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11/12 Premier League thread

Rafa Benitez leaves Liverpool as a legend so could critics please stop rewriting history?


by Brian Reade


Right to the end the professional pundits failed to understand why so many Liverpudlians stayed loyal to Rafa Benitez.

As 500 fans marched on Anfield after his departure, chanting the Spaniard’s name, heads shook at a footballing sub-species bracketed *somewhere between romantic die-hards and mawkish morons.

To the “expert” eye, these deluded fools had been conned by Benitez’s cunning and blinded to his failings by the glory of Istanbul and the *criminal incompetence of the American owners.

Liverpool fans they said, once among the most knowledgeable in the world, had clearly lost touch with the modern reality, and were now a sad throwback to the days when sideburned men kicked orange balls.

Well, I’d argue one of the saddest aspects of modern *football is too many pundits, including ex-players, have not paid to watch a game since those orange ball days. And they’ve lost touch with the fan.

I’m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he’s been a major player in Anfield’s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing.

But to paint his six-year reign as an unmitigated disaster, sustained only by the over-sentimentalising of Istanbul, is analysis at its most skewed and cringeful. By 2004 Liverpool had been relegated to the status of European also-rans. Benitez made the club a genuine world force again.

It wasn’t just that 2005 *Champions League win (which is shamelessly downplayed as a fluke despite beating Fabio Capello’s Juventus, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan). Or reaching the 2007 Champions League final and the 2008 semi-final. It wasn’t even UEFA elevating Liverpool to Europe’s top-seeded club due to results under Benitez.

It was beating Real Madrid and Inter Milan at the Bernabeu and San Siro (which the Reds had never before done) and Barcelona at the Nou Camp. Magical victories at the very top of world football, which restored long-overdue respect to Liverpudlian hearts.

Ah say the experts, but he didn’t win the league. True. But he got closer than any Liverpool boss in the past 20 years. A season ago he was a whisker away, taking the highest number of points by a runner-up in a 38-game season and the club’s best points haul since 1988.

And he did so despite having the 5th highest wage bill *in the league, the 5th *costliest squad, the 5th biggest stadium capacity and a net annual transfer spend of £15million. Which should have made experts ask why Liverpool were ever considered a nailed-on top four side under Benitez, especially when the boardroom was mired in anarchy.

Ah, they say, but he’d long lost the players and the board. So why have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina signed new long-term contracts within the past year? Why last August did managing director Christian Purslow do interviews purring over Benitez and how he was integral to the club’s future?

Ah, the experts say, but that was before he let Xabi Alonso go, which everyone could see was a calamity. These would be the same experts who, for the previous couple of seasons, claimed Liverpool were a two-man team. With Alonso (on whom Benitez turned a £20million profit) never being mentioned as one of those two.

Ah, they say, but Torres apart, he only signed sub-standard dross and ended up with a shockingly-weak squad. Really?

Liverpool are sending 12 players (13 if you count Milan Jovanovic whose Bosman signing is going through) to the World Cup. Or an entire team: Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Rodriguez, Kuyt, Torres. Subs: Kyrgiakos, Jovanovic.

Eleven Chelsea players flew out to South Africa, the same number as Arsenal, and Manchester United sent eight. Does that look like he’s left Anfield bare of talent?

The truth is Benitez leaves a squad worth many times more than the one he inherited, despite spending less in the past three transfer windows than he’s brought in.

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s *failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his single-mindedness and knew something had to give.

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

Rafa Benitez was many things at Liverpool but unlike every manager since Kenny Dalglish, he was not a failure. Indeed a majority of *Liverpudlians will remember him as a legend.

Because like Bill Shankly, on more days and nights than those expert pundits ever care to recall, he made the people happy.
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its says it all that Inter want him now as a replacement for Mourinho. yet the deluded thick English media will tell you that he is only an idiot. No wonder England nevers wins fuck all and most of their managers havent a clue.
 
you have every sort of a cunt giving an opinion nowadays

all these no mark pathetic ex players who get paid to give their opinion on players and managers far greater that they were. They are too thick to become managers themselves.
 
James Corrigan: In debt, nothing to spend, stars may leave and owners hated. Interested?

The Last Word

Sunday, 6 June 2010


When Kenny Dalglish – or as he will soon be renamed "Kingmaker Kenny" – conducts his first interview for the role of manager of Liverpool Football Club it will be interesting to hear him set out the job description. We can only pray he speaks very slowly and very honestly. For it is only fair the candidates be made completely aware of what is expected of them.

But then, we all know Dalglish won't really be involved in the process and that he's only been called upon to douse the anger of the mutineers. It'll be down to whichever puppet the owners/board choose. Whoever it is – whether it's the chairman, chief executive or a £10,000-an hour headhunter – they will have to be some salesman. A smooth-talker whose next assignment will not be to sell sand to the Arabs but sell a debt- ridden club to the Arabs. Perhaps the spiel to the prospective gaffer should go something like this...
"Right let's get down to it – the last chap was a disaster. Rafa Benitez failed dismally. In six seasons he reached only two Champions' League finals, winning only one of them to go alongside his one FA Cup. How dare he? And don't even get us started about the Premier League. Do you know it took him five seasons to lead the club to its best League season in 19 years. Five seasons? I ask you, how much time did he want?

"Yes, yes, 2008-09 was rather promising on the face of it, losing just two games and collecting more points than any other runner-up in the history of the League. But we found out what he was about in the next campaign. Way down in seventh, a whole seven points off the fourth-place finish with which we would have been satisfied. It couldn't go on, so it didn't. Particularly when the press came on side and started printing the myths dressed up as damning statistics.
"Benitez signed more than 70 players for more than £240m. True, 30 of them were youth players and he did sell quite a few, too. In fact, when you do the actual maths his net spend is more like £80m, less than Spurs and, of course, less than Manchester City in the same period. But £240m sounds better, don't you think? And the wages? Well, yes, ours are about three-quarters of United's and Chelsea's, but what's that got to do with anything? This ungrateful man thought just because the new owners have given him virtually nowt to spend since they took over in 2007 he could whinge about it. Couldn't he see we're all suffering here? That even poor old George and Tom, as hard as they have tried, have been forced to put the club £350m in debt.

"So, you'll understand, we had to get rid of him. He would definitely have caused a fuss when we sold Torres and Gerrard and gave him £15m for squad strengthening. You wouldn't mind managing without those two would you? After all, Rafa effectively had to last season, with the Spaniard always injured and the new England captain in the worst form of his career.

"Still, there was no need for anyone to focus on that when they could blame him for selling Xabi Alonso and bringing in Alberto Aquilani. The most outrageous thing was that we only made £10m because of that piece of dreadful business. No, he had to go and now we have to go for a manager able to mask the cracks as we move ever deeper into the red and try to sell this club for a price it is simply not worth.
"So here's what we expect from the new boss in a nutshell. You must qualify for the Champions' League every year, winning it more often than once every six years and reaching the final every three years; you must do better in the Premier League than simply finishing a better second than any team before; and you must do all this on a smaller budget than your rivals, despite the fact everybody will claim otherwise. Do all that – and more importantly do it without moaning – and you'll be a hero in Liverpool and Texas. And please don't suffer one bad season that may or may not be a blip. Because you'll never be able to prove it was a blip. Because we'll get rid of you straight away and Fleet Street will applaud us for doing so.

"The fans? To hell with them. Thanks to those who we will soon have to call our 'friends in the press', the Anfield faithful can be dismissed as being more deluded than those cultists in Waco. Didn't you know they only stuck by Rafa because they had made him the figurehead for their protests. Well, that's what the columnists said anyway. It soon became accepted as a journalistic truth that the Liverpool support was 'in denial' when it came to Rafa and that in their hatred of the Americans they couldn't spot his inadequacies. Insulting? Perhaps just a little bit, considering we're talking here about fans who have consistently proved to be among the most knowledgeable. But it did the trick. They were talking rubbish – Rafa was rubbish. Had to go.

"So that brings us nicely on to you. How can you say no? Liverpool is a massive club, as you well know. And if we're bought out by some rich Arabs one day we might again have the finances of a massive club. To be honest, I wouldn't expect that to be Dubai now as they're more skint than we are. But someone with bottomless pockets will turn up. You just need to give off the illusion this club are as big as they ever were while we're waiting.

"So if you will just sign here, Mr Hiddink? Mr Hiddink? Mr Hiddink? Please don't slam the door, we've only just mended it from when Souness left...

"Valerie, get me Dalglish on the phone. Ask him if he would be kind enough to stop the fans from rioting, will you?"
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nice to see that there are actually some intelligent journalist out there who can actually do their job right.
 
Also, If Liverpool accept a bid from Chelsea for Fernando Torres then you know that this Oliver Broughton cunt has been sent up by Chelsea to sell them our players.

I have a bad feeling about that fucking cunt.
 
Roy Hodgson is favourite to take over at Anfield. I hope he stays at Fulham.

A colleague at work also said Hary Redknapp is a possibility, but i dont see how after he just attained a Champions League place with Spurs and has spending money and more security there.
 
I think Kenny's shocking tactics in tonights Soccer Aid charity game should rule him out.

Mike Myers up front with Zidane behind him ,Henrik Larsson at centre half and Luis Figo on the bench. wtf? lol
 
also that Clive Tysedsley is such a retard. I cannot stand him. i feel sorry for people that have to watch the WC with him commentating.
 
So Inter confirm Rafa as their new manager

and on his departure from Liverpool he donated £96,000 to the Hillsborough group.

great guy. hope things work out well for him at Inter.
 
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