Rafa Benítez

[RS]

Not one manager available could do anything with this squad. I'm amazed Rafa is still here. He's got a championship team taking points from premiership teams.

Loads of tossas calling for his head but can't give a better replacement. Says it all

[Yorkie]

It's probably fair to say he's hardly covering himself in glory this season, but he's still the most accomplished and decorated manager we've had in my lifetime. In spite of all the saviour stuff, I want to see him given a new board, some transparency, a proper budget and time to nit things together. He's already made great strides in improving the club on the whole since he's been here, he just isn't making things tick on the pitch at the moment. Mainly because the squad is fucking terrible.

[Troll]

This squad is on par with Mick McCarthy's Sunderland sides, or that godawful Derby side who only beat us.  Doubt anyone could do much better with it.

[Carlito]

It's probably fair to say he's hardly covering himself in glory this season, but he's still the most accomplished and decorated manager we've had in my lifetime. In spite of all the saviour stuff, I want to see him given a new board, some transparency, a proper budget and time to nit things together. He's already made great strides in improving the club on the whole since he's been here, he just isn't making things tick on the pitch at the moment. Mainly because the squad is f***ing terrible.

 

This right here should speak volumes about why he's the right person for us. In an era where the club has been rotten to the core, he's done a lot to initially unite the fans and bring some level of hope back to the city. Now after 3 months of his squad performing like he said they would before a ball was kicked this season, people are actually calling for him to be sacked. It's ridiculous. Most of the players he has wouldn't be getting a sniff of the first team if he was able to get his summer targets in.

[IneedAbed]

He's our last best hope.

 

He leaves and takeover collapses,  This next 6 months is pivotal in the history of the club, We must support the guy.

This is not fifa where you can drop shelvey and bring in hayden because both their stats are 82.

We know as much as Lee Ryder in regards of who should be in the matchday squad.

We are organised shite.

Mike stays , Rafa leaves and whats the point .

[Zero]

I don't want him sacked, I still want him to be our manager, but I won't be surprised that he is heavily criticised nor I would spend any effort defending him.

 

In short, he has done a lot of things that do him no favour, and make himself fulnerable to critics. The handling of Mitrovic, the signings (if the player is that shit, why waste money?), Gamez Mbemba and Manquillo, 12m spent on a bench player instead of starting 11, persistence of Ritchie, suicidal 442, strange subs etc. He deserves the sticks. Rightly so. He is "failing" in the sense that he didn't really utilise all his resources on hand. Just he shouldn't be sacked due to no replacement and as some people said "his hand is tied".

 

It has been said last season already. A "world class manager", "top elite in Europe", should be better than this.

[Sima]

Mbemba aside (McClaren signing) there’s not a lot that can be argued with in that middle paragraph tbf.

 

Once the Palace (A) game is done we’ll be in a better place to judge.

[Hanshithispantz]

He shouldn't be sacked because he's by some distance the best manager we could ever have, I don't even know why anyone would even contemplate the idea.

 

Even if we get relegated I wouldn't sack him although I think he'd walk.

[IneedAbed]

Imagine this farce if we were doing well above expectations : )

[Dave]

I reckon we could probably attract Pardew back once West Brom sack him. Knows the club, gets on with Ashley and most importantly plays attacking football.

[IneedAbed]

6 weeks , this is ashleys fault, lets remember.

Lets move forward.

Lets judge when the horse and the cart are in the same arena .

[r0cafella]

Hopefully he’s backed this window if not we are in deep trouble.

 

My support for him is unwavering as many have posted context is king. I just hope the doubters bare in mind we are In profit for transfer under him, yes we haven’t spent a penny under his watch and he’s doing his absolutely best the man is a perfectionist who analyses everything.

 

I fully appreciate the style is pretty dreadful right now but we are working in a division which continues to move forward teams investing vast sums year after year where as we continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel and have done for the ten years. We can’t and won’t be successful until this changes and there is nothing Rafa or anyone else can do to change that.

[Altamullan]

Catching-up with this just made me feel better about doing Xmas/New Year meals with the ‘outlaws’ and randoms. It might have been GeordieDean and HTT round the table!!! (I’d just pretend not to like football).

[Altamullan]

World class manager, maybe. Just not here IMO.

 

Great bloke, gets the club, city and fans. However, his football does not get the fans, city or club. Any other manager, we would be all over them.

 

For these reasons, s no reason to keep him. We are looking worse by the week, not better. He should be doing better.

 

Time to move on.

 

Worst thing I’ve ever read, and I’ve read The Da Vinci Code.

raised a welcome laugh. Thank you.

[Dr Venkman]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

[Guest reefatoon]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

 

Well they have had 2 months rest now so let's switch it back.

[Dokko]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

 

Well that’s a daft move as we’d arguably have more points, more breathing space and a transfer window to put it right.

 

God forbid these little darlings ever go on a cup run or Europe. Think pardew has something to say about Europe and fitness one time, maybe someone can remind me?

[hoppaz]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

 

Really! What did they say last season when we played 53 games in total (often 2 per week)?

[Hhtoon]

Our striker options aren't working so you do wonder whether Mitrovich would do any better, but he doesn't play as Rafa wants so it won't happen.

A lesser manager would possibly be more pragmatic and change his approach to try him, but Rafa won't. I have sympathy as his approach/methods have won a lot of trophies and it's not his fault he wasn't given what he needed. Unfortunately that impasse doesn't help much unless he's backed.

[Greg]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

 

Really! What did they say last season when we played 53 games in total (often 2 per week)?

 

We had a bigger and better (comparative to the league) squad so we were able to rotate quite a lot. We don't have the squad to do that in this division.

[TRon]

There probably is a legitimate question to be asked about Rafa's tactics at some point in the future, like Mourinho, his defensive style could be considered outdated in the modern game, but first of all you need to have the quality of player. I really don't know how you could play a more attacking style with this squad. We'd just end up making fools of ourselves like West Ham under Bilic.

[Carlito]

Apparently the switch in formation was down to long-term fitness levels. The fitness team looked at the stats and concluded that if we played the way we were playing at the beginning of the season for the whole year, that the players would all be knackered by about now.

 

This makes no sense to me at all. If anything it would make it easier on our midfield and defenders as there's arguably less ground to cover. Merino doesn't look quite the player he did in that early period when we were getting points on the board.

[Sean]

Got this as a Christmas present. Got total faith in the man. Yes times are tough at the minute, but the manager and the players need our support more than ever to get through the rough times.

 

[Mattoon]

I don't get the blame for Rafa, I really don't! Imagine being a mechanic, you've been working pit crews for years, McLaren, Ferrari, etc... but you've had enough of travelling the world and you want to go home. You go for a job at a local garage and it's the only one in the town and has a huge list of customers in it's catchment area but it's been doing shite because the owner got some money off his dad and thought he could run something he knew nothing about. You reckon you can easily turn it around and the place could make a fortune, you're an amazing mechanic why wouldn't it be easy? Then you find out the last guy to run the place broke all the tools and with his last budget he went out and bought a couple of dildos!? So you ask the owner for some money to buy some new tools, but he makes you sell the old ones for scrap first and only gives you £10 to go to Poundland and you have no choice but to buy a ratchet multi-driver, a size 10/11 spanner, some gaffer tape and a spirit level. Obviously you have massive issues trying to fix any cars and they keep coming back broken, when you try and explain to the customers you've been screwed over with the tools in the box you get told you shouldn't have spent your money on all that crap and just got yourself a really good spanner for the full whack, but what good would that have done without any other decent tools? Has this guy suddenly become a shit mechanic?

[Carlito]

Pretty sure this is how the meeting went down for the summer transfer budget