Oh Rafa Please Conquer England
Rafael Benitez won The Champions League trophy in his first ever season at Liverpool FC and got to the final of the league cup. He joined the list of great managers at Liverpool FC ever to win this trophy. Despite finishing 5th in the league with Everton above us Rafael will always be remembered that season for bringing the 5th European cup back to Anfield.
In his 2nd season he brought the FA Cup to Liverpool along with the European Super Cup. 3 trophies in two seasons; not bad… Right?
The fans want The Premiership and a bad start to last season showed that we were not going to get it that season. Still 3rd in the league… And a Champions League final, Rafa must have been rubbing his hands together and the fans were pleased as well.
A Champions League Final defeat to AC Milan meant a season without a trophy for the men from Merseyside and the gaffer from Spain. Apart from The Community Shield of course but who were they kidding it was really a season without a trophy.
Now fans were thinking… “Well looking back that wasn’t a very good season for us”. But Despite this, things were looking up for Liverpool FC and manager Rafael Benitez. American owners with a fair bit of money took over the club and Rafa had just landed a deal for Spanish superstar Fernando Torres.
On the first day of the season came an away win for the reds. Steven Gerrard a savour to Liverpool FC once again with that marvellous free kick at Aston Villa. We were top of the league and back on top… At least for a day. We went through a drawing phase. We simply could not win. But back came the reds with some essential results. We were going strong again and Rafa was obviously delighted… For now at least.
Then came an away day at Reading. Oh here we go, an easy away day here. Rafa and his men were shocked with a 3-1 defeat and their first defeat in the league this season.
Now Rafa had managed to get the team qualified for The Champions League knockout phases. But how were we getting on in other competitions? A big week for the Reds with a massive game at home to rivals Manchester United. The fans were not happy after this game as we lost 1-0. Crashing out of the Carling Cup at the quarter-final stage to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge was disappointing to say the least. It was all downhill from there.
The clubs new American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillette were starting to get on Rafa’s back a bit. With speculation in the press growing bigger and bigger of an argument between the owners and Rafael. Transfer money was apparently what it was all about but who knows what’s the truth behind all this. Only a few people know what this is all about and they work for Liverpool FC.
Surely if Rafael doesn’t win anything again this season the fans and owners will want him out? We want The Premiership but once again it does not look like we are going to get it. Rafa is constantly mentioned in the media for his rotation policy. “Why is he doing this?”, “What is he doing playing him instead of him?”, “Why isn’t Torres in the team?”, “Why has he played him there?” and many, many more.
Two Champions League finals in 3 years is a marvellous achievement. But the fans, the board, and even Rafa himself all want The Premiership at Anfield. Sure no one would say no to another Champions league or FA cup. Or even a first League cup for Rafael wouldn’t go a miss.
Yes Rafa is a great manager and it would be very sad to see him go to another club. But ask yourself this question… Do you think he is the man for getting us The Premiership Trophy?
By Tom1892
(February 22, 2008)
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Yes I do think Rafa is the man. I actually believe that he is hurting so much the way our League campaign has crumbled around us. Sick of talking about rotation, becuase it’s not rotation Wenger/Fergie used as many/if not more players (Arsneal) it#’s about being able to rptate a player of equal quality and lets face it we haven’t got that. We have a huge squad but I believe we need say 2/3 players of the Torres/Gerrard/Carra/Reina/Masc/Agger/Arbelo quality.
Plus have you seen what he has done for the youth set-up AKA Mr Wenger our boys are storming in the league and playing like kings, remember just as Arsenals kids did.
Getting rid of Rafa is not the right answer, give him financial power to spend,for 3 players give him say £45Million, we would get 3 good quality players for 15Mill each, or even one £20Mill and 2 others.
Mr Rafa can be the man who deserves the chance to land us the premiership. All he needs to learn is to be less stubborn and accept that players have to be played in their most effective positions and rotation as in REST players ONLY when we have the points/game wrapped up.
You forgot to mention or didnt know that as well as winning the FA cup in his second season we also obtained our largest points total (82) Since the Premier League began! Which means he’s done better than every single manager we have had at Liverpool points wise since the Premier league began.
Fans don’t realise that we have improved alot under Rafa, but Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have also improved at that time, and we were already well behind them when he arrived.
It takes time, be patient, i’m confident he’ll be a success in England, at least he admits when he’s wrong unlike Houllier and gets rid of players straight away if they don’t fit, so we dont lose too much money on them!
aka bellamy, morientes, josemi, nunez, kromkamp, pelligrino are all players he brought in and shipped out within a year, you can’t always be right but it can be difficult to admit it!
Diao, Traore, Biscan, Diouf, Cisse anyone?????
Of course Rafa is the man. The fact is the squad does not have the quality to win the premiership and I don’t see how Rafa can kop the blame for that. On the whole his signings have been very good - there just has not been the money available to buy real top quality players. I can’t see any of the other big clubs even consideringthe likes of Crouch, Kuyt, Bellamy, Skirtel, Pennant, Benayoun etc. All good players but none of them would have played many (if any) games for the other three. We need another striker of Torres’ quality two match winning wide men and at least one world class full back. So lets just remind ourselves of the joy Rafa has given us and hope that DIC in and back Rafa.
A year on from the supposed squad and stadium investment and we seem to be further away than ever from the Premier League title.
Negative tactics, containment football, inability to create, players out of position, failed rotation policy, poor formations wasted money, silly substitutions, and a seeming inability to motivate his players for every game cannot be ignored and will be the reason for Benítez’s downfall at Anfield.
Since the turn of the year Benítez’s team have only won twice in the Premier League, struggled against lowly opponents Luton, and Havant & Waterlooville and lost to Championship side Barnsley in the FA Cup. For far too long, Liverpool have settled for second best in the transfer market because they have been put off by the fees asked for top players.(Torres/Babel/Mash fingers crossed aside).
There is no clear chain of command anywhere at Anfield. Parry is a joke! The Yanks full of Bull !!!.Liverpool won the match against Inter but they could have sealed the whole tie already. A two-goal advantage is more than anyone could have expected before kick-off; after the way the game panned out, it seems like the bare minimum. Benitez was once again too slow to grasp the initiative. When the opposition have a player sent off, you’ve got to act like a predator. BenÍtez pondered again, Déjà vu or what !!! We lost the European Cup against AC Milan because of Benitez negative tactics.A game we should have won with the earlier introduction of Bellamy and Crouch .What went wrong for them against Barnsley can be traced back to the start of the campaign. In September they walloped Derby 6-0 then went to Portsmouth for their next game, made five changes and drew 0-0. The Liverpool philosophy has always been to hammer home when you have an impetus and Liverpool did not do that. They have suffered ever since.
There has obviously been too much rotation in selection and are far too cautious at Anfield.
The passing is quite frankly a joke, against Barnsley we gave the ball away without any pressure 19 times; today against Mboro same story only worse stats, 25 times the ball was given away. What the hell is going on at Melwood, the coaching appears a joke. Today’s performance apart from the efforts of Torres, Gerrard and Mash were unacceptable. Time for big changes in ownership, stewardship, and manager and playing staff. We played better football and with more passion under Houllier, Benitez can handle Europe, the Premier league he will never master.
SOS DIC.
I find it interesting that fans continue to do the same thing. Criticize benitez for his coaching method(selection policy etc.) but fail to mention that most of the players they praise week in and out were actually benitez signings. Mascherano, Reina, Torres, Babel, and Alonso are all now or very close to being world class. But for some reason we can’t seem to praise him for those picks. Odd.
Benitez never gave timescales to how long it will take to win the premier league. he just said he wants to challenge for things. The only promise he made to the fans that i can remember(correct me if i am wrong) is that we will never never finish 37 points behind chelsea again. We haven’t. He needs time. simple as that. The squad in anyone off match can match any team in the world and often has beaten them. What he needs is more quality in depth.
Every Liverpool fan knows that O’shea and fletcher of Man United, Obi Mikel, Paulo ferreira, of chelsea, and flamini, gael clichy, of arsenal would never get a game at liverpool but they are consistent and perform their role as understudy very well when called upon, and usually match the smaller teams in the league while the real core of those teams tears apart the defences. We don’t realy ahve that. Our supporting cast is not good enough. but there is hope cos our younger players are progressing. the double FA youth cup winning team are progressing together, moved up to the reseves and are tearing it apart. they should be given REAL shots in the first team next season and so forth.
If we are going to sign someone it should be a real goalscoring left winger ala Pires, robben, Cristiano, that is what we need. We thought Kewell was that guy but he has to go for his own good. I wouldn’t mind a guy like Downing cos he knows the premier league and ahs a knack of doing well against the smaller teams in the league which is where we realy need to perform better.