Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

lol

Benitez has a propensity for zonal marking, which doesn't work in the Premier League.

srsly dude if that's all you've got stfu

Perhaps most worrying is that his appointment will include a transfer window. Unless interim means just to the end of the calendar year.

tbf he can't really fuck anything up between now and May unless they plummet out of the top 4 and i feel safe betting that won't happen

"What does that tell you? In England he won two things, both on penalties"

This argument makes me laugh so much. What did Ferguson won in England prior to his appointment at United?

ferguson hadnt managed in england to the tune of a couple hundred mil

Of all the available options, the guy who has a good working relationship with your out of form £50m striker is never going to be the worst.

xpost So didn't di Matteo.

that makes a perfect lack of sense

xp logic short-circuit?

Meaning that past experience in England shouldn't really be a prerequisite to hire a new manager for a club like Chelsea, and that even if it was one, hiring one that has a CV that includes a FA Cup, a second place finish, a CL h and as mentionned above, a good working relationship with your out of form expensive striker, shouldn't be that much of a problem. Honestly, as a fan of the glamorous Girondins de Bordeaux, watching a few Chelsea fans complain about having a Liga/CL winner as an interim manager is just baffling.

It's because they are irredeemable cunts.

Footage of a hoy hoy hearing the news of Rafa becoming Chelsea manager:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_xjBAd5G84

might be worth keeping a eye on

https://twitter.com/RAWK_Meltdown

That clip is over ten hours long, is it like that all the way through?

@RAWK_Meltdown 8h
Breaking news: Rafa Benitez has been sacked as manager of Chelsea

god knows, im not watching a ten hour clip

there is probably a beautiful goal by Torres hidden somewhere in those 10 hours.

RAWK Meltdown ‏@RAWK_Meltdown

I need to point out, Liverpool are in sixth place in the 'real Premier League table'
Expand

That's the table that only counts the big six

fuckin rawk, i mean

The Real Premier League Table is calculated using the decisions that directly affect goals e.g. goals ruled out for offside, corners incorrectly given that lead to goals, whether or not the ball has crossed the line, penalties etc.

ffs

http://www.debatabledecisions.com/english-premier-league-tables

Liverpool are 7th btw

Haha I love that - add in hitting the post and we're up there

not even RAWK citing "hitting the post" as a sign of divine bias

Fucking Villa - homer refs, Lambo time, the lot

looks good to me. I believe Van Persie is leading the woodwork table this year too

Proof that Di Matteo sacked due to refereeing decisions.

I only just realised that this isn't actually guaranteed to end in lols - in a (blit) world where nobody takes defending or organisation seriously, there's a chance Rafa could win the league with this team.

Of all the available options, the guy who has a good working relationship with your out of form £50m striker is never going to be the worst.

disagree, it's like they've actually changed manager purely to get the best out of torres.

let's just see how he gets on with the 100m trio behind torres first, eh

hope they like working as hard as a chariot fleet of kuyts

Benitez has a propensity for zonal marking, which doesn't work in the Premier League

Serious eyeroll, Liverpool under Rafa were one of the best, if not the best, defensive sides in the Premiership. Their problem was lack of creativity and goals, especially when Torres was injured.

Serious eyeroll, Liverpool under Rafa were one of the best, if not the best, defensive sides in the Premiership. Their problem was lack of creativity and goals, especially when Torres was injured.

yeah the total inability to break teams down at home is a legacy of rafa's tenure for sure. towards the end of 08/09 they began hammering teams, but the defence lost something around this time too.

but the other problem is that rafa's tactical/defensive skills are just more suited to cup competitions really. a manager who believes in stifling as the primary objective has never won the premier league, as far as i can remember?

Mourinho arguably

"Stifling as the primary objective" is a slightly loaded way of putting it but there are a lot of people who'd accuse Mourinho of that.

mourinho definitely. arguably every leaguewinning side since, certainly the tevez, cron, rooney counterattack version of a few years back. Awful side to watch, outside of highlights packages.

i dunno, i think those sides are different to rafa's brand of negativity.

like there's a reason why, for example, man u could and would hammer teams at home and rafa's liverpool kept drawing.

Fergie sides have always been about scoring shitloads of goals and hammering teams, even when they've had great defences and churning uninspired midfields.

This is kind of a false framing of the debate because it implies that Rafa wasn't that arsed about scoring more goals, in fact he spent a shitload of money on strikers and a reasonable amount on wide attackers as well, he just wasn't very good at picking them and tended to discard them quickly.

well yeah, even his wingers had to act like defenders (tho there is rooney i spose)

Fergie sides have always been about scoring shitloads of goals and hammering teams

...and getting shitloads of dodgy penalty decisions/disputed goals etc

if only somebody could come up with a table to account for that

xp, that was

Fergie has always wanted to score goals, as have all managers. But for a while there it was very much based on a packed defence/midfield counterattack basis. Still had width, still scored lots of goals, still a defensive system in the main

god be with the days of the invincibles or the utd outfit where the only dm was keane, more expansive a player than he was really given credit for

it was a philosophy with rafa too though. part of the reason the wide players were discarded (even when successful like riera and benayoun, bye bye 20 goals or so when he fucked them out for no reason) was because the primary aim was for the team not to concede and for it to be a cohesive defensive unit. workrate valued above skills.

the worst-defended league in the world cd do with a good dose of "negativity" tbh

Send for Craig Levein

time was when you built a successful team from the back, now it's like the Kevin Keegan Football Circus everywhere you look