Rondon this season would have had us near enough in the top 8. Add Barkley and Stones and I reckon we would be chasing Europa League spots.
Balague has said that no conversations have happened between PIF and Pochettino. He also thinks Pochettino is waiting it out for a top club, the problem is though that no "top" jobs are available and that he could be waiting 6 months, so he could think about us purely out of desperation.
Apparently foreign players and coaches living outside of China won't be able to start their season Until October. The Chinese Super League is set to resume in July. So Rafa would end up missing 3 months of the next season in China anyway. He is reportedly trying to get out of his contract and wants to return home.
I'm sure Rafa won't be leaving China. He's only been there less than 12 months and has 2 years on his contract. Lets remember he didn't go for the money, he went for the project so he's hardly gonna be disloyal and **** Dalian over like that. I mean it would wreak of deception and disloyalty. More than anything I don't want to get new owners, have good money to spend, and then have my pants bored off for 2 years. As I've said before if he is coming in, its incredibly important he has no say in transfers whatsoever. We don't want to build a team in his mould, only to have to dismantle it all when we try to move to a more modern progressive style. We should have a style in mind, and appoint someone to help us take those steps as Man C did with Pellegrini. Rafa just seems an unnecessary backward step. He was a good fit under Ashley when the owner was weakening us, so we needed a defensive coach to survive. If that is no longer the goal, it makes no sense to go for him really? I don't know what he would bring to the party. He isn't going to instill a brand of football ethos the fans want, he has rarely built a club with long lasting benefits except maybe Valencia, and he has a history of falling out with the owners at just about every club he's been at. I must admit the more time has gone on, the less I think he's a good idea.
Why? I take it he is a big Rafa fan. Rafa did a good job here, just like Bruce was, just like Pardew did. But if you have Saudi money, why restrict yourself to such boring football? That's if we ever get this Saudi money
I don't know, some of our fans fell deeply in love with Rafa for some bizarre reason. I put it down to Ashley lowering expectations so far.
You mean the likes of Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Lucas weren't still in Liverpools first team 5 years later, you mean he didn't extensively scout Luis Suarez a year before he left and set the ball rolling to sign him, you mean when he was at Inter he didn't tell FSG to sign Coutinho. You mean the extensive work that him and Frank McParland made on rejuvenating their academy didn't see any benefits with the likes of Sterling, Suso, Shelvey, Ibe, Ojo, Flanagan, Kelly, Cody, Wisdom, Spearing. You mean his extensive renovating at Napoli didn't have any impact for the next few years with Koulibaly, Allan, Higuain, Merterns, Callejon, De Guzman, Gabbiadini, David Lopez, Albiol, Ghoulam, Jorginho. You mean he hasn't given us our best defence in over a decade. You're telling me that wherever he's been and had more than a season to implement changes, that the team has benefited for years to come. Oh yeah you're right.
RAFman a big RAFA fan? What on earth would give you the idea that RAFman was a fan of RAFA? Incidentally, I agree. If no other option I would take Rafa over Brucie 10 times every day and 20 times on Sunday. But I would hope that we would go for a younger more adventurous manager with a senior D of F to support him. I would rather we played a la The Entertainers than The Survivors.
You could have a Rafa reference in your name without being really defensive about him though. DPP seemed to be insinuating he will not accept any criticism of him, justified or not. He was right too Are you all sure this isn't just yet another ACS sock account? I mean he has 436.
I'll take whoever our Sporting Director recommends, once they are appointed by our soon-to-be-confirmed board.