NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

rafa 4 chelsea or spurs, obviously???

I can imagine Fergie as a disembodied Futurama style head still managing Utd in the year 3000.

Time for a remake

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004UD5P.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

no he didn't...rafa built expectations. hodgson was going on like we were only good enough to finish 15th at best...

“I never truckled; I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. By God, I told them the truth.”

http://www.totalfoot3.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/roy_hodgson415-1.jpg

"I guarantee we will finish in the top four."

http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/1145/782/449/004/rafa-benitez-22.jpg

cmon which of these dudes are you gonna back? srsly now

that's not fucking lowering expectations! that's raising them!

i was more about him dismantling morale

expectations are for morons anyway

jol thought me that the hard way

taught innit

Jol (th)ou(gh)t

i do think Rafa was pretty unprotective of his players and willing to point the blame straight at them after a bad result

i dunno, he was infuriatingly positive after lots of shit performances. but i believe privately he was very bad with the players, so you seem to read anyway.

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uh xp

that's not really true, he would say they played well tons of times when they didn't for most of his reign.

only at the v end did he blame the players a lot.

oh we're doing this again. love rafa all time. darragh wrong. shrug

benitez blames players
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benitez blames pitch
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benitez blames owners
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benitez blames weather
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This is the part where I start hating every single one of you with a passion.

benitez blames everyone else
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:)

I'm currently reading Brian Reade's book about Hicks and Gillett. Bollocks to the lot of ya.

benitez blames players

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Information No results found for "darragh exaggerates google".

In fairness to Hodgson, you guys are talking to him like the ridiculous boardroom wrangling and the club being on the verge of administration was an irrelevance here. Liverpool were totally in the shit, Dalglish took over when they weren't. Hodgson didn't exactly make the best of a bad lot but I can hardly blame the players for being demotivated and underperforming under the cirumstances.

Also the nu-Kenny era so far wouldn't have looked anywhere near as impressive without a £20something million Uruguayan that Hodgson could never have afforded.

But obviously Dalglish > Hodgson.

No results found for "darragh exaggerates google"

hahaha

They look like a totally different team though Matt, that's the strangest thing about all of this - it's not just the same players running faster or trying a bit harder or crunching into tackles

But Hodgson fundamentally changed the way we defended and played football. That wasn't because the club was in the shit, it's because he was unwilling and unable to adapt. Everyone could see that Torres and Ngog upfront at Man City was going to end in disaster, apart from Nice Roy.

Benitez blames himself

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Information No results found for "darragh exaggerates google".

― Phelan Nulty (Local Garda),

outrageous fucking assertion

tho tbf i left out quotations marks, time constraints you understand

Most of those results are for "Benitez blames everyone but himself" tho funnily enough

"benitez blames"
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It's a real treat reading some of these. I'm sure I'll get bored before I reached 10,000.
Rafael Benitez Blames Inter Medics & Reluctance To Spend For Departure
Rafael Benítez blames Christian Purslow for Liverpool exit
Benitez blames Hicks, Gillett and Purslow for Liverpool's struggles in bizarre 'milk' rant
Rafael Benitez blames Rick Parry for Liverpool's failure to sign Gareth Barry
Rafa Benitez blames early Liverpool glory for ongoing troubles
Benitez blames Inter bosses for poor start (uh isn't that blaming himself?)
Benitez blames fatigue as Inter Milan held by Juventus
Rafa Benitez blames finances for Liverpool FC's Europa League loss to Atletico Madrid
Rafael Benitez blames mistakes for Aston Villa defeat... Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez condemned his players for making 'too many mistakes'

I know you could do this for anyone but still :)

"benitez shoulders blame"
5 results (0.14 seconds)
^all for the same article

i was tryin to find that option but had a brainfreeze

i blame the players, natch

Benitez blames Hicks, Gillett and Purslow for Liverpool's struggles in bizarre 'milk' rant

there's a superb one-act play of stunning wit & force knocking round somewhere about this, up and coming young irish playwright iirc

Similar turnaround when Hiddink took over from Scolari. Chelsea went from stuggling to beat Southend to being the best team in Europe (which they fucking well were).

Hodgson was wrong man at wrong club at wrong time. It happens. Doesn't make him a bad manager, mind.

Still don't get the Liverpol love for Rafa though. He over-performed and under-performed at different times, but never looked like he was taking them anywhere serious.

If he got the Chelsea job, I'd probably go and watch Sutton United for a couple of years.

Simple really. He got Liverpool.

x-post

But from what I can gather, Liverpool fans love Rafa cos they feel he loved the club and understood the fans and tried to protect both from the evil machinations of the Americans. It's not a football thing, it's an almost spiritual thing and is probably related to Liverpool fans believing their own propaganda about Liverpool being 'different' or 'special' rather than just a very successful club.

Some managers know how to push the right buttons with fans, they talk in a code that you think only you can pick up and understand. Mourinho is excellent at this. Rafa clearly was too.

It's just politics, though. Politics and propaganda. They tell you what you want to hear: 'we're not only different, we're also special'.

'This is a unique football club and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to help build something special here again.'

Says Rotherham's new assistant manager, Archie Blenkinsop.

It's not a football thing, it's an almost spiritual thing and is probably related to Liverpool fans believing their own propaganda about Liverpool being 'different' or 'special' rather than just a very successful club.

This'll happen with United once the Ferguson era is over. I think it's the combination of huge success and tragedy than does it.

Liverpool fans believing their own propaganda about Liverpool being 'different' or 'special' rather than just a very successful club

lol sorry but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11MQnQ8QjJs

liverpool are different and special...surely a chelsea fan would know this!

no other english club has the same vibe as you see in that video.

this is why rafa is loved too, cos the whole 2005 thing played into the manic passion and failure/success craziness blood pact of the fans and the club...the final itself couldn't have been more modern day liverpool.

Everyone thinks their club is different and special.

Well, we all try to make sense of the things that happen to us, and one way is through a sort of quasi-mystical belief in fate and the like. Liverpool fans can't accept that they were successful simply because of boring things like picking the best manager at the right moment, and then being in a position to sustain that over a number of decades.

You see it with psychogeographers, who ignore all the sociological, historical and topographical reasons that explain why certain areas retain certain characteristics and instead try to pin it all on Blake.

it's not about why they were successful, and yes everyone does think their club is different and special, but liverpool have atmosphere and culture which lots of other clubs don't. are we really arguing all clubs are exactly the same? barcelona are more exciting as a club than hull city too, and they were when they were in relegation zone too.

a wild idea...history might actually count for something??