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Rafael Benitez

Jesse Pinkman

by Jesse Pinkman
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Paully

Paully

Posted
Posted

 

Ahh sorry dude. I don't think my post that aimed at you solely anyway. Somebody on here a few days ago (might have been you, i don't know :D) said LFC fans along with Napoli fans ended up hating him or something along those lines. It just astounds me that's all.

 

The vast majority of them absolutely love him on here!

 

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=282654.6160

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Stottie

Stottie

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On the subject of stats, the stats articles I've read suggest that set-pieces are generally underutilized and are easiest way to turn around an underperforming team. We obviously been scoring a lot of them recently, and have just shut out QPR who at kickoff had been the second or third most successful team from them. I wouldn't be surprised if this has been an early focus for Rafa, and that the team will score a higher percentage from open play in the coming months due to the longer time taken for any work there to bear fruit.

 

One context in which I saw the "profit from set-pieces" idea was mentioned was a partial justification for Allardyce as England manager. Personally I think he is a joke and the epitome of the "proper footballing man" dullard mentality that blights English football, but his teams do have a historic record of doing well from set plays. I don't like it, but getting a bunch of players who don't play together that often to score from more corners is probably going to be a more achievable objective than getting them to be more incisive and open teams up. England are a "quarter-finals if we are lucky" level team, so the bar is not very high.

 

It's clear alot of work has gone into set pieces, but at the same time it looks to me like much of it has simply been down to Ritchie (and now Shelvey) delivering decent-to-good balls into the right areas at the right time consistently. They're not whipping the ball in particularly well at pace, but just getting enough bend into the right areas (without floating it too much) to give our big lads a chance. Makes such a big difference when the rest of the team know that 7 or 8 times out of 10 they'll have a chance of attacking the ball, when previously our corner takers were hitting the ball terribly with no timing the vast majority of the time. In fact, we've gone for quite a long time since we last had players capable of putting e.g. decent corners in consistently (probably back to Nobby/Robert). Even Cabaye oddly enough was more "miss" than "hit" when it came to them.

 

We've also now got the lads in the air for it.

 

 

For a long time we had:

Colo, Mbemba/Willo, Cisse, Haidara in the box.

 

We can now choose from:

Lascelles, Clark, Hanley, Dummett & Mitro

 

 

We are simply much stronger in the air as well.

 

Pardew evidently knows nothing about set-pieces. But Palace are a danger from them simply because they've got the right type of lads in the box.

 

 

 

convinced palace lived off the tony pulis set piece coaching for a while under pardew.

 

Sorry for the long quoting but interesting points for sure. While we definitely are better in the air now, a lot of our set piece goals haven't been headers from crosses. I suspect the total may even include breakdowns and second balls, like the Hayden goal and the Gayle header after the missed pen. Against Brighton, the two goals from set pieces were the Gouff volley and the opportunist "err, let's not play for the corner flag" cross and pull back to Yedlin. Both Gayle and Shelvey have scored from direct free kicks. So it's not just headers.

 

But for a Sergio Ramos header from a corner in the dying minutes, Athleti won have won the CL, so they matter in the biggest games and for the best teams.

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Lush Vlad

Lush Vlad

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* Derby, not Brighton.

 

** Atleti 

 

Spot on, though.  We always hear about how Rafa's team meticulously plan for different outcomes, who should be running where, or doing what, when the ball is in a certain area etc.  So I'm not that surprised that our set pieces have improved.  With his own players, we are starting to resemble an organised, well drilled team. 

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Stottie

Stottie

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Gotcha! Thanks for the corrections.

 

As for the other point, Rafa Benitez massively overachieved at Liverpool given the ownership of the club at that time. I don't see how that is even remotely debatable.

 

He also got the best out of Steven Gerrard, a player with fantastic talent and great energy yet far from the greatest when it came to football intelligence.

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TRon

TRon

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There were a few fans who hated him the last season or so, but the vast majority loved him.

 

Xabi Alonso was put up for sale because he was a player who could command a large fee, he had also gone a bit stale the previous season.  Our Yank owners were draining the club, and Rafa constantly had to think of ways of raising money.  As it was, Xabi stayed that season and played out of his skin, and was sold, by mutual consent, the following season for a larger fee than would have been got previously.  Rafa would have been gone had it not been for his bond with the fans.  He it was who kept us informed about what the two tumours were up to, giving us a chance to try and stop it.

 

As for the football, yes he was cautious at times but we also played some really fantastic football at other times.  We played his Valencia in pre season a couple of times and they were a class side beating us easily, so when Moores decided to replace Houllier, Rafa was the man he wanted.  He and Parry went over one Sunday morning to sell the club to him, no agents or anything.

 

If your team were playing Barca in a CL match I'm sure you'd be more than happy with a great defensive display. 

 

No English club fans liked Rafa, including your own, (I've read the LFC thread) nor did the media or the usual boring English managers.  None had a good word to say about him, but we knew we had a diamond of a man and coach within the first week, just by watching his interviews.

 

I used to slag Rafa off constantly when he was your manager, but as soon as I heard he might be interested in this job I was like, yeah he's brilliant, what a tactician, he's the man, the one and only......

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Kanji

Kanji

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I really have no clue what I said about him in the past when he was manager of Liverpool. I do know that I was immensely jealous of my Liverpool supporting friends and brother because when we sacked Bobby we went Souness and they went from Houllier to Rafa and we fell apart and they went on to be a strong Champions League club and PL title contenders. Wanting good visual football is all fine and dandy but I've always wanted a club that would win and not be embarrassing. Anyway, everytime there was talk of our job opening in the Pardew days I wanted Rafa to be our manager.

 

Looking over old posts of people and saying I told you so and shit is very weird behavior, if you were wrong then, who gives a shit. Just enjoy the fact we have one of the world's best football managers looking over our club and our interests. Long may his reign continue, including promotion at the end of this season and success in the future.

 

Bring on Saturday!

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Ikon

Ikon

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In the end of 1960 i was working in Madrid and i saw Rafa for the first time and already back then i knew this little boy would grow and become one of the worlds best managers in the future.

Never expected him to take over us though, but no complaints really. Even then you could see on his hair what an intelligent person he would grow up to be.

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TRon

TRon

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I really have no clue what I said about him in the past when he was manager of Liverpool. I do know that I was immensely jealous of my Liverpool supporting friends and brother because when we sacked Bobby we went Souness and they went from Houllier to Rafa and we fell apart and they went on to be a strong Champions League club and PL title contenders. Wanting good visual football is all fine and dandy but I've always wanted a club that would win and not be embarrassing. Anyway, everytime there was talk of our job opening in the Pardew days I wanted Rafa to be our manager.

 

Looking over old posts of people and saying I told you so and shit is very weird behavior, if you were wrong then, who gives a shit. Just enjoy the fact we have one of the world's best football managers looking over our club and our interests. Long may his reign continue, including promotion at the end of this season and success in the future.

 

Bring on Saturday!

 

 

That's the thing though, although Rafa's formations at Liverpool were always very solid and somewhat cautious, the football was still very pleasing on the eye. They used to pass it out from the back and try and get between the lines, some of their forward play was brilliant. It was always a million miles from Pardew's eight man defence and hoof to the wide man tactics.

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nufc4eva

nufc4eva

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He was more conservative / pragmatic than some managers and football was slightly less exciting, he does promote more rigid football and patterns, however it's tactically spot on most of the time. You can see the changes clearly and a shape taking place, you can really tell he has thought about and coached every area of the team in to a unit.

 

They talked about it against Derby how we work in pairs across the pitch in terms of closing down / retention. We also keep it simple and work our way into positions, play less balls back to the keeper but do play triangles between midfield and defenders.

 

The bloke is class and anyone that can't see it needs to watch every performance since 2004.

 

Long term I expect us to be a professional premier league team that has an identity and hopefully challenges for Europe or a trophy. He will help us compete as he knows how to build a team, we just need the board to let him get on with it and support him where they can

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HaydnNUFC

HaydnNUFC

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This is from my much younger perspective. I think I've said it in an earlier post or a different thread, but we should've went for Rafa after the end of the 2012-13 season imo. His "caretaker/interim" job at Chelsea came to an end, and our fans began to massively turn on Pardew after the Europa League excuses, 0-3 and 0-6 home defeats etc etc.

 

And I'm too young to have experienced the buzz after promotion to the Premier League under Keegan in 1993, but I suppose if/when we get back up, the feelings will be the same? And in our first season in the PL we finished 3rd? Not saying we're going to finish in the top 4 when we get back up by any means, but it completely excites me what we're capable of doing in the top tier with this feeling of positivity and optimism around the club after years of apathy and no hope, and it's all thanks to this man. He's the first Toon manager who we've had while I've been properly supporting us who I've felt this much adulation for, probably more so than Keegan as I didn't get to see us in the 90s, and Hughton. He's got me looking forward to the match for the first time since maybe the 5th place Cisse-Ba-Ben Arfa season. Bring on Saturday!

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Incognito

Incognito

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Posted

On the subject of stats, the stats articles I've read suggest that set-pieces are generally underutilized and are easiest way to turn around an underperforming team. We obviously been scoring a lot of them recently, and have just shut out QPR who at kickoff had been the second or third most successful team from them. I wouldn't be surprised if this has been an early focus for Rafa, and that the team will score a higher percentage from open play in the coming months due to the longer time taken for any work there to bear fruit.

 

One context in which I saw the "profit from set-pieces" idea was mentioned was a partial justification for Allardyce as England manager. Personally I think he is a joke and the epitome of the "proper footballing man" dullard mentality that blights English football, but his teams do have a historic record of doing well from set plays. I don't like it, but getting a bunch of players who don't play together that often to score from more corners is probably going to be a more achievable objective than getting them to be more incisive and open teams up. England are a "quarter-finals if we are lucky" level team, so the bar is not very high.

 

It's clear alot of work has gone into set pieces, but at the same time it looks to me like much of it has simply been down to Ritchie (and now Shelvey) delivering decent-to-good balls into the right areas at the right time consistently. They're not whipping the ball in particularly well at pace, but just getting enough bend into the right areas (without floating it too much) to give our big lads a chance. Makes such a big difference when the rest of the team know that 7 or 8 times out of 10 they'll have a chance of attacking the ball, when previously our corner takers were hitting the ball terribly with no timing the vast majority of the time. In fact, we've gone for quite a long time since we last had players capable of putting e.g. decent corners in consistently (probably back to Nobby/Robert). Even Cabaye oddly enough was more "miss" than "hit" when it came to them.

 

We've also now got the lads in the air for it.

 

 

For a long time we had:

Colo, Mbemba/Willo, Cisse, Haidara in the box.

 

We can now choose from:

Lascelles, Clark, Hanley, Dummett & Mitro

 

 

We are simply much stronger in the air as well.

 

Pardew evidently knows nothing about set-pieces. But Palace are a danger from them simply because they've got the right type of lads in the box.

 

 

 

convinced palace lived off the tony pulis set piece coaching for a while under pardew.

 

Sorry for the long quoting but interesting points for sure. While we definitely are better in the air now, a lot of our set piece goals haven't been headers from crosses. I suspect the total may even include breakdowns and second balls, like the Hayden goal and the Gayle header after the missed pen. Against Brighton, the two goals from set pieces were the Gouff volley and the opportunist "err, let's not play for the corner flag" cross and pull back to Yedlin. Both Gayle and Shelvey have scored from direct free kicks. So it's not just headers.

 

But for a Sergio Ramos header from a corner in the dying minutes, Athleti won have won the CL, so they matter in the biggest games and for the best teams.

The most interesting point is the use of Haidara to overegg  his Haidara hate pudding point.

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Dom2

Dom2

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I really have no clue what I said about him in the past when he was manager of Liverpool. I do know that I was immensely jealous of my Liverpool supporting friends and brother because when we sacked Bobby we went Souness and they went from Houllier to Rafa and we fell apart and they went on to be a strong Champions League club and PL title contenders. Wanting good visual football is all fine and dandy but I've always wanted a club that would win and not be embarrassing. Anyway, everytime there was talk of our job opening in the Pardew days I wanted Rafa to be our manager.

 

Looking over old posts of people and saying I told you so and s*** is very weird behavior, if you were wrong then, who gives a s***. Just enjoy the fact we have one of the world's best football managers looking over our club and our interests. Long may his reign continue, including promotion at the end of this season and success in the future.

 

Bring on Saturday!

 

I agree, and it's very pleasing to see Rafa get appreciated by another set of English fans, no recriminations from me.

 

I used to keep up with the thread, that's how I knew how badly he was thought of  :)

 

 

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