Rafa Benitez, Football Manager

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.

just re albiol and callejon, curious how badly spanish players tend to do in italy. mendieta the best ever?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Su%C3%A1rez_Miramontes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Su%C3%A1rez_Miramontes

there has never been great success transferring between the two, at least since luis suarez the elder at inter, or vieri at atletico

napoli just doesnt seem quite....there, as a cl team

they have had a good side for 4/5 years but somehow between di laurentiis, the regular robberies/burglaries of players, suggestions of camorra nonsense

this year is ddl going big tho, between rafa and his declamations of a '€125.5m' transfer fund

feel like higuain would choose inter above them (or arsenal) cl or no cl

http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/images/articles/dossenarafa.jpg

"The pillow suggested the line up to me," Benitez smiled the following day. "It's very intelligent."

Rehabilitation continues, the bomdas double negative multiplication move to chelsea was genius

Napoli's Spanish manager had reached an agreement in principle with West Ham United for next season, but this morning scenarios changed quickly: Benitez has had a direct contact with Hammer's chairman and he has declined the offer of the English club because... because Real Madrid is strongly interested in him.

Looking frwd to seeing Ronaldo/Bale track back like Kuyt.

If it didn't happen in Spain, it didn't happen.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11678/10585048/rafa-benitez-wants-united-front-from-newcastle

"We need to realise we're now the head of the mouse, and not the tail of the lion. It's a Spanish expression," the Newcastle manager said.

was reading joey barton's book at work today. apparently he'd agreed a deal to come to lfc the summer houilllier was sacked but thought it would still go through until rafa insisted xabi was bought instead.

book is p funny btw. goes on and on about footballers lacking self awareness at the same time as stating that he was the best midfielder in england outside gerrard/lampard and claiming that should have gone to the world cup ahead of owen hargreaves amongst others. oh and if he'd have discovered sports psychology earlier in his career he would have been england captain.

out

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Sb9JOfryGaU/maxresdefault.jpg