Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Nobody]

I no longer feel a team will hammer us completely.

 

The performance against Liverpool was as good as we could expect given the players we have, but I'm taking it that I'm one of the few who felt like they could have scored 4 or 5 if they actually finished a bit better? Salah especially seemed to be constantly running into acres of space to exploit. Alot of their shooting on the day was straight at Elliott, or we had somewhat fortunate goal-line clearances.

 

Don't have much a point to this mind, beyond saying that I don't think we're quite as solid defensively as many seem to think and that we'll most likely get a couple of pastings this season by teams less forgiving in front of goal.

They had 2 shots on target IIRC.

[Mole_Toonfan]

I no longer feel a team will hammer us completely.

 

The performance against Liverpool was as good as we could expect given the players we have, but I'm taking it that I'm one of the few who felt like they could have scored 4 or 5 if they actually finished a bit better? Salah especially seemed to be constantly running into acres of space to exploit. Alot of their shooting on the day was straight at Elliott, or we had somewhat fortunate goal-line clearances.

 

Don't have much a point to this mind, beyond saying that I don't think we're quite as solid defensively as many seem to think and that we'll most likely get a couple of pastings this season by teams less forgiving in front of goal.

They had 2 shots on target IIRC.

 

That doesn't tell the whole story though, Salah's attempt after Clark air kicked it went over the bar, Wijnaldum's shot that hit the post, Chamberlain's header late on, the goal mouth scramble early on and i'm sure there's more which don't cover "shots on target".

 

As much as we did limit them, they definitely created enough to win by 2 or 3 goals.

[Nobody]

No team ever scores all their chances (except us in the 5th place season). That's just part of the game. Draw was a fair result all things considered, they certainly didn't do enough to win by two or three, unless you're willing to discount all of our chances as well.

[Mole_Toonfan]

Nope just stating the facts, no need to get defensive over it. We did deserve a draw and i was happy with the performance for the most part, it's impossible to limit a team with that much talent to nothing. Just saying what i said to make the point that 2 shots on target doesn't really show what really happened on the day.

[tmonkey]

I no longer feel a team will hammer us completely.

 

The performance against Liverpool was as good as we could expect given the players we have, but I'm taking it that I'm one of the few who felt like they could have scored 4 or 5 if they actually finished a bit better? Salah especially seemed to be constantly running into acres of space to exploit. Alot of their shooting on the day was straight at Elliott, or we had somewhat fortunate goal-line clearances.

 

Don't have much a point to this mind, beyond saying that I don't think we're quite as solid defensively as many seem to think and that we'll most likely get a couple of pastings this season by teams less forgiving in front of goal.

They had 2 shots on target IIRC.

 

That can't be right unless stuff that looked on target wasn't.

 

- Lovren had a shot at goal from 6 or so yards out (after Wijnaldum's flick hit the post) cleared by a defender.

- Coutinho scored with a shot.

- Sturridge had a shot on goal straight at Elliott after being put through by Clark's sliced howler.

- Lovren had a header that looked to be on target cleared a few yards out by Shelvey.

 

That's 4 that I can remember, a couple of which should really have been goals (especially Sturridge being put clean through). On top of that they missed a fair few other chances with shots or headers off target, and then on top of that you have a fair few attacks which didn't result in a shot but were highly promising situations for Liverpool due to the gaps left by our defense.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm being overly critical, but I felt they could have scored a few more but weren't clicking on the night. We're better defensively for sure but I don't think we're "solid" just yet, which was my only point.

[Sima]

Where can I buy one of those gnomes?

 

Ya ganna drill a hole in it and fill it with macaroni n cheese or what?

 

what does this mean

 

Maybe he's gonna fuck the gnome.

 

[Ikon]

Where can I buy one of those gnomes?

 

Ya ganna drill a hole in it and fill it with macaroni n cheese or what?

 

what does this mean

 

Maybe he's gonna f*** the gnome.

 

 

That's what I was implying. Very very bad I know

[Sean]

I no longer feel a team will hammer us completely.

 

The performance against Liverpool was as good as we could expect given the players we have, but I'm taking it that I'm one of the few who felt like they could have scored 4 or 5 if they actually finished a bit better? Salah especially seemed to be constantly running into acres of space to exploit. Alot of their shooting on the day was straight at Elliott, or we had somewhat fortunate goal-line clearances.

 

Don't have much a point to this mind, beyond saying that I don't think we're quite as solid defensively as many seem to think and that we'll most likely get a couple of pastings this season by teams less forgiving in front of goal.

They had 2 shots on target IIRC.

 

That can't be right unless stuff that looked on target wasn't.

 

- Lovren had a shot at goal from 6 or so yards out (after Wijnaldum's flick hit the post) cleared by a defender.

- Coutinho scored with a shot.

- Sturridge had a shot on goal straight at Elliott after being put through by Clark's sliced howler.

- Lovren had a header that looked to be on target cleared a few yards out by Shelvey.

 

That's 4 that I can remember, a couple of which should really have been goals (especially Sturridge being put clean through). On top of that they missed a fair few other chances with shots or headers off target, and then on top of that you have a fair few attacks which didn't result in a shot but were highly promising situations for Liverpool due to the gaps left by our defense.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm being overly critical, but I felt they could have scored a few more but weren't clicking on the night. We're better defensively for sure but I don't think we're "solid" just yet, which was my only point.

 

You do know blocked shots don't count as on target right?

[afar]

For all the talk from the national media and their manager about how Liverpool's wasteful finishing cost them the game, we didn't really let them have too many clean up chances. The melee from the corner in the first half as Gini hits the post, the Clark mistake which should have been very costly and that half chance near the end where Ox heads it over. That only 3 chances, we created a decent one ourselves from the corner at the end, so they only really created 2 more decent chances than we did. That's not good enough for a top 6 team tbh, and all down to the structure of Rafa's team and the way the players worked hard to implement his instructions.

[Hanshithispantz]

Nope just stating the facts, no need to get defensive over it. We did deserve a draw and i was happy with the performance for the most part, it's impossible to limit a team with that much talent to nothing. Just saying what i said to make the point that 2 shots on target doesn't really show what really happened on the day.

Liverpool should have won the game like. As well as I think we played and as bad as they think they were on another day we probably need another goal there.

 

It wasn't an onslaught though, and I felt oddly comfortable throughout the game.

[Figures 1-0 Football]

Do you ‘deserve to win’ by having 30 shots and the game finishing 0-0? You don’t really deserve to win a game if you cant hit the ball in the net.

 

Surely you deserve the result that you get unless it is influenced by poor officiating.

 

They ‘should have won’ with their stats, aye. But we ‘should have scored’ at the end with Diame.

[1964]

Nope just stating the facts, no need to get defensive over it. We did deserve a draw and i was happy with the performance for the most part, it's impossible to limit a team with that much talent to nothing. Just saying what i said to make the point that 2 shots on target doesn't really show what really happened on the day.

Liverpool should have won the game like. As well as I think we played and as bad as they think they were on another day we probably need another goal there.

 

It wasn't an onslaught though, and I felt oddly comfortable throughout the game.

 

They had 2 shots on target to our 4 so i don't think that stacks up

[Hanshithispantz]

Do you ‘deserve to win’ by having 30 shots and the game finishing 0-0? You don’t really deserve to win a game if you cant hit the ball in the net.

 

Surely you deserve the result that you get unless it is influenced by poor officiating.

 

They ‘should have won’ with their stats, aye. But we ‘should have scored’ at the end with Diame.

No idea what you're going on-about here mind, I've never claimed Liverpool deserved to win and Mole said we deserved the draw in a post I was agreeing with. I was just making the fairly innocuous point that Liverpool should have scored another - how deep you want to look into that is upto you like. We got off massively with the Clark mistake (and followup) and with the bit of play at the beginning of the game when Shelvey's shot deflected right into Salah's stride. If you want to play some game of trying to argue me into the ground with some weighting of the Diame chance being worth more or equal to their chances or something then I'll just concede now like as I cannot be bothered

 

@1964 that stat means nothing in relation to how the game actually went though so I don't know why it's being brought up. We limited them very well but they were still the most dangerous side and looked most likely to score throughout the game.

[Figures 1-0 Football]

Think I mis-read your (or someone else’s) post like.

 

The Diame reference was pointing out that we were a decent whack away from winning 2-1, regardless of how many decent chances, shots on or off target, possession etc that they have. Basically alluding to the fact that you get what you deserve and if you’re not clinical, you dont deserve to (and wont) win games.

[Mr Logic]

Don't know if this has been posted but there's a canny documentary from NBC watchable on the official site.

 

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/watch-nbc-documentary-on-newcastle-united

 

Posting here because its almost as much about Rafa as it is Newcastle. At one point the question is being asked of many, can Newcastle change there DNA, (their DNA being never quite succeeding). Loved Ritchie's answer, he said it wasn't about changing it, it was about getting it back, referencing the times we truly were a big club that won so much.

[Ikon]

Cheers, will watch it

[Interpolic]

Fackin DNA

[Numbers]

Don't know if this has been posted but there's a canny documentary from NBC watchable on the official site.

 

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/watch-nbc-documentary-on-newcastle-united

 

Posting here because its almost as much about Rafa as it is Newcastle. At one point the question is being asked of many, can Newcastle change there DNA, (their DNA being never quite succeeding). Loved Ritchie's answer, he said it wasn't about changing it, it was about getting it back, referencing the times we truly were a big club that won so much.

 

Cheers, good watch.

[Dr.Spaceman]

Don't know if this has been posted but there's a canny documentary from NBC watchable on the official site.

 

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/watch-nbc-documentary-on-newcastle-united

 

Posting here because its almost as much about Rafa as it is Newcastle. At one point the question is being asked of many, can Newcastle change there DNA, (their DNA being never quite succeeding). Loved Ritchie's answer, he said it wasn't about changing it, it was about getting it back, referencing the times we truly were a big club that won so much.

 

LFEE at 12:36

[loki679]

Don't know if this has been posted but there's a canny documentary from NBC watchable on the official site.

 

https://www.nufc.co.uk/nufc-tv/latest-videos/watch-nbc-documentary-on-newcastle-united

 

Posting here because its almost as much about Rafa as it is Newcastle. At one point the question is being asked of many, can Newcastle change there DNA, (their DNA being never quite succeeding). Loved Ritchie's answer, he said it wasn't about changing it, it was about getting it back, referencing the times we truly were a big club that won so much.

 

Cheers for the link and all but I thought that was shite.  The first half was just every cliche about us you can reel off and the only thing worth listening to in the second half was Rafa.

[Altamullan]

Just watched it  doubt it would get an A if it was an A-level media studies submission. Cheap, unimaginative and repetitive. Oh, but I still enjoyed it 

[Ikon]

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/rafa-benitez-positions-newcastle-united-13728147

 

Check out this amazing website. Not surprising but good to hear #10, LB and striker being mentioned. Whether we sign any is a different thing.

Whatever we go for I hope it's quality before quantity.

[Charlies]

Long read but good:

 

Rafalution part two: Inside Rafa Benitez's fascinating 'process' to make Newcastle United Premier League-ready

 

Newcastle United boss Rafa Benitez calls it 'the process' - here is how it's playing out on the training ground

 

BY MARK DOUGLAS13:00, 6 OCT 2017UPDATED13:59, 6 OCT 2017

 

Rafa Benitez stands, hip flexed to 45 degrees.

 

He has just taken a 45-minute session with his midfield and defensive players devoted to movements. The point he has been hammering home to his players is about body positions and how the way you shape your hip when the opposition have the ball makes a difference. A searching pass over the top of Newcastle’s back four will cause problems in the Premier League: every team has the pace to exploit the space in behind you. If you anticipate and prime your body, you can shave a second off your response time. It might be crucial.

 

Benitez’s second sport is basketball, which is a game of movement and response. He’s fascinated with the way angles and shape determine that sport but tells his players it is just the same in football.

 

He will readily acknowledge that there aren’t too many other Premier League managers who go into this kind of detail. It is why he thinks he can extract improvement from a team who are – by and large – reliant on many of the same players and characters who delivered the team from the second tier at the first time of asking.

 

A new challenge needed a new approach. Benitez might not like it being billed as such, but this is the second part of the ongoing ‘Rafalution’ of Newcastle: yet this time the easy, quick wins of re-painting the training ground to give the appearance of a new start and re-stocking the squad with players who are – to put it bluntly – better than their rivals are not available.

 

The alternative is this: painstaking, meticulous work on extracting the smallest of improvements from his players. Ten points from seven games is a decent return. There is a ceiling at which Newcastle will bump their heads while Benitez did not get what he needed in the summer in terms of additions, but he can see a trajectory which United can follow.

 

“I can still see plenty of room for improvement,” he says, 20 minutes in a two-hour appointment at the training ground, his office bathed in autumn afternoon sun. “When I say that phrase in the press conference it is not because I have to say this. It is because I can see this.”

 

READ MORERafa Benitez responds to Amanda Staveley takeover talk for the first time since meeting her

 

The leather folder:

 

You suspect that Benitez likes it this way. Although he says the level of detail he indulges in is essential, it is also exactly what he likes doing. And he has a group at Newcastle who will listen: those who do not want to learn have either been shipped out, exiled or can be managed within a squad who – by and large – are a dream to work with. There are no egos here.

 

Benitez’s professional world is in a brown leather folder than he unzips to reveals sheets of neatly coloured and spaced pieces of paper. He has a Apple Mac on his desk loaded with folders full of clips of every game this season and their future opponents, but next to that there’s a printer. The sheets it coughs out all go in the brown folder.

 

“Here you see the micro cycles during the week,” he says. There’s a training schedule at the top of the page with what comes later in the week and month. Below that, a green football pitch rectangle with dots representing the players. There are four rectangles: even the warm up is detailed on it. There are exercises with times next to them – and the conditions in which each football exercise should be carried out.

 

The players are listed in groups and the two injured players at Newcastle – Paul Dummett and Massadio Haidara – are in a column of their own.

 

“The way you train is important and with this methodology you have less injuries. Before we came, there were a lot of injuries. Not any more.”

 

The other sheets reveal the results of tests carried out earlier in the week. There are statistics for every player from the last game and for the team. Pink represents negatives to be worked on; white is positives.

 

There is a sheet with players being looked at for future transfer windows – moved quickly enough for prying eyes not to see any names on it – and, of course, a sheet with pictures of the journalists he’s speaking to. He chuckles. “At the beginning I told Wendy I needed to know everyone,” he says. Are the journalists’ characteristics marked up in pink? “It’s only negatives with the journalists!” he jokes.

 

Rafa Benitez talks to his players during training(Image: Newcastle United)

 

The evolving style:

 

All of this information is nothing new. But Newcastle’s approach to the Premier League is very different to the way they looked at trying to win the Championship.

 

Benitez loves solving problems: he has done since he was a boy and became obsessed by the boardgame Stratego to the extent that he spent a summer working out ways to beat his brother every single team. So the problem of playing against better, stronger, faster and more organised teams with a Newcastle side largely pruned from the same players who won the second tier has been approached with the same forensic detail.

 

I ask him to join the dots of the inconclusive information about Newcastle’s start to the season. How can his team be the second lowest in terms of possession and passes and be unremarkable in terms of ground covered and yet have looked at home in the division?

 

These are markers that we might have looked at in the past and thought indicated how good a team is. Benitez warms to the theme.

 

“There are different type of stats that you can manage whichever way you want to. But we are not worried about them,” he explains.

 

“Earlier this week I saw an article that was about the kilometres that they have run but that means nothing. That’s nothing. You have two defenders and there are two defenders of the other team: you give the ball away and you have to run 80metres to recover the ball. The defenders of the other team are on top of you because you have plenty of possession: how far do they run?

 

“They cannot, because they do not have space to run. One team may be running more than the other but it means nothing because it depends on the context of the game. You may play counter-attack and you have to run because you have too much space or the other team may be on top of you. The difference normally is the high intensity of the sprint - not how many kilometres you’ve run.

 

“The possession stats? Well, our shots on target are fine. When you don’t have much possession it’s normally because you play counter-attack. This is not the Championship where we were much better than most of the teams. This is the Premier League where normally you have less quality than some of the others.

 

“People may talk about possession but if you have the ball and give the ball away that doesn’t matter. I would like to have a little bit more (possession) but I’m not worried about that. What I’m thinking is: can we create chance? We have chances.

 

“Can we take our chances? We can improve on that. We can improve on everything. The stats depend on the context of the game. Some games we run too much, which is wrong. Some games you run a lot and it’s perfect because you need to.”

 

Don’t get it twisted: Benitez wants his team to be more comfortable in possession and to gain more control. Every day in training he sees a team that is confident on the ball and players who are ready to play passes. But he notes that sometimes that evaporates when they actually enter the field of play.

 

He anticipates that will improve with the work they are doing every day. How quickly will depend on how malleable the players are; how open they are to new ideas and how quickly they adapt to the new challenges.

 

And there are some players who are doing that quicker than others. Jamaal Lascelles has improved at a rate that has surprised and encouraged his coaches. For others the process is a longer one: Chancel Mbemba’s communication still suffers because his English is patchy. He can now understand the language but still struggles to communicate his feelings. Florian Lejeune’s introduction may kick-start improvements somewhere along the line.

 

READ MORE'He is important for us': Rafa Benitez on why Ayoze Perez has been an ever-present for Newcastle

 

The long process:

 

This is the longer process Benitez is engaged in at Newcastle. The easy wins have been chalked up but the longer battle is under way and it won’t be won easily. It might never be won in Benitez’s head: every point and passage of play is looked at for areas where the players and team can get better.

 

“It’s a long process and we are started (on it),” he says.

 

“When we played in the Championship, we played another style because we were on top of them. You have more possession, more chances, more shots. In the Premier League you have to defend and play counter-attack if you want to stay on top of them you have to do almost everything right. It’s almost another style. And then it’s still a long process.

 

“On Thursday we were doing some exercises on the movements of the defenders and midfielders when we are in possession. I can still see plenty of room for improvement.

 

“When I say that in the press conference it is not because I have to say this. It is because I can see this. You see players and they still have to adjust their movements slightly.

 

“We have analysed the clips of the movements in the Liverpool game. Before the game we said to the players ‘Be careful: They score many goals from counter attacks,’ Two minutes in they have a counter-attack. Why? Because our two full-backs were quite high, we shot when we should have passed and they blocked.

 

“That for me is the key. You have to understand what you have to do in each moment. Some people think that quality is about technical ability to kick the ball and pass the ball and whatever. No: it is to decide the right thing to do at the right moment.

 

“If you have to clear, you clear. If you have to shoot, you shoot. If you need to pass, you pass. Still I think we have plenty of room for improvement in these areas – with the ball, without the ball, movement, communication.

 

“Take the goal we conceded. People say it was a great goal by Coutinho. It was a lack of communication before the goal. Bad movement, a lack of communication and then he scores. All of these things we can improve.

 

“We cut them into clips and show them to the players – not to give them a bad feeling (about their performance) but to show they can learn and improve. ‘Did you see that? If you make this movement, it will improve next time’.

 

“We try to teach them about the game: it’s the way they will improve. When you talk about Lascelles or another player is improving it’s not just because they are training a lot. It’s because we are trying to give them the problems and they have to find the solutions.”

 

READ MOREWho is Newcastle United's marathon man? The distances covered by every NUFC starter so far

 

The Premier League game plan(s):

 

“We have 20 gameplans for every game,” Benitez says. “But they do not just come because we think them up in the morning.”

 

Benitez loves working with Newcastle’s analysts. He thinks their work is essential to what United are trying to do: and when they have provided him with over an hour of clips of important passages of play, his assistant Paco Moreno will boil them down to another 45 minutes.

 

These will be reduced further to manageable chunks for the players.

 

“With all of this information you decide the game plan and we ask the players to follow it. If it does not work you have an alternative plan. And then another plan.” That’s what he means by having 20 plans.

 

This information comes not just from the computer and Opta pro but also from word-of-mouth. Benitez had inside information about the mood in the camp at Liverpool – about how it might affect them at key points in the game – from his contacts on Merseyside. It’ll be the same next week when they face Southampton, a team led by Mauricio Pellegrino – a former player who he recognises as a similarly forensic footballing mind. Pellegrino was the “brain” of his Valencia defence, even if the tigerish Robert Ayala was sometimes a more eye-catching presence. It’s no surprise to Benitez that the Southampton manager has made a successful start to his managerial career.

 

While many might see a visit to St Mary’s as a possible three points, Benitez recognises how difficult that might be. But he has faith in the gameplan – and believes his players do too. “We are following a process,” he says.

 

“The guys in the analysis department do a great job. They have the clips and we always have a game plan. If the game plan isn’t working, we will change it.

 

“But you don’t have a game plan because you come in one morning and think ‘This is the game plan’. It’s because you have been working (for a long time) and you are thinking for a long time about what is the best way to play this game.

 

The future:

 

These are not the words of someone planning for a quick getaway at Newcastle, despite the very real sense of frustration at feeling his advice and exhortations in the summer were – partly, at least – ignored. He knows there are things to improve at Newcastle but the culture feels good. The public are onside, the momentum of the city has turned again.

 

Benitez does not take the appreciation of the supporters for granted. “They appreciate things. They are not stupid - they have a little bit of information. They know we work hard and we try always to work on that,” he said.

 

It is the one guarantee that he can offer. It is the one reason why Newcastle supporters feel comfortable with him in the dug-out, pouring every hour into “the process”.

 

 

[Mole_Toonfan]

The process you say?

 

http://media.philly.com/images/062714_sam-hinkie_600.jpg

 

 

Nobody outside the NBA thread will understand this reference

 

[timeEd32]

If relegation wasn’t a thing there is no question we’d be tanking every season.