Rafa has his time. He's stained it and all. He's had a bad time at inter, managed cheslea... and really napoli have been ok but not really kicked on.
He did a solid job at Chelsea. Chelsea were a mess and riddled with ego's. He turned them back in to a well structure and disciplined machined. All with out making any signings. Apart from the ego thing we could do with that. I think we actually lack about an ego in our game. All the best teams have a bit of an arugant swagger to them.
Solid but lets face it it was cheslea with lots of good players and they only played for themselves. They got thier cl spot, didn't bother in fa cup and just took the europa cos terry flet like a medal. sorry but mourinho did the job with cheslea! You have to EARN ego. ego is what we do have, to turn up to an fa cup game and think we don't need to match the likes of villa. the bookies had villa at 5/1 as i pointed out prior to the game itself. madness. confidence and arrogance are two very similar looking things. when people say side turn it up a gear its not back heels they mean its what villa did when they went 1-0 down. they came at us with 100% intensity and blew us away. We had no gears to go through. thats why they won. We knew for instance going to madrid and playing a reserve side we were losing but real said **** it lets have a rest and just got the one and never bothered... we went on good run, believed our own hype then got lazy...
Benitez has become a journeyman manager and bringing him back to Anfield would be a terrible decision. So it goes without saying that I hope that it's call that the Yanks are making today Seriously though, 'never go back' as the old saying goes, there's very few instances where a manager who attained success in his first term, has gone on to emulate the same level in his second. You sacked off Benitez for a reason, wanting him back is pure nostalgia, not clear headed thinking.
Go play a game of football and try it. Try changing direction when you are so top heavy. That has been Moreno's problem, people edge him to the outside, then they quickly turn inside and leave him for dead, as he is impersonating a penguin.
Benitez was "sacked off" because he had dealt with the worst of Hicks & Gillette, and had to build a team with £3.60 and some shiny buttons, and not even any magic beans. He paid the price for bringing in Salif Diao and El Hadji Diouf, both of whom failed badly, but I doubt would have been anywhere on Rafa's shopping list if his hands were not tied to such an extent. To reuse his old quote from his Valencia days "I asked for a table and they brought me a lampshade", Well with H&G they got him a throw cushion and a plastic dog turd. We are talking about a man who obviously loves the club, which is hard to find, and he obviously has the skills for the job.
Rafa suffered because of a policy of no big signings on big wages and we needed a few players. We needed to strengthen for 2010 and he was not given the money cos H&G thought they could continue on without significant investment cos they know **** all about football. He was allowed sign players for modest fees and modest wages, cos those two ****tard yanks thought they had it made after the 2009 season/ There were also, in anticipation of more successful football, wholesale changes in 2010, which again was down to H&G not knowing **** all about football and it disrupted the season, add to the lack of strengthing of the squad, it led to a **** season and an exodus soon after of our best players, who were all but gone a year later when Masc ****ed off some time after H&G thought after 2009 season they were onto a winner and were preparing to reel in the cash, then football reality kicked in, as LFC and the PL is not an Ice Hockey franchise in the NHL. We all know how it went from there onwards
in 2009\10 season where we needed to really pull out the stops to push on we got Glen Jognson 17m Aquaman 22m Kyrgiakos 2m Maxi free Grant total about 40m, all of which was on the first two bar 2m. The wages were not great to these players either. We needed to be investing in top players given 2008\09 to push on and this list is obviously evidence Rafa was not given the money. Others were spending that on 1 player Rafa was sacked by the summer. Also in 2008\9 the penny pinching meant our biggest signing was Robbie keane. If amd I know it is IF, Rafa had a decent kitty and was allowed ot offer good wages, we'd have been a different side and have won the PL that year, we got ****ing nGog for 1,5m too Cheap ass ****ing yanks, they found out the hard way the PL is not the NHL, the NHL is so uncompetitive that they ended up having a shutout a few years later, cos it was less competitive than a fight between a drunk and a tiger Last summer we fell foul of the same ****, we had CL, lost Suarez but should have looked to sign someone for 35 -40m with good wages, a top player. We failed in that utterly, I reckon because of penny pinching on wages and fees. How much did we offer for Sanchez? fee and wages? or any of our other failed targets. We have lost out on penny pinching over the last 3 years. I am happy tho we didn't pay 30m for WIllian as for Napoli, didn't they shed Cavani just as Rafa signed... Rafa's not had good luck at all. He did get to buy Higuain or whatever you call him, but he wa consigned to piffling transfers otherwise, Napoli are not well off. There was a huge list of ins and outs that year, massive list he turns up at Chelsea well into the season and out of the CL with the fans hating him and the players being dicks, and he still got 3rd and won the EL. Anyone saying he's not a very good manager is ****ing clueless
Rafa is currently 4th in Serie A last I left but not suprising that they are one leg in the Europa League semi finals after spunking Wolfsburg 1-4 away. Looking at the teams remaining he may just end up winning his 3rd Europa/Uefa Cup. It is funny some people call him a Journeyman but he is a winner and has won more than the much touted Klopp.
Rafa is a good manager but he's not the manager he once was back at Valencia and Liverpool. He needs Pako with him in order for me take him back. I would prefer Klopp because I think his style suits Liverpool better, but Rafa is still an upgrade on Rodgers. I heard that Ayre was one of the biggest reasons as to why Rafa was not considered for the job, but with him leaving at the end of the season, you can;t rule out a Rafa return ...
I think Pako's influence is overstated as Rafa still managed to do well in his abscence. I watch some Napoli games and they are better on the eye than Liverpool when rafa was here. Klopp for some reason gets an easier ride due to his charisma and charm. I think he is a good coach but not better than Rafa
I think Rafa could be like our version of Hiddink (at Chelsea) but not the long term solution. He will bring in better discipline, structure and organisation, but I dont feel he's our title winner.
Rafa Rant possibly with Jose next. Rafa Benitez v Sir Alex Ferguson : Rant v Rant please log in to view this image peterglynnfilms