everything, but he did get them playing better football than Mourinho did, and he gained the respect of the fans, who were singing for him to stay after the Club World Cup victory. General concensus is that he was right to challenge Moratti, but it probably wasn't the best time to do so.

I think the greater part of tactical knowledge is being able to respond to developments in a game in progress and adjust what the team is doing accordingly. Stubborn managers frequently struggle in this respect and infuriate the fans with bizarrely timed substitutions and failure to adjust to glaring on-pitch failings.

This is why Mourinho wins, basically.

Jonathan Wilson says much the same about Harry Redknapp, http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/dec/01/the-question-harry-redknapp-tactically

Chris, have you actually watched this Inter side? Because I have 3 times. Once was the 4-3 against Spurs where yes, they played some nice stuff (until he told Coutinho to cut it out). The other two times they looked like a nasty bunch who didn't know what they were doing and were less pleasing on the eye than Mourinho's.

Excellent article on 'Arry and Cloughie, that.

o lol

o holy lol

inter now denying he's been sacked

dude is like football schizophrenia, he makes crazy shit happen wherever

x-posts, yeah, i have been watching inter. fans and players seemed to be happy, eto'o said he prefers benitez's pressing game - it's no coincidence that he's already scored more goals than he managed in the whole of last season.

cant believe he was complimentary about his current manager.

Inter have been a disaster under benitez, so far.

why is it so unbelievable that eto'o would credit benitez for encouraging the team to win the ball higher? given that other teams have strengthened more than inter, and that inter have had bad luck with injuries, i wouldn't say it's been a 'disaster'. unlucky, but far from a disaster. still have 2 games in hand.

all teams have bad luck with injuries. its not a good excuse anymore. last season inter had bigger injury problems imo (curse of their left backs, no stankovic, muntari or zanetti for long periods means at least 2 positions weren't covered for most of the season), didn't stop them then.

muntari is waste tbf

ageing squad, hardly strengthened in the summer. chelsea have had bad injuries and their form's been shocking.

defending benitez at inter is stupid

he's done some interesting stuff tactically but in terms of any aspect of management that involves considering players as ppl, he's an unmitigated disaster

ageing squad, barely strengthened in summer, trouble with injuries.

Guess hodgson is doin pretty well so far all told.

defending benitez at inter is stupid... itt. tough crowd

1x champions league (& runner-up), UEFA cup, UEFA super-cup, world club cup (& runner-up), FA cup, italian super cup and 2x la liga and UEFA manager of the year

nuh bad for a high-functioning buffoon

it's extremely impressive for a high functioning buffoon, in fact. we've not disputed that.

defending benitez at inter is stupid... itt. tough crowd

― abbott & coztello (cozen), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 19:14 (52 minutes ago)

yeah cuz every1 else is totes chill about it

i've enjoyed watching inter this year cuz eto'o has been in form again and it's less dull than mourinho's inter, but taking a treble winning squad to this in under sixth months is srsly shit

then came 'four or five players'

his prior successes have no bearing on what a fucking disaster he's been at inter

sorry guys, i think i may have let my hatred of benitez blind me to the fact that he was good at valencia and won a cup with houllier's liverpool. mea maxima culpa innit

lol settle petal. I don't even have a strong view on it. afaic managing, like networking, is voodoo and the guy has won some in his time

so... if I have it right, houllier's getting some of the credit for rafa's champions league win but rafa's not getting any concession for mourinho's /exhaustion/ of his treble winners? ;)

has he actually been sacked btw? guardian still not updated their earlier report

as opposed to all those barca players exhausted after their (much more recent) world cup win but soldiering on anyway?

it's up in the air, which is magnificent imo, just exceptional fuckery xp

Moratti: "This situation is a bit tricky"
Wednesday, 22 December 2010 16:41:05 [rss full] [rss text] Delicious [permanent link]permalink
[FOTO Wednesday, 22 December 2010 16:41:05]

MILAN - Massimo Moratti gave a brief interview to the journalists that were waiting for him outside the Saras offices in the centre of Milan.

Inter.it brings you the full comments of the Nerazzurri president:

Mr president, we were wondering who you were going to lunch with?

"Don't worry. I'm going home."

Therefore we shouldn't expect Benitez's sacking today?

"Nothing should be expected. I swear to you I have not had the means to speak to anyone."

Is it true Inter are working to rescind Benitez's contract?

"No. We are trying to understand some things. This situation is a bit tricky. What happened was quite surprising. It is clear therefore, that we are looking at it from every angle."

So today, Benitez is still the Inter coach?

"As long as he is there..."

machines don't get tired

ok, houllier gets some credit for assembling a squad that benitez could win a cl with, something benitez never managed to build himself.

mourinho doesn't get any blame for leaving a team of pretty inarguable winners, rly

i dont think that's ridic inconsistent or anything

moratti sounds addled

as I said I don't have a strong view. what did he ever do to you? or is it a principle thing

just can't ever imagine hating a manager so seemingly vociferously when he doesn't manage the club I follow but w/e

wikipedia still has him as their head coach so I'm taking that as definitive for the mo

there's a hitchcockian back story about what he did to dmac but we're yet to unearth the full grisly story

it's thought a gruff dutchman may have been involved too

i was a pretty strong supporter when he joined liverpool, actually.

after about two years his nonsense decisions and pretty vituperative shifting of responsibility for them began to grind me down. after that, lfc/rafa supporting mates slowly turned me into the broken spitemonger u see before you.

is it cos he had a lower net spend (cumulative & average) while consistently out-performing spurs in the league throughout his 5 years

/flees thread

did xabi alonso actually leave because rafa alienated him (which is what my mate told me earlier)? I don't recall off-hand

gtfo giving houllier, or indeed anyone, credit for assembling that Liverpool squad

not rly a 'useful metric' when he's left them with a bloated squad full of shite that's amortised terribly, whereas for all his sins comlolli left the spurs squad in fairly fine fettle

did xabi alonso actually leave because rafa alienated him (which is what my mate told me earlier)? I don't recall off-hand

― abbott & coztello (cozen), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 20:39 (1 minute ago)

yes

rafa tried to get barry instead, etc

Extra bonus points for mention of 'Net spend' or comparisons with Arsene Wenger.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Friday, July 9, 2010 2:27 PM (5 months ago)

^^^^^^

tbh

martin jol made me hate all underperforming yet sympathised millionaire managers. rafa became the next most appropriate target of my ire once that fat buffoon had awoken it

and i reckon i'm more sympathetic to rafa than most of u heathens

well, one of we heathens certainly

just seems like a happy go lucky guy who has found himself down on his luck

just a chill bro fallen on hard times and £10m compensation a year

do think he is actually & paradoxically not that weird or unpleasant at 'a human level' fwiw

the constant refusal to accept responsibility / willingness to blame everyone else for every little thing was prob what turned me on him. sometimes it may have been justified, but it always seemed to me that he'd hang his own players much quicker than most other managers, and his constant shiteing on about ferguson, wenger, the press, mourinho when rly he was making a lot godawful decisions in a consistently repugnant manner just became laughable.

xp in quieter interviews he's always come across as ok, but i mean even the slightest justification sends him straight into brat mode.

he should have known his limits and not tried psy-ops w/ ferguson and mourinho

way above his level there

nonsense darragh, pretty much every manager does that except Roy and look where it's getting him. Rafa does come across as unlikeable imo, but so what, it's not a popularity contest - except it is, which is something I have a big problem with culturally.

Alienating your own guys, plus the unfathomable decisions and seeming totally unaware of why they piss people off, that's enough surely?

not to rafa's extent, most with more justification tbph.

everything is a popularity contest. lyfe man.

alienating his own guys because of his public blaming of them for his own failings, for the most part. linked.

popularity contest based on doing your job well would be more useful imo than a popularity contest based on being good company for a drink or whatever, but that isn't how football seems to operate in this country

rmde

it's true tho, jacques santini was only appointed cuz levy heard keysy saying santini was 'a great laugh, loves his whores'

enough with the rmde now I think

you say it like 'doing your job well' is undisputed.

popularity is v useful when that's in question, in any job, in a public job in particular.

popularity can be very useful amongst a team of players that you're asking to perform for you twice a week.

popularity among the press isn't necessary, but at the same time i struggle to think of any manager in britain excepting ferguson and arguably wenger that get very far without it. and rafa never built the base those guys had to allow him not to court the press.

popularity amongst opposing fans- true, this doesn't matter a jot. but i'm pretty sure that a complete lack of respect from them (and this is pretty much where benitez was well before the end imo) unsettles your own fans, particularly when the shit starts to hit the fan closer to home. when utd, spurs and arsenal fans are all happier for your manager to stay than half of your own guys are, that's gotta be a question.

it's a retarded argument

how is this country's football notably more nepotistic than say italy, where there are often only one or two foreign managers in serie a

the smug cosiness of the ssn/after dinner speaker circuit oughtn't to be confused with thinking among ppl that actually matter

LIKE US

the baffoon act, the shit team, the inability to take blame, the alienation of his players, the lol 4000 signings that just disappeared... really i hate him because many liverpool fans still refuse to give up the ghost and say he was shit. he was such a fucking failure, it is ok to admit it. he won one big trophy - well done. came below everton that same season fyi and only got there because of a bad lino decision. houillier was SUCH a better fucking manager at Liverpool, won more, and the general scouse opinion is hatred and resentment and they can't stand Woy so fuck 'em and def. fuck Rafa.

only got there because of a bad lino decision

oho, don't get me started on that one - reasonable argument for J Mourinho looking to buoy up his players, stupid argument for anyone else

yeah tbf nothin dodge abt that call.

houllier only has 2 league cups (and something called the nitro cup?) over rafa at liverpool to be fair. I think most people would swap 1 uefa cup + 2 league cups for 1 european cup

had some year in 2001 tho mind

i know that the european cup is a huge prize that's coloured that year and prob the few after, but 2001 is as good as it's been for liverpool fans since i've had an interest in football imo.

2009 was the top year imo - cups are great and all, but an actual tilt at the title with the odd period of being genuinely irresistible is something else. Which makes 2010 so crushing.

I guess if you wanted tbf both of them actually did pretty well, realistically. Liverpool don't have the resources to realistically expect to be winning the league, so being mostly a fixture from 2nd-4th is about as good as can be hoped for, and you'd expect the odd cup success on top of that.

In that context the CL is bizarre, and reaching the final again positively freakish; weighed against a tendency to maddening self-sabotage. You'd take that over consistency though, seeing as the lows never quite tipped beyond lol into, say, Leeds or Newcastle.

well yeah, i mean spurs have been genuine relegation candidates two or three times since i started following them, really last season with the courts was as bad as it got for youse.

WOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED UNDER HOULLIER THO

'was liverpool's second place finish in 2009 ever actually a title challenge' needs to be a thread.

ok as an arsenal fan* i feel i am allowed to say that 4 points may be good and all but liverpool were never going to do it in 2009. never. utd always had a lock on the title. i lived with two liverpool fans at the time and even they didn't believe it was ever actually going to happen.

*see the season before.

lol xpost

Only in retrospect. United were wobbly as fuck in March and April, Liverpool battered them at Old Trafford, and don't forget United had to pull out a forgotten heroic run of their own (inc Macheda goal) to actually claim it - nine straight wins I think it was, which is only a little short of the famous Arsenal run that clinched it in 1998. Liverpool were still top on 23rd of April, and even if it was still unlikely then the fact that it was still possible to the extent of being maybe a one-in-three shot does not equal 'never going to happen'.

In any case, it's the long stretch of momentum that was the amazing thing, that string of 'never in doubt's was a great thing.

and no it does not need to be a thread

RIP big man.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Sport/Pix/pictures/2010/12/23/1293107694078/Internazionale-coach-Rafa-007.jpg

Must be up there with Big Sam and Sven in the money from compensation stakes.

but liverpool were never going to do it in 2009. never. utd always had a lock on the title.

complete bollocks. obv liv fans were gonna be all pessimistic.

new thread imo. Clearly a many faceted subject.

ah don't actually wanna have this argument for the thousandth time. no mind will be changed.

ah no in fairness i'm waverin

what next? sturridge transfer?

ok, houllier gets some credit for assembling a squad that benitez could win a cl with, something benitez never managed to build himself.

Came pretty close in 2007 though.

chris man, i cant do this with you again dude it's too real for both of us :)

Would you want rafa back at lfc now?

i have come around to rafa being the best england manager ever:

i. lives for cup comps
ii. loves trolling the english press
iii. can understand scouse

leonardo installed at inter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/9320450.stm

Benitez was sacked after six months in the job after asking the Inter board to back him in the transfer market

so not the full story

(good use of 'installed' btw, I like these words with specific technical football meanings)

x-posts - soz, just realising how angry i'm coming across on here! i really like rafa, not cos of some blind faith or obsession but because i believed in the vision he had and in what he was trying to do. he got liverpool. i'd love him to come back, but it's not gonna happen.

I was reading Pay As You Play in a haze last night and I'm sure it said Rafa was up there with Wenger, and far better than Ferguson or Mourinho, in transfer astuteness. I can't remember the argument, and it seemed skewed by expiry of contract being considered a massive loss, but not to that extent.

not at all chris, i was referring to previous heated discussions tbh

IK- it was skewed like a fox if that was the outcome

the protagonists on this thread are incapable of rational opinion.

rafional though

Let's just clear up here, rafa: actually won things at Liverpool, roy: will never win anything with anyone again.

that's rubbish though.

rafa started with an established top 3 side and gerrard and carragher at peak, roy started with, kindly, a bit of a fuckin shambles. what did rafa look like winning last year? or this year with an inarguably class outfit at inter?

I'd start an actual discussion except your dislike of rafa is the sort of rabid internet argument fodder that ceases to be about the topic. There's probably a similar argument going on total fishing messageboards or philatelists online, just with "lakeside carp world" or "johnson's centenary ha'penny red" in place of "rafa"

well that's a very reasonable position to take, i'm sure. what d'you propose instead then? dropping a fairly tatty rafence and refusing further discussion isn't all that satisfactory.

Presumably not if you need to convince the world rafael benitez is evil incarnate!

ha ha ha it's absolutely true tbf

it burns when ppl cant see it it burns

As always I am focussed on eating celebrations and getting drunk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ydPUprifs

haha the old brass eye retreat

let's hope cardiff don't ever get on his bad side eh

loooooooool

pardew at least had the good grace 'to have it made known' in a statement rather than ad libbing some shit excuse

rafa, deconstruct this game

Stankovic speaks:

“He insisted on immediately diving into his training programme with weights and a marathon run until we collapsed. He was persistent.

“The result was we had 30 injuries in October. We beat every record with regards to injuries and it’s because our muscles were on the verge of exploding. Each of us had at least two injuries on the go at once.”

the world of football currently has a rafa sized, rafa shaped caesura at its centre

little caesar more like

rafa

talk abt him

the things he has done

the person he could yet become

this week is a rooney week, next week the boss is back, week after i'm on hols, and tbh we've been thorough itt imo

i would like to identify his special mystery quality that makes ppl virulently wish for his endless failure

i share this wish but it comes from somewhere dark and is really not rational in the slightest

http://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/fAlMF.jpg

FUCK YOU RAFAAAAA see there it goes again

rafa talks about doing england again a lot, is he really going to take the newcastle or villa job if ever offered? sunderland even? it seems impossible to imagine

presumably his stock is still high enough in spain for a dece job to eventually crop up there

i have come around to rafa being the best england manager ever:

i. lives for cup comps
ii. loves trolling the english press
iii. can understand scouse

― irish xmas caek, get that marzipan inta ya (a hoy hoy), Friday, 24 December 2010 06:30 (8 months ago) Bookmark

^ kinda feeling this actually

pretty sure atletico madrid bought falcao just so benitez could get into a massive row within him in february next year

would be cool to face up the simmering resentment boom-bust punch n judy england show by putting in a boss people cannot stand str8 from the get go imo

besides dani alves and gareth barry are there any more players ppl can remember that rafa wanted but didnt get the fundz for? wondering what he would have built without the perennial excuse

malouda

oh yeah! vidic, or was that a fair and square gazumping?

he did have a moan about how slow the liverpool executive machinery worked iirc

omg

http://www.rafabenitez.com/web/index.php?act=mostrarContenidos&co=1032

"It is true that we were asking about the situation with him [Silva] but we are not happy with the situation now and he will not be a target for us."

“No, I don’t think we will sign him,” said Benitez. “I don’t want to say too much.”

Reports yesterday suggested Liverpool had been “fussy” and dragged their heels during contract negotiations with Chamakh’s representatives, who were eager for the player to move to Anfield.

heinze, though that wasn't funding.

Will rafa ever manage real or barca?

srsly deems u gotta see that video

"We know Villa is a very good player, we know the price and we know the players we have, so when you consider everything we decided he was one of the names, but at this moment, not our target."

"Keane is one of the other names and OK, we are still working with other names. We were in contact and we will see now."

on phone atm, but will check it asap

xposts. Off the top of my head: Malouda, Jovetic, Pato, Walcott, Ramsey, Alves, Simao Sabrosa.

dodged a few bullets there tho

ahaha yeah that vid is like a recording of the last thing d-mac will see as his life slips away

"Keane is one of the other names and OK, we are still working with other names. We were in contact and we will see now."

lolll i forgot how he used 'ok' in midsentence all the time

Bought my ticket for an Audience With Rafa btw. Can't wait!

and who knew he had eyes the colour of lizards

I once walked past Rafa on the way into work. I was so star struck that all I could manage was a smile and a nod of the head. I am a fucking idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Audience_with...#List_of_episodes

I imagine something like that plays on the inside of darragh's eyelids for :46 every time he prepares to post on this subject.

Understandable that Rafa was mocked for telling Moratti he needed three or four (was it 4 or 5?) players last December, but I'm not sure he was wrong.

48 	2008 	Jeremy Beadle 	presenter 	ITV 	16 May 2008 	146 	posthumous; hosted by Chris Tarrant[7]

2015 Rafael Benitez posthumous; hosted by Sam Allardyce

One of my favourite Rafa moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC3HzCVVV14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vtjf4SWr2E

would be cool to face up the simmering resentment boom-bust punch n judy england show by putting in a boss people cannot stand str8 from the get go imo

― r|t|c, Friday, 16 September 2011 01:28 Bookmark

http://www.fustar.info/wp-content/images/mclaren.jpg

Understandable that Rafa was mocked for telling Moratti he needed three or four (was it 4 or 5?) players last December, but I'm not sure he was wrong.

― boxall, Friday, 16 September 2011 01:51 (11 hours ago)

Santon plays for Mourinho and looks like the next Maldini every week, disappears under Rafa and then ends up a Newcastle player.
Coutinho looked like one the best five prospects floating around even getting his first Brazil cap, but Rafa made him play different tactically every week before just dropping him despite looking their most exciting midfielder. He has kinda disappeared since.
Mariga came in the Jan before Rafa and his form under Jose made him look like he was integrating well with the first team to eventually take a place in their starting xi. He got very little love from Rafa, was marginalised and had to go on loan to Sociedad.
Pandev, after coming from Lazio fucking with him, had his best form ever, CL winning form, under Mourinho, only to have 1 or 2 minor injuries and be pushed down the ranks until he ended up going out on loan. He got more games under Leonardo but Rafa fucked with his head, as Rafa often does, enough to make him not worth keeping around.

See, this is the most frustrating thing about Rafa. I can get past the dour tactics, the insane trolling, whatever. He seems to always blame others for his own problems and having the cheek to say 'i never knew i was taking over a shit team, moratti suckz, give me money' when he took over TREBLE WINNERS that had an extremely promising undercurrent of youth pushing players in their prime, well, gtfo.

And this is in no way a new thing. At Liverpool, in 6 years, he signed 99 players! Wenger in his decade and a half at Arsenal has signed about the same amount. And yet the players were always seemingly at fault, they were always a few more signings away because his current ones hadn't worked out properly. No shitting wonder that Pool went to Comolli to stop anyone like Rafa cocking up their transfer policy so spectacularly again any time soon.

yeah right smdh

think yr being a lil harsh

rafa was dreadful at inter but it's the effect on the senior players that seems most pervasive, they seem to have lacked an y motivation since may 2010

coutinho only began playing for inter when rafa took over, same as biabany

he was totally unrafa-like for his short tenure, playing very open football and looking quite exciting

BUT WHY PLAY TACTICS YOU ARENT USED TO IF IT IS GOING TO MAKE THE TEAM LOOK AND PLAY BAD?

No-one hires Rafa and says 'so, tiki-taka then'? No-one replaces a team handbuilt by Mourinho and says 'so, tiki-taka then?' Get the results first, change the system gradually.

Step 1: Hey lads, how about we ditch what made you so successful and have some fun?
Step 2: Ok, so our results lately haven't worked out, so lets continue having fun playing entertaining football.
Step 3: So results aren't going our way, i'm going blame you lot in the press. You obviously don't know what you are doing and i'm gonna go get angry at the chairman.
Step 4: ???????
Step 5: Profit

lol we battered them i remember lol

rafa was dreadful at inter but it's the effect on the senior players that seems most pervasive, they seem to have lacked any motivation since may 2010

― diouf est le papa du foot galsen merde lè haters (nakhchivan), Friday, 16 September 2011 13:26 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah if only remedying this sort of thing was part of a manager's basic job description eh

tbf though if we're making the comparison mourinho has permanently ruined his fair share of players too. not as many and never with the consequences as rafa has, but still

on his way to success, rarely as a direct factor in failure

that's what i was suggesting xp!

ppl at the time were saying motivation was most needed after the treble

they wanted a warnock, they got rafa

re-read thread it's awesome

This break's doing him good. He knows he's made mistakes, and he'll put them right. No idea what he'll do next - his family's settled here and he wants to stay England.

xxp nevertheless not a commendable trait of mourinho's

oh right soz nakh! (lol yes thanks for restating it in terms i could understand).

ok i know i should let it lie but... chris you are a psychopath

i dont see any job that would work for rafa. malaga maybe?

chris loves rafa like i hate jol, it's a positive trait imo

Absolutely.

malaga?

Too many resources.

lol

teams in driving distance of casa del rafa = half the epl so long as he doesnt mind managing one of whichever 72 lancashire mill town teams are in the league any given year