Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[TRon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

[Shearergol]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

So you want him to be DOF instead I guess?

[Sean]

Seems like some people would have you believe Rafa is telling the players to start misplacing easy passes, taking terrible touches and losing 50-50 balls.  And somehow it's supposed to be our defensive tactic.

 

Spot on, I think some people just like hearing their own voice tbh. Logic is baffling.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

Honest question like but what do you expect in terms of home tactics? His tactics are proven to work very effectively at the highest level and they're very good away from home. He's building and imposing a system around the club, once/if he gets better players the quality of play will improve.

 

The bit you're complaining about there is arguably the hardest in top flight football, especially when you don't have money and a group of average players at best. It's been said but if we open up with this group of players we'll be murdered by most teams in the division, so the sensible option is exactly what he's doing.

 

If he gets 5 years in the job and a decent amount of backing do you think we'll still be playing the same game at home? Well I mean we probably will be but we'll be controlling it better and dominating more.

 

I expect us to be less defensive and when we are on top and playing well to try and keep that going which we often don’t. I don’t expect gung ho all out attacking football and I understand the opposition will have a say in matters, but we worry far too much about the opposition and what they can do and forget about what e can do or do not try and do what we can do enough or could be doing.

 

His tactics are proven at the very highest level, but that’s with top teams. His tactics at home with this team are not working or working very well because our home form is poor and even in the Championship we lost quite a few home games which we shouldn’t have. Blame the quality of the players or lack of, but I do t regard them as being so shit we cannot beat the likes of Swansea at home or should play the way we did against them in the second half or how we did at home to Brighton for example. I could name many other teams from last tear who came to SJP and schooled us!

 

I’ve seen us play really well in some halves of games and all I want us to do again is to keep playing that way or try and keep playing that way.

 

We know he’s a tactical manager and on the road I’m fine with it, just not at home because I feel we should be getting more points than we have at home this season if we adjusted how we played, or approached games differently or second halfs.

 

I think if he was backed with millions and we had better players we would still flatter to deceive at home due to his tactics. That wouldn’t be highlighted as much because we would no doubt get better results due to having better players of course.

 

He’s a tactical genius and I’m obviously not, but I’m not the only one that sees issues with the set up at home and this dates back to last season.

 

He he got more wrong at home than he has got right IMO and I’d like to see us try something else before it’s too late.

 

I have no problems playing like that against the best teams or away from home. Away from home I couldn’t care less how we perform as long as we pick up points.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

So you want him to be DOF instead I guess?

 

If that’s what you’ve deduced from that you need to stick to supporting Scunthorpe or get back to posting on Toontastic 

[mrmojorisin75]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

Honest question like but what do you expect in terms of home tactics? His tactics are proven to work very effectively at the highest level and they're very good away from home. He's building and imposing a system around the club, once/if he gets better players the quality of play will improve.

 

The bit you're complaining about there is arguably the hardest in top flight football, especially when you don't have money and a group of average players at best. It's been said but if we open up with this group of players we'll be murdered by most teams in the division, so the sensible option is exactly what he's doing.

 

If he gets 5 years in the job and a decent amount of backing do you think we'll still be playing the same game at home? Well I mean we probably will be but we'll be controlling it better and dominating more.

 

I expect us to be less defensive and when we are on top and playing well to try and keep that going which we often don’t. I don’t expect gung ho all out attacking football and I understand the opposition will have a say in matters, but we worry far too much about the opposition and what they can do and forget about what e can do or do not try and do what we can do enough or could be doing.

 

His tactics are proven at the very highest level, but that’s with top teams. His tactics at home with this team are not working or working very well because our home form is poor and even in the Championship we lost quite a few home games which we shouldn’t have. Blame the quality of the players or lack of, but I do t regard them as being so shit we cannot beat the likes of Swansea at home or should play the way we did against them in the second half or how we did at home to Brighton for example. I could name many other teams from last tear who came to SJP and schooled us!

 

I’ve seen us play really well in some halves of games and all I want us to do again is to keep playing that way or try and keep playing that way.

 

We know he’s a tactical manager and on the road I’m fine with it, just not at home because I feel we should be getting more points than we have at home this season if we adjusted how we played, or approached games differently or second halfs.

 

I think if he was backed with millions and we had better players we would still flatter to deceive at home due to his tactics. That wouldn’t be highlighted as much because we would no doubt get better results due to having better players of course.

 

He’s a tactical genius and I’m obviously not, but I’m not the only one that sees issues with the set up at home and this dates back to last season.

 

He he got more wrong at home than he has got right IMO and I’d like to see us try something else before it’s too late.

 

I have no problems playing like that against the best teams or away from home. Away from home I couldn’t care less how we perform as long as we pick up points.

Our home form is poor because we've either had goalkeepers throwing the ball into their own net or strikers that can't finish when we're on top. No team as poor as us will ever dominate an entire game, well not never but very rarely indeed.

[Sean]

We've got a good chance of staying up and in the process achieving 'success' for the season under the circumstances of our owner being a massive cunt and sabotaging most of Rafas efforts this season. How about we all get behind the players and the manager, stop fucking moaning and support them over the next few months. Or is that too much to ask?

[Kasper]

If you trust him 100% why are you writing paragraph after paragraph about how he should do something different? Just because you dont happen to like it?

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

 

I’ve rated him as far back as Valencia and was extremely jelous when Liverpool appointed him. I used to have loads of documents/dossiers/articles he wrote for UEFA when I was into coaching and some of his stuff man... one was all about possession and the importance of it. Sadly I think he’s lost a bit of his mojo the last few years. Inter was a huge mistake and Madrid also, the wrong choice for someone usually bang on when it comes to making decisions. I’m grateful he’s here, but it’s kind of pointless. Kind of like a Ferrari with no engine. We all know who that’s down to though...

[Altamullan]

Fantastic podcast. Makes me a bit more hopeful that he will continue ‘the project,’ even if there is no change in ownership. Still not confident he’ll fancy another season in the Championship though, should that come to pass.

[steve_69]

There was some stat floating round a while back about us being in the top 5 for chances created this season (or something of that ilk). Anyone remember what it was?

[Altamullan]

There was some stat floating round a while back about us being in the top 5 for chances created this season (or something of that ilk). Anyone remember what it was?

Top nine I think, though not certain and can’t find the reference.

[TRon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

 

I’ve rated him as far back as Valencia and was extremely jelous when Liverpool appointed him. I used to have loads of documents/dossiers/articles he wrote for UEFA when I was into coaching and some of his stuff man... one was all about possession and the importance of it. Sadly I think he’s lost a bit of his mojo the last few years. Inter was a huge mistake and Madrid also, the wrong choice for someone usually bang on when it comes to making decisions. I’m grateful he’s here, but it’s kind of pointless. Kind of like a Ferrari with no engine. We all know who that’s down to though...

 

So if you know how meticulous he is, and you yourself are a coach, your criticism makes even less sense.

 

Have a go at home, 50k can't be wrong, stop sitting back on purpose.....honestly man, are you sure you didn't pick up John Carver's jotter instead of Rafa's dossier by mistake? 

[Kasper]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

 

I’ve rated him as far back as Valencia and was extremely jelous when Liverpool appointed him. I used to have loads of documents/dossiers/articles he wrote for UEFA when I was into coaching and some of his stuff man... one was all about possession and the importance of it. Sadly I think he’s lost a bit of his mojo the last few years. Inter was a huge mistake and Madrid also, the wrong choice for someone usually bang on when it comes to making decisions. I’m grateful he’s here, but it’s kind of pointless. Kind of like a Ferrari with no engine. We all know who that’s down to though...

 

So if you know how meticulous he is, and you yourself are a coach, your criticism makes even less sense.

 

Have a go at home, 50k can't be wrong, stop sitting back on purpose.....honestly man, are you sure you didn't pick up John Carver's jotter instead of Rafa's dossier by mistake? 

 

 

It's funny because its true. If you ever want to try another 3 letter username I'd have one acronym in mind.

[54]

[Interpolic]

 

[steve_69]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

 

I’ve rated him as far back as Valencia and was extremely jelous when Liverpool appointed him. I used to have loads of documents/dossiers/articles he wrote for UEFA when I was into coaching and some of his stuff man... one was all about possession and the importance of it. Sadly I think he’s lost a bit of his mojo the last few years. Inter was a huge mistake and Madrid also, the wrong choice for someone usually bang on when it comes to making decisions. I’m grateful he’s here, but it’s kind of pointless. Kind of like a Ferrari with no engine. We all know who that’s down to though...

 

OK, one last question and then i'm going to leave it - You seem to place absolutely no blame for our results and the way that we play on the players and 100% of it on Rafa and his tactics (i'm basing that on the fact that throughout this conversation you haven't mentioned the players being to blame at all, so it's not me being 'melodramatic'). 

 

When the teams that you were coaching lost a game did you always consider it to be your fault as the coach? Were the players ever to blame?

 

 

[Guest Howaythetoon]

If you trust him 100% why are you writing paragraph after paragraph about how he should do something different? Just because you dont happen to like it?

 

I trust him 100% as our manager, doesn’t mean I cannot disagree with  some of the things he does, some of his tactics, team selection etc. It’s not that fucking hard to grasp. And most of my posts are in replies to others or me trying to put my point across, again it’s not like I’m constantly having a go at his tactics, for example I hardly post in match threads or player threads.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

It's the opposite for me, I didn't like him much as Liverpool manager, although deep down I knew he was good. By the time there was talk of him coming here, I had had my fill of gormless idiots running the team like Pardew, Kinnear and Carver, so it made me appreciate a man who knows his mind and is meticulous in his work on and off the field. I might not always like his methods but I respect them 100%. Personally I'm of the view, given a few genuine Premier class players he'll more than show his worth.

 

I’ve rated him as far back as Valencia and was extremely jelous when Liverpool appointed him. I used to have loads of documents/dossiers/articles he wrote for UEFA when I was into coaching and some of his stuff man... one was all about possession and the importance of it. Sadly I think he’s lost a bit of his mojo the last few years. Inter was a huge mistake and Madrid also, the wrong choice for someone usually bang on when it comes to making decisions. I’m grateful he’s here, but it’s kind of pointless. Kind of like a Ferrari with no engine. We all know who that’s down to though...

 

OK, one last question and then i'm going to leave it - You seem to place absolutely no blame for our results and the way that we play on the players and 100% of it on Rafa and his tactics (i'm basing that on the fact that throughout this conversation you haven't mentioned the players being to blame at all, so it's not me being 'melodramatic'). 

 

When the teams that you were coaching lost a game did you always consider it to be your fault as the coach? Were the players ever to blame?

 

 

 

Never blamed myself, fuck that. Would blame the wind before myself. And the Town Moor once.

[Shearergol]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

So you want him to be DOF instead I guess?

 

If that’s what you’ve deduced from that you need to stick to supporting Scunthorpe or get back to posting on Toontastic 

 

You like Rafa but you don’t like all the manager stuff he does. Great logic.

 

He’s not gonna change, does that mean you have to complain after every fucking match?

[Altamullan]

Tbf to HTT, like, my reading is the opposite. He’s offering some perspective to counter the “it is 100% the players”. The ganging-up is also making for uncomfortable reading. Listen to the podcast, if you don’t think Rafa agonises over his decision making and knows he gets it wrong sometimes. All managers/everybody does. He does less than most.

[NEEJ]

There was some stat floating round a while back about us being in the top 5 for chances created this season (or something of that ilk). Anyone remember what it was?

Top nine I think, though not certain and can’t find the reference.

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_scoring_att?se=79

Correct, sir. Palace and Southampton being the other ones.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

Honest question like but what do you expect in terms of home tactics? His tactics are proven to work very effectively at the highest level and they're very good away from home. He's building and imposing a system around the club, once/if he gets better players the quality of play will improve.

 

The bit you're complaining about there is arguably the hardest in top flight football, especially when you don't have money and a group of average players at best. It's been said but if we open up with this group of players we'll be murdered by most teams in the division, so the sensible option is exactly what he's doing.

 

If he gets 5 years in the job and a decent amount of backing do you think we'll still be playing the same game at home? Well I mean we probably will be but we'll be controlling it better and dominating more.

 

I expect us to be less defensive and when we are on top and playing well to try and keep that going which we often don’t. I don’t expect gung ho all out attacking football and I understand the opposition will have a say in matters, but we worry far too much about the opposition and what they can do and forget about what e can do or do not try and do what we can do enough or could be doing.

 

His tactics are proven at the very highest level, but that’s with top teams. His tactics at home with this team are not working or working very well because our home form is poor and even in the Championship we lost quite a few home games which we shouldn’t have. Blame the quality of the players or lack of, but I do t regard them as being so s*** we cannot beat the likes of Swansea at home or should play the way we did against them in the second half or how we did at home to Brighton for example. I could name many other teams from last tear who came to SJP and schooled us!

 

I’ve seen us play really well in some halves of games and all I want us to do again is to keep playing that way or try and keep playing that way.

 

We know he’s a tactical manager and on the road I’m fine with it, just not at home because I feel we should be getting more points than we have at home this season if we adjusted how we played, or approached games differently or second halfs.

 

I think if he was backed with millions and we had better players we would still flatter to deceive at home due to his tactics. That wouldn’t be highlighted as much because we would no doubt get better results due to having better players of course.

 

He’s a tactical genius and I’m obviously not, but I’m not the only one that sees issues with the set up at home and this dates back to last season.

 

He he got more wrong at home than he has got right IMO and I’d like to see us try something else before it’s too late.

 

I have no problems playing like that against the best teams or away from home. Away from home I couldn’t care less how we perform as long as we pick up points.

Our home form is poor because we've either had goalkeepers throwing the ball into their own net or strikers that can't finish when we're on top. No team as poor as us will ever dominate an entire game, well not never but very rarely indeed.

 

Fine, blame the players or finishing.

 

I blame a number of factors, tactics used at times, approach, even wrong selection of players. All of which have contributed. It seems many on here, however, only blame the players, or the fans...

[Shearergol]

Tbf to HTT, like, my reading is the opposite. He’s offering some perspective to counter the “it is 100% the players”. The ganging-up is also making for uncomfortable reading. Listen to the podcast, if you don’t think Rafa agonises over his decision making and knows he gets it wrong sometimes. All managers/everybody does. He does less than most.

 

That’s what 99% of people are saying. He makes mistakes, he works on correcting them.

 

Every manager in the league makes mistakes, but do it with a championship squad and it’s more obvious.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Rafa with the nail on the head.

 

I love all the, "I love Rafa and want him to stay, however....", posts.

 

I’ve said from the off I love him, but don’t like his brand of football or his tactics, not at home anyway and never will. But I do love him and have 100% trust and confidence in him as our manager.

 

So you want him to be DOF instead I guess?

 

If that’s what you’ve deduced from that you need to stick to supporting Scunthorpe or get back to posting on Toontastic 

 

You like Rafa but you don’t like all the manager stuff he does. Great logic.

 

He’s not gonna change, does that mean you have to complain after every f***ing match?

 

I don’t like some of the stuff, SOME. And I don’t complain after every fucking match as you put it, I rarely post in match threads. Go and check it out. This is a thread about Rafa, tactics and such are being discussed, I’ve put forward my opinions, I’ll stick to them. Join the debate, ignore or better still fuck off you bore.