Rafa Benitez, Football Manager

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