Rafa Benitez, Football Manager

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