Rafa Benitez, Football Manager

i was a pretty strong supporter when he joined liverpool, actually.

after about two years his nonsense decisions and pretty vituperative shifting of responsibility for them began to grind me down. after that, lfc/rafa supporting mates slowly turned me into the broken spitemonger u see before you.

is it cos he had a lower net spend (cumulative & average) while consistently out-performing spurs in the league throughout his 5 years

/flees thread

did xabi alonso actually leave because rafa alienated him (which is what my mate told me earlier)? I don't recall off-hand

gtfo giving houllier, or indeed anyone, credit for assembling that Liverpool squad

not rly a 'useful metric' when he's left them with a bloated squad full of shite that's amortised terribly, whereas for all his sins comlolli left the spurs squad in fairly fine fettle

did xabi alonso actually leave because rafa alienated him (which is what my mate told me earlier)? I don't recall off-hand

― abbott & coztello (cozen), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 20:39 (1 minute ago)

yes

rafa tried to get barry instead, etc

Extra bonus points for mention of 'Net spend' or comparisons with Arsene Wenger.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Friday, July 9, 2010 2:27 PM (5 months ago)

^^^^^^

tbh

martin jol made me hate all underperforming yet sympathised millionaire managers. rafa became the next most appropriate target of my ire once that fat buffoon had awoken it

and i reckon i'm more sympathetic to rafa than most of u heathens

well, one of we heathens certainly

just seems like a happy go lucky guy who has found himself down on his luck

just a chill bro fallen on hard times and £10m compensation a year

do think he is actually & paradoxically not that weird or unpleasant at 'a human level' fwiw

the constant refusal to accept responsibility / willingness to blame everyone else for every little thing was prob what turned me on him. sometimes it may have been justified, but it always seemed to me that he'd hang his own players much quicker than most other managers, and his constant shiteing on about ferguson, wenger, the press, mourinho when rly he was making a lot godawful decisions in a consistently repugnant manner just became laughable.

xp in quieter interviews he's always come across as ok, but i mean even the slightest justification sends him straight into brat mode.

he should have known his limits and not tried psy-ops w/ ferguson and mourinho

way above his level there

nonsense darragh, pretty much every manager does that except Roy and look where it's getting him. Rafa does come across as unlikeable imo, but so what, it's not a popularity contest - except it is, which is something I have a big problem with culturally.

Alienating your own guys, plus the unfathomable decisions and seeming totally unaware of why they piss people off, that's enough surely?

not to rafa's extent, most with more justification tbph.

everything is a popularity contest. lyfe man.

alienating his own guys because of his public blaming of them for his own failings, for the most part. linked.

popularity contest based on doing your job well would be more useful imo than a popularity contest based on being good company for a drink or whatever, but that isn't how football seems to operate in this country

rmde

it's true tho, jacques santini was only appointed cuz levy heard keysy saying santini was 'a great laugh, loves his whores'

enough with the rmde now I think

you say it like 'doing your job well' is undisputed.

popularity is v useful when that's in question, in any job, in a public job in particular.

popularity can be very useful amongst a team of players that you're asking to perform for you twice a week.

popularity among the press isn't necessary, but at the same time i struggle to think of any manager in britain excepting ferguson and arguably wenger that get very far without it. and rafa never built the base those guys had to allow him not to court the press.

popularity amongst opposing fans- true, this doesn't matter a jot. but i'm pretty sure that a complete lack of respect from them (and this is pretty much where benitez was well before the end imo) unsettles your own fans, particularly when the shit starts to hit the fan closer to home. when utd, spurs and arsenal fans are all happier for your manager to stay than half of your own guys are, that's gotta be a question.

it's a retarded argument

how is this country's football notably more nepotistic than say italy, where there are often only one or two foreign managers in serie a

the smug cosiness of the ssn/after dinner speaker circuit oughtn't to be confused with thinking among ppl that actually matter

LIKE US

the baffoon act, the shit team, the inability to take blame, the alienation of his players, the lol 4000 signings that just disappeared... really i hate him because many liverpool fans still refuse to give up the ghost and say he was shit. he was such a fucking failure, it is ok to admit it. he won one big trophy - well done. came below everton that same season fyi and only got there because of a bad lino decision. houillier was SUCH a better fucking manager at Liverpool, won more, and the general scouse opinion is hatred and resentment and they can't stand Woy so fuck 'em and def. fuck Rafa.

only got there because of a bad lino decision

oho, don't get me started on that one - reasonable argument for J Mourinho looking to buoy up his players, stupid argument for anyone else

yeah tbf nothin dodge abt that call.

houllier only has 2 league cups (and something called the nitro cup?) over rafa at liverpool to be fair. I think most people would swap 1 uefa cup + 2 league cups for 1 european cup

had some year in 2001 tho mind

i know that the european cup is a huge prize that's coloured that year and prob the few after, but 2001 is as good as it's been for liverpool fans since i've had an interest in football imo.

2009 was the top year imo - cups are great and all, but an actual tilt at the title with the odd period of being genuinely irresistible is something else. Which makes 2010 so crushing.

I guess if you wanted tbf both of them actually did pretty well, realistically. Liverpool don't have the resources to realistically expect to be winning the league, so being mostly a fixture from 2nd-4th is about as good as can be hoped for, and you'd expect the odd cup success on top of that.

In that context the CL is bizarre, and reaching the final again positively freakish; weighed against a tendency to maddening self-sabotage. You'd take that over consistency though, seeing as the lows never quite tipped beyond lol into, say, Leeds or Newcastle.

well yeah, i mean spurs have been genuine relegation candidates two or three times since i started following them, really last season with the courts was as bad as it got for youse.

WOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED UNDER HOULLIER THO

'was liverpool's second place finish in 2009 ever actually a title challenge' needs to be a thread.

ok as an arsenal fan* i feel i am allowed to say that 4 points may be good and all but liverpool were never going to do it in 2009. never. utd always had a lock on the title. i lived with two liverpool fans at the time and even they didn't believe it was ever actually going to happen.

*see the season before.

lol xpost

Only in retrospect. United were wobbly as fuck in March and April, Liverpool battered them at Old Trafford, and don't forget United had to pull out a forgotten heroic run of their own (inc Macheda goal) to actually claim it - nine straight wins I think it was, which is only a little short of the famous Arsenal run that clinched it in 1998. Liverpool were still top on 23rd of April, and even if it was still unlikely then the fact that it was still possible to the extent of being maybe a one-in-three shot does not equal 'never going to happen'.

In any case, it's the long stretch of momentum that was the amazing thing, that string of 'never in doubt's was a great thing.

and no it does not need to be a thread

RIP big man.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Sport/Pix/pictures/2010/12/23/1293107694078/Internazionale-coach-Rafa-007.jpg

Must be up there with Big Sam and Sven in the money from compensation stakes.

but liverpool were never going to do it in 2009. never. utd always had a lock on the title.

complete bollocks. obv liv fans were gonna be all pessimistic.

new thread imo. Clearly a many faceted subject.

ah don't actually wanna have this argument for the thousandth time. no mind will be changed.

ah no in fairness i'm waverin

what next? sturridge transfer?

ok, houllier gets some credit for assembling a squad that benitez could win a cl with, something benitez never managed to build himself.

Came pretty close in 2007 though.

chris man, i cant do this with you again dude it's too real for both of us :)

Would you want rafa back at lfc now?

i have come around to rafa being the best england manager ever:

i. lives for cup comps
ii. loves trolling the english press
iii. can understand scouse

leonardo installed at inter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/9320450.stm

Benitez was sacked after six months in the job after asking the Inter board to back him in the transfer market

so not the full story

(good use of 'installed' btw, I like these words with specific technical football meanings)

x-posts - soz, just realising how angry i'm coming across on here! i really like rafa, not cos of some blind faith or obsession but because i believed in the vision he had and in what he was trying to do. he got liverpool. i'd love him to come back, but it's not gonna happen.