4 stars out of 5

What does it even matter? Its irrelevant who the manager is. Although I'm sure plenty of other managers would have us in the last 16 of the FA cup and not knocked out by cups by Forest, Oxford and Watford reserves

5 months and the 25m Mitrovic money to come up and be scraping about with that in the last couple of days, dear god, tragic. Sad thing is it will placate the sheeple too

Genuinely needs shutting down like save people money and hassle

Just read how he's saying top 4 isn't the be all and end all and it's about winning trophies. Rafa could learn from that. Imagine QPR away to get to the QF and then a 5 in 7 chance of a winnable tie to make Wembley yet we fold like a pack of cards before we get that chance just to lose tonight. Baffling Easy to come out with those statements when you have a £500m+ squad that enables you to not even consider playing the likes of Rashford, Martial, Mata etc It is but resting players for an all out defence loss to Man City over getting to Wembley is ridiculous

Just read how he's saying top 4 isn't the be all and end all and it's about winning trophies. Rafa could learn from that. Imagine QPR away to get to the QF and then a 5 in 7 chance of a winnable tie to make Wembley yet we fold like a pack of cards before we get that chance just to lose tonight. Baffling

He wasn’t like, he was utter dogshit and and should’ve been shipped out about 10 years before he actually was. Also an Ashley sympathiser which seems to be forgot about

If Rafa is in the dugout here in August I win If he isn't Raconteur[/member] wins. No external factors to it as far as I am concerned

last game, protests

He must be some kind of masochist. Still I will have a nice £50 off Raconteur[/member] from it Quoted for confirmation Yeah a bets a bet and I will pay up if he leaves. I just cant see it and its not the certainty many people seem to think

He must be some kind of masochist. Still I will have a nice £50 off Raconteur[/member] from it

Hopefully a couple of early man city goals will stir the sheep

Every manager in the league would have a bonus system, and of course a relegation-threatened club would offer its manager a bonus to stay up. It's retarded to suggest this represents Rafa taking 30 pieces of silver. You've said this so many times I'm f***ing sick of it. I'll lay fifty of your English pounds that Rafa does not sign a new contract. Put up or shut the f*** up. Deal! Quote me/ bookmark this. I am a man of my word too.

There’s something not quite right with you. All your posts are insidiously anti-Rafa. It’s almost like you are trying to influence people and sow seeds of doubt about Benítez. Never anything about Ashley though. Strange. I love Rafa and with the right backing he would end the trophy drought here and if I mentioned Ashley I would be on all day! I despise the man. So there is no chance he is only here still for a big bonus and there is no chance of him staying on? I am just suggesting he might be more in the loop with this farce than many think

It is a valid point though. He may well get a nice bonus for keeping Ashley up and that is likely why he is still here lets get real. After that shambles at the weekend to add to cup surrenders at Oxford and Forest that is me done with him like, a nice path to Wembley opened up and he didn't even give it a go. That is criminal and i don't know how he gets away with it We don’t even have the budget of a Watford man. They make 11 changes and can bring in Gray, Hughes and Janmaat. We rotate and we’ve got Joselu, Manquillo and Hayden (would have probably played this anyway had the likes of Ki and Diame been available). That’s why he didn’t risk Rondon and the like. If anything happens to him we’re down to players who aren’t good enough for a Watford B team. I am fully aware of the state of things and I am the biggest Ashley hater around. I just don't see the point in resting players for an all out defence loss tonight when we had a good chance to make Wembley and give this shitshow of a club a tiny ray of light. Our first 11 is more than capable of beating Watford as proven already this season

He is never going to get that kind of money under Ashley though is he and he surely knows it ye is still saying " we will see" and "if the club do things right". A blind man could see things are not going to be done right. Fact is if Mike offers him a big money new deal with a 4m bonus for keeping him up again he will sign on. We will see. Only time will tell

It is a valid point though. He may well get a nice bonus for keeping Ashley up and that is likely why he is still here lets get real. After that shambles at the weekend to add to cup surrenders at Oxford and Forest that is me done with him like, a nice path to Wembley opened up and he didn't even give it a go. That is criminal and i don't know how he gets away with it

I reckon its true he must get a big bonus off Ashley for keeping him on the gravy train, would explain why hes still here too. Maybe hes not the saint most people think? I reckon a new deal with anoher nice bonus for keeping Ashley up on peanuts is round the corner too. What would people make of him if he stayed on in them circumstances?

I wouldn't play him, keepers don't need a rest. So you'll be happy for Woodman to become unhappy and leave the club? We rarely produce any talented youngesters so this doesn't seem the wisest idea to just never play him If it meant getting to the later stages of the FA cup then yes. Our track record with young players suggests he will end up championship at best anyhow, which will probably be ideal for the course we are on

I wouldn't play him, keepers don't need a rest. He could have got injured man!!!

You wouldn't give a young, understudy goalkeeper an opportunity and would rather just leave him on the bench indefinitely, potentially damaging his confidence long term? Fantastic man management. No. Send him on loan if he wants/ needs to play. How many more years are we going to give young players a game in the fa cup only for us to get knocked out! They never amount to anything anyhow

Well let's just agree it was both. He didn't want to go though and we are shit anyway. The thing that bothers me is every year we play a weak team, we know they aren't good enough and we go out every single time. How about we just stop doing it!? Rafa must have had a good idea that team wouldn't go through and there was certainly no appetite from them to get through.

Exactly. Some people have been that brainwashed that it's acceptable now they can't even see the obvious

Of course he will. It will be the last thing he tries to do for us, tell all about what really goes on behind the scenes. The alternative is that he will publish his memoirs about his time here. It would probably be a best seller. Hopefully he has been writing already so only the last chapter to write so not long to wait for it to be published. I have never bought a book like this but would be first in the queue for Rafas memoirs. are you for real! What bloody memoirs. You lunatic

That he is content in this sham. We will soon see. I think a lot of people are going to be in for a big shock