Parky

Like I say, control freak. Stay solid, keep your shape, take no unnecessary risks. The side only played good football when they were allowed to cut loose, which was only when we were already up shit creek. This has always been what annoys me about him.

He's no Mourinho. He certainly got the better of Mourinho enough. Seriously though, there's no way Rafa will fail to win them a trophy. Perhaps one then.

Brazil have played 2 DM'S for yonks, as have Argentina and Italy. That's cause everybody else runs forward....EVERYBODY...ALL THE PLAYERS RUN FORWARD...ALL OF THEM\111...You know...errr run forward.

He's no Mourinho.

Those words are really going to bite you in the arse, TT. I know you are speaking from a vast amount of experience there but at 26 and with the only man who had faith in him gone, his chance in English football is going to be limited especially with his injury record. He's not a bad footballer, just someone you wouldn't pay serious amounts of money for as he's likely to miss 70% of the season through injury. Typical Newcastle player of old in that respects. You never know. Rafa was never one to give a player much time to find his feet or improve his game. One of his biggest failings, IMO. What about Lucas? Only ever seen when Xabi was rested or gone. Those words are really going to bite you in the arse, TT. I know you are speaking from a vast amount of experience there but at 26 and with the only man who had faith in him gone, his chance in English football is going to be limited especially with his injury record. He's not a bad footballer, just someone you wouldn't pay serious amounts of money for as he's likely to miss 70% of the season through injury. Typical Newcastle player of old in that respects. You never know. Rafa was never one to give a player much time to find his feet or improve his game. One of his biggest failings, IMO. True, and why his squad turned their back on him when they realised they had a chance of getting him out of the club. Chances are though injuries will come and get the lad again, if he was picking them up so frequently in Italy, the rough and ready style of the prem is going to be even more strain on his frail body. I think the main reason the players turned on him to the extent they did is that Rafa had no relationship to any of the players as people. He treated them like a plumber treats his tools. You can suck that up when you're winning, but success was pretty much the only thing underpinning whatever loyalty the players felt to Rafa. I remember comments coming from Gerrard in the first year Rafa arrived that he missed the friendship he had with Houillier, and Rafa was more a boss than a friend, it was along those lines no doubt not them words. His man management skills certainly could have done with tweaking, but again his stubbornness wouldn't let him see any fault to the way he deals with players on or off the pitch. His man-management skills are non-existant. I'm not exaggerating; he has literally none. Carra has said he's never had a conversation with Rafa that wasn't about football, and after we beat Chelsea in the 2005 CL semi (I think it was that game, but in any case it was a fucking big one), he saw Rafa coming onto the pitch, and assumed he wanted to congratulate him. Instead, he started going on about how Carra had failed to track a player back 3 minutes previously. Clearly. Reduced to considering an offer from the European champions. I hope he doesn't do himself in. If he wins anything at Inter I'll eat my undies.

Rafa is the only manager I'm aware of who considers 2 DM's as the hub of creativity.

That's him nailed on for the Inter Milan job and a few trophies over the next few seasons, he owes you

Rafa is finished.

And I'm as amused by the concept of nothing as evidence. f*** knows what's going on behind the scenes, but whether they're doing absolutely f*** all, or everyone at the club is working their bollocks off to bring in loans or bosmans or whatever, we'd see precisely the same evidence of it either way. Nothing. Hughton said this week that they’re “just using the first few weeks of the summer to decide what we’re going to do” and “on the back of a very good season where we’ve won promotion it’s now time to sit back and evaluate”. Doesn’t sound like they’ve being doing much to me, and it does appear to contradict his statement about having a head start. The sitting back and evaluating should have happened at the start of April when we secured promotion, and if they are just getting round to it now what do you think they have been doing for the last two months? Hughton identified & signed the centreforward he believes can keep us up next year in January of this year. No need to panic.

Lol. Talk about a straw man. Since when have being capable of getting into Europe and being capable of regularly reaching the semis of the CL been even vaguely the same thing? EDIT: 3 Semi's out of 6 - so you got their half of the time, not regular. Which planet do you live on where 3 CL semis in 6 seasons is not outstanding? The CL is designed so that the big teams get to the latter stages.

Yep. Taking them from 2nd to 7th whilst spending £10m in the process is always going to cause a few ripples of discontent like. Ha ha..

My reading of the scenario is that the banks are in control, the yanks and the pack of dimwits that run your club are pretty much fucked. SORRY to see it btw as historically it is a very important institution.

400m in debt, no manager and the best players wanting out....Oh and a couple of clueless greedy yanks bleeding the club dry....And they say there is no god. "Last week's accounts showed Liverpool's loss was 34 per cent worse than 2008's figure as £40.1m went on servicing the club's £351.4m debt to Royal Bank of Scotland and US firm Wachovia. These loans have been extended until the sale but the club is now, according to KPMG, "dependent on short-term facility extensions". They are living hand to mouth. And yet they claim that Torres doesn't need to be sold. They do not need to sell him, much as a wino doesn't need a bed for the night. It is worth noting that the accounts were taken in a good year for Liverpool, a run in the Champions League and second in the league. Next year, if there is a next year, things will be worse."

Eh? What is this team he's ruined? He's bought Reina, Mascherano, Torres, Alonso, Agger. Rafa's purchases were not the cause of the problems. He could have bought better, but he didn't do badly. The early signings were good, and obviously not all are bad, and Torres is just Torres, but he always seemed to buy one or two players that were pointless. Vorinin Babel Keane Riera Lucas Penant to name a few. There just seems to be far to high a turnover of players, and over 200 purchases in 6 years. Is there a nought missing.

Yeah how many of the 768 were good?

Hope it isn't Hodgson as he really knows what he's doing.

Rafa Benitez's £229m spending spree: The 76 players signed during the Liverpool manager's reign By Alex Perry and Mike Breton Last updated at 10:44 AM on 22nd October 2009 * Comments (57) * Add to My Stories Those leaping to the defence of under-fire Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez have pointed to his lack of muscle in transfer market. But the records show that the Spaniard has spent £228,600,000 since arriving at Anfield in 2004. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1221975/Rafa-Benitezs-229m-spending-spree-The-76-players-signed-Liverpool-managers-reign.html#ixzz0poTwQK75

Oi!

£110m in his time there. (Net, obviously) Only City and Chelsea have spent more over the same time period. I wasn't sure of the figures but that's a massive amount. A decent manager with any idea of the market would have had them challenging. Yup. All that 5 at the back stuff he likes is bollocks. Lost too many games to average sides.

Well it takes time to fail when you spend 100m and the club can't afford to sack you. Seems they have bit the bullet at last. Too defensive and too enamoured with crap Spanish players. The worst thing about all this is I'm going to have to find a new target.

Spent loads done nowt. I have full vindication. aye, like HTT's claim of a recession coming. say some things long enough and they will come true. i confidently predict that chelsea wont be able to keep on going as they are and the lib-con pact wont last. Not quite the same is it? The amount of jizzing when he took over, tactical genuius and all that...I was a lone voice in the wilderness.

Rafa Benitez’s Anfield reign is over. The decision was taken to sack the Liverpool manager tonight, after the club board came to the conclusion he had lost the dressing room. Player power proved his downfall after several of the Reds’ biggest stars, including Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, made clear their loss of faith in the manager. Some had even stated privately that they would leave if Benitez stayed. Benitez, who is on holiday in Sardinia, was hanging on only to negotiate his payoff. He has a £16million clause in his contract that must be paid in full if he is dismissed, and the only detail left to be finalised late last night was just how much of that money he would receive. The Spanish coach could walk straight into another job after his dismissal at Anfield, with Inter Milan keen to make him the replacement for treble-winning manager Jose Mourinho. And Liverpool have already drawn up a short-list of possible replacements for Benitez, with the highly respected Roy Hodgson and Louis Van Gaal topping the candidates, along with Benfica manager Jorge Jesus, and - before he accepted the Italy job - Cesare Prandelli of Fiorentina. Sammy Lee, the current assistant manager of the Reds, will step in as a caretaker in the short-term, until a replacement is announced, with the club hoping to find a successor in the next few weeks.

Spent loads done nowt. I have full vindication.