Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[GEFAFWISP]

Just now, Yorkie said:

I hated winning 6-0 twice a season! 

It was such a negative 6 goals though!

[Guest HTT II]

I hated having a proper manager full stop!

[St. Maximin]

Not really towing the party line here, but we always have to mention the organisation, plan and the fact he cared and engaged with the fans to justify the admiration he had because the football wasn't always great, both in terms of aesthetics and results.

 

We just about won the Championship, so you can't have many complaints really, but we really should have won it more easily with that squad imo. We barely used a striker who has scored for fun in that league for a few years now and had several embarassing home results/performances. At one stage it didn't even look like automatic promotion was safe and then Brighton had to truly bottle it to let us win the league in the closing minutes.

 

We were in two relegation battles in the Prem for a while and needed some good runs towards the end to keep us safe. I am aware there was a lack of investment but most of these squads in the bottom 10 or so aren't massively different in terms of quality. In his last season we were fighting closely with Cardiff for ages and if one of us teams had a 'Championship squad' it wasn't us. I also don't recall people talking about how good Warnock was as a manager either.

 

Then the moving to China I also didn't feel 100% comfortable with. Of course his offer here was a disgrace and the financial incentives of his move were understandable, but it was a bit of a kick in the teeth imo that it was a for a job the other side of the world to his family, in a crap league where there was presumably a language barrier. Bit of a weird decision, just like Everton and I guess you could say us too.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by St. Maximin

[jackyboy]

Under Rafa, no matter how good the opposition were, I never felt like we would get hammered.  When we were left with Joselu as our main striker, Rafa kept it tight knowing that come the end of the season goal average could be important.

When people go on about him being negative they forget that we didn't have a decent striker for a lot of the time so needed to play the way we did

[Guest HTT II]

Under Rafa I always thought against a Man City for example, we could win and we did… and with such a shit squad.

[TRon]

5 minutes ago, HTT II said:

Under Rafa I always thought against a Man City for example, we could win and we did… and with such a shit squad.

 But on the flipside, there was always the worry whether we would beat the crap sides on account of being too cautious. I still remember that cost him any chance of winning titles with Liverpool. 

[The Butcher]

Absolutely loved Rafa here, but I must admit that love faded quite a bit when he went to China. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Joey47]

My biggest gripe about Rafa's time here is some of the choices he made with the squad. For example never giving Adam Armstrong or Mitrovic a chance in the championship, Ivan Toney less so because he was more of an unkown. Also letting Kevin Mbabu go/never giving him a chance after that performance he had against Chelsea.

 

I've seen some Mourinho comparisons in here and I feel like this is another aspect about him where they are similar. They are never going to excel in bringing youth through the ranks because they will always favour experience even sometimes over ability.

 

This is also one of the reasons that as much as I loved Rafa I wouldn't want him back. Bringing youth through the ranks is such an important and exciting aspect of the game.

[Yorkie]

Mitrovic played 29 times in the Championship season and didn't pull up any trees; Armstrong spent the season starting for Barnsley; for Toney read Shrewsbury + Scunthorpe.

 

Meanwhile Gayle, Murphy (both who he signed) and Perez led the line and scored 41 between them. 

 

Mbabu you can have. 

[bowlingcrofty]

Massive fan of people now saying that they had gripes with Rafa when he is literally the sole reason we came back up, and was a major player in the initial workings of the takeover.

 

Backstabbing bastards

[St. Maximin]

4 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Mitrovic played 29 times in the Championship season and didn't pull up any trees; Armstrong spent the season starting for Barnsley; for Toney read Shrewsbury + Scunthorpe.

 

Meanwhile Gayle, Murphy (both who he signed) and Perez led the line and scored 41 between them. 

 

Mbabu you can have. 

That Mitrovic has been ridiculously prolific in that league ever since when played as the main man does raise questions over Rafa's handling of him, but saying that he had Gayle for most of the season and he was excellent so with hindsight that didn't really matter.

 

I still don't think we were overly impressive that year given the squad and our struggles to get there. However, finishing 10th the following year was brilliant and Rafa's standout year here imo.

[Deuce]

 feels like some are being contrarian for the sake of it. We won the Champo in our first season back and finished 9 points above 3rd, promoted with ease.

 

*sees Rafa struggling with Everton* “Not surprised really, he only *checks notes* won the Championship and *checks notes* took us to 10th in our first season back in the Prem.”

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Tomato Deuce

[jackyboy]

I remember reading something about Mitro where he told Rafa that he didn't want to use his energy up defending and wanted to use it for attacking. Didn't go down well with Rafa and I think that saw him out the door. Problem is that when you have a side with so many mediocre players the only way you can try to offset that is by work rate and organisation.

If we dropped everybody that people on here  want dropped we wouldn't be able to get a team out

[LV]

26 minutes ago, The Butcher said:

Absolutely loved Rafa here, but I must admit that love faded quite a bit when he went to China. 

 

 

 

 

 

Why??

 

The fella wanted to work and there were no other job offers about 

 

What’s wrong with that?

[St. Maximin]

1 minute ago, Tomato Deuce said:

 feels like you’re being contrarian for the sake of it. We won the Champo and finished 9 points above 3rd, promoted with ease.

Would be a bit boring if we all agreed, no? I remember for a while we couldn't be completely confident of automatic promotion - think after we lost to Ipswich it felt like that while Brighton had gone and secured it. Huddersfield fell apart once we pulled away and Brighton monumentally choked when they should have wrapped the league up, only for us to take advantage and win with a few minutes to spare.

 

With that squad you'd expect comfortable promotion but the final stats didn't quite tell the full story.

 

So not really being contrarian for the sake of it 

[Yorkie]

There were a few stinkers in the Championship season but I think we might have been spoiled with the Hughton one, which was an anomaly. Didn't we get the second highest points tally ever for the division that year? 

 

When you consider all the summer outgoings, this was our starting position squad-wise:

 

Elliot

Darlow

 

Dummett

Lascelles

Mbemba

Haidara

Good

Findlay

Sterry

 

Colback

Anita

Shelvey

Aarons

Gouffran

Sammy

Barlaser

Ben El-Mhanni

 

Perez

Mitrovic

 

... and we won the league. Aye there was money to spend but it was spent incredibly well. 

[Deuce]

Just now, St. Maximin said:

Would be a bit boring if we all agreed, no? I remember for a while we couldn't be completely confident of automatic promotion - think after we lost to Ipswich it felt like that while Brighton had gone and secured it. Huddersfield fell apart once we pulled away and Brighton monumentally choked when they should have wrapped the league up, only for us to take advantage and win with a few minutes to spare.

 

With that squad you'd expect comfortable promotion but the final stats didn't quite tell the full story.

 

So not really being contrarian for the sake of it 

What difference would it have made had we won the league with 115 points instead of 94?

 

And like I said, we *were* comfortably promoted. We finished 9 points above the playoffs zone.

[TRon]

Just now, St. Maximin said:

Would be a bit boring if we all agreed, no? I remember for a while we couldn't be completely confident of automatic promotion - think after we lost to Ipswich it felt like that while Brighton had gone and secured it. Huddersfield fell apart once we pulled away and Brighton monumentally choked when they should have wrapped the league up, only for us to take advantage and win with a few minutes to spare.

 

With that squad you'd expect comfortable promotion but the final stats didn't quite tell the full story.

 

So not really being contrarian for the sake of it 

 

That's how I remember it as well, always felt we should have walked that league, but like with all Rafa sides, it was a safety first approach, and tbf it got us promoted. But you always felt like we should have been drubbing at least a few of the lower half teams. But Rafa has his preferred formations and styles, and he tends to stick with them regardless of who you are up against. 

 

I guess that's good in some ways as everyone knows their role, but on the other hand you miss out on some big win opportunities. 

[Chicane]

I think he probably saw the big offer from China, saw there weren't any offers in the Prem and just said "alright fuck it, might as well go and get a bag"

[Billy Pilgrim]

14 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

There were a few stinkers in the Championship season but I think we might have been spoiled with the Hughton one, which was an anomaly. Didn't we get the second highest points tally ever for the division that year? 

 

When you consider all the summer outgoings, this was our starting position squad-wise:

 

Elliot

Darlow

 

Dummett

Lascelles

Mbemba

Haidara

Good

Findlay

Sterry

 

Colback

Anita

Shelvey

Aarons

Gouffran

Sammy

Barlaser

Ben El-Mhanni

 

Perez

Mitrovic

 

... and we won the league. Aye there was money to spend but it was spent incredibly well. 

Nothing in life is all upsides and the downside to Benitez is he loves spunking money on shite in the quest to find someone who can do a job. It takes him 3 signings to get it right but he does eventually. 

[Yorkie]

4 minutes ago, Chicane said:

I think he probably saw the big offer from China, saw there weren't any offers in the Prem and just said "alright fuck it, might as well go and get a bag"

 

Course he did. I can't see why you wouldn't. Never had a doubt in my mind that he would've stayed here instead had it been worthwhile to do so from a football point of view. It wasn't though. And why the fuck shouldn't he have deserved a payrise? Right now we'd have had Ashley downsizing to overcome the deficit from receiving no more parachute payments had Rafa not stuck around and dragged us back to the Premier League. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

14 minutes ago, Tomato Deuce said:

What difference would it have made had we won the league with 115 points instead of 94?

 

And like I said, we *were* comfortably promoted. We finished 9 points above the playoffs zone.

 

He was also starting to prepare for the PL already... drilling the team in the more cautious approach that would be needed against better teams after promotion.

[Yorkie]

14 minutes ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Nothing in life is all upsides and the downside to Benitez is he loves spunking money on shite in the quest to find someone who can do a job. It takes him 3 signings to get it right but he does eventually. 

 

 What? It's absolutely beyond me how anyone can have that opinion. He signed one first choice striker in Gayle and he was a revelation. He signed one backup striker in Murphy and he did a grand job when called upon. One winger, Ritchie, who was basically the most productive player in the league that season I think, and served us very well in the first season back up. Centre-mid, Diame, who played a big role and went onto even better things in the Prem, and Hayden, again who provided brilliant value for money. Two CBs: Clark, who formed a formidable partnership with Lascelles, and Hanley, who wasn't up to much but provided cover. Full-backs was 1 out of 3 in terms of Yedlin being more use than Gamez and Lazaar. Then you've got Sels, which was the only big swing-and-a-miss.

 

I mean his signings (and their success) were probably the most impactful thing he did to ensure promotion. 

 

In the PL the context changed cos the budget was farcical and he could never get his first choices. But still resulted in several fantastic buys: Dubravka, Schar, Fernández, Lejeune, Kenedy season 1. Even Joselu and Ki provided a reasonable return when you consider they cost about fourteen pence between them. Who knows what Miggy would've become in a Rafa team. I've always liked him and he certainly played a big part in keeping us well clear of the drop in 18/19.

[Yorkie]

Forgot Yedlin. Another one who was crucial to promotion and consolidation. 

 

First team wise his hit rate in the Championship season was basically just short of 100%, assuming Sels was intended as the number 1.

 

Edit, Wait, no, I didn't forget him. Whatever. I've got a bee in my bonnet. 

[Kid Icarus]

Be careful disagreeing with people that don't like him by using things like examples and evidence of his success and our success with him as our manager. They'll claim that no one's allowed to say anything bad about Rafa. 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by kisearch