Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

2 days before the window closed, Rafa stated Robbie had a future at Liverpool.

The day after it closed, Rafa says Keane was not good enough???

I'm  dissapointed of this Rafa's words too, If I have to be honest.

In fairness to you Sabes, you've been more critical over this whole outcome with Keane than I can ever remember.

[Bam]

2 days before the window closed, Rafa stated Robbie had a future at Liverpool.

The day after it closed, Rafa says Keane was not good enough???

I'm  dissapointed of this Rafa's words too, If I have to be honest.

In fairness to you Sabes, you've been more critical over this whole outcome with Keane than I can ever remember.

Give him a BIG Kiss Mick, go on you know you want too.

[Sabre]

Nice signature Bam. Didn't know you were writing your memories. 

Don't be jealous though, it's not love, it's simple acknowledgement to someone who you normally disagree that he does criticism when he sees something to criticise. Saying to someone you normally disagree that kind of things is healthy. It shows you have certain empathy and are able to understand his position.

And I think that in this *two weeks*, Keane has been treated way worse than ALonso was in summer for instance. I never thought the substitutions were as terrible as the people implied, I think some other players would have accepted that situation better. And let's be honest, when you're drawing, you want to win a game, swapping one of the upfront men is quite usual in football. Back then I didn't see that much of an insult to the player, but selling him mid season with no replacement? It's something I can't understand, plus it's not enough explanation.

Because he hasn't been the first player to struggle to Liverpool's system. Torres did adapt, so did Mascha, but others like Morientes didn't. And they weren't offloaded like a suspicious growth in the middle of the season. So I can't be convinced by that explanation. Even less if we don't have a replacement. Even less, if in the first 16 matches you insisted on him and the results, if not for the player, were good for the team. Too early to give up.

The only behind the scenes explanation I can imagine is a situation of a proud personality player exploding after a substitution, and having a fight with Rafa with punches in the middle of the dressroom. Because when it comes to football management and the explained reasons, I'm unable to consider this Rafa's decission good or understandable.

[greenred]

Tony Cascarino

Deflecting the blame. Everyone in football does it: players on to managers, managers on to chairmen, fans on to all three. And this week we've seen a perfect example as Rafael Benitez tried to lay the blame for Robbie Keane's failure at Anfield on the forward himself. The reality is that it's the Liverpool manager who got it spectacularly wrong.

It was scandalous to hear Benitez suggest that Keane wasn't good enough for Liverpool and couldn't stand the pressure. This is an experienced player, Ireland's captain and top goalscorer, who went to Inter Milan as a kid and who was great for Spurs. It's true that Keane didn't perform but how could he when he was messed around, in and out of the team, switching positions but never in his best role, being dragged off early in games or put on the bench.

I'd like to ask Benitez how he ever saw Keane fitting into his side, what the original plan was. In hindsight he should have kept Peter Crouch. I never thought Keane could play alongside Fernando Torres, they just weren't likely to gel. My thinking when the move was first announced was that Benitez wanted to emulate the movement of Manchester United's forward line last season, where Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney interchanged and alternated. But that wasn't the case because Keane was clearly told to stay on the left. And with Steven Gerrard bombing on to join Torres in the box, that made Keane even more redundant.

The manager's attitude seemed to be: Keane doesn't fit, so I won't try and adapt the team or be more flexible, I'll just leave him out. It's a manager's job, though, to get the best out of his players, to find a way to fit all the pieces in the puzzle – especially when they are as expensive and talented as Keane.

Benitez gave up on his £20 million man very quickly. But all players need to feel wanted. Robbie has always been confident but his self-belief will have been affected because his manager wasn't making him feel welcome. Benitez is always distant and ruthless anyway. And at times over the years he's hardly seemed enthusiastic about a player so critical as Steven Gerrard. He's been lucky Gerrard hasn't been more outspoken.

But his treatment of Keane went far beyond his normal coldness, he was practically disassociating himself from the striker from quite early in the season, blaming him for not performing. That will have been hard to take and can only have made his form worse. After only six months at the club he knew he had to leave. There was no choice: when a manager doesn't want you, it's time to go. Even with Liverpool in the title hunt and Champions League, there was no point in staying.

Will losing Robbie damage Liverpool's title hopes? They're not good enough to win it anyway. It will be costly because many Liverpool fans will not have liked the way Benitez treated Keane, and their admiration for the manager will lessen as a result. At 28, Keane still has three or four years at the top of the game and he will go on to be a good player for Spurs and score some important goals. His brief spell on Merseyside will be quickly forgotten.

But not by everyone. When the time comes for Benitez to leave Anfield and we all reflect on his reign, the way he failed to get the best out of Keane, and failed to treat him with respect, will be a big black mark against him. And perhaps it will contribute to his eventual downfall.

















Cascarino makes a couple of decent points here.I guess the main one being he has seriously divided the supporters for the first time.I really hope he knows what he`s doing.

[bigmick]

Everyone's got their own theories on Keane, why it didn't work, whether he was good enough in the first place, whether he was worth 20 million quid, who bought him sorry   (that's the smiley I meant, honest) and the like. I'm no different because I have my own little hunches, but the most important question is much bigger than that.

The most important question is this: Was selling Robbie Keane without any replacement in the best interests of the football club given we are in our first title challenge for many years? The answer is no. Equally, you could justifiably ask whether the way we handled Keane, regardless of any of the above questions was in the best interests of the team, and the answer is no.

I've talked a couple of times about the footballing Gods, football Karma if you like. Lennon once talked about "instant Karma's gonna get you" and football karma's like that. That's why teams waste a squad position by taking three goalies to a World Cup. You know you'll never need them and you probably will need an extra left winger at some point, but you take the keepers anyway. Why? Because if you don't the laws of football Karma dictate that one of your goalkeepers will break a finger in a fight over a late night game of poker, with the other goalie who will fracture a cheekbone. It's as sure as eggs is eggs so you take the three goalies.

Now we've sold Keane without any sensible cover, and if you are being charitable we have two recognised strikers. Torres obviously, and being charitable I'm going to count Gerrard. I know he's not really a striker per se, but he scores as many goals as one and kind of plays advanced, so we'll say we've got two. That should be "had" two of course, as in the very first game since we decided to sell Keane, Gerrard has picked a hamstring injury. We're being told it's a three week recovery, but of course that isn't three weeks till full fitness. It's three weeks before the player can be considered, normally followed by three weeks of nursing back. That's at best, the very best case scenario. Our other striker is mysteriously being talked about as "probably not" being fit, I'm not quoting anybody from within the club because there doesn't appear to be quotes. Perhaps it's just gossip and whispers, but there appears to be a bit of a rumour that perhaps all isn't well with our star striker.

Instant karma often does get you in football. The footballing Gods rarely let someone escape their wrath. Could it be they have spoken in their most emphatic voice after we have sold Keane? Are both of our front two now injured, and I ask again were the decisions re Keane taken in the best interests of the team? The answer is emphatically no, IMHO. They were and remain an absolutely ridiculous collection of decisions.

[SupitsJonF]

If Carragher, Gerrard and Torres manage to drive Liverpool to the title, Keane will qualify for a winner's medal, but he would not keep it. "Not at all. My brother is a Liverpool fan so I'd probably. . ." Keane tailed off, hinting he would give the medal to his brother but then remembered something about his sibling. "He's a Tottenham fan now.''

[bigmick]

Can't see why people find this thing about the medal particularly offensive. He obviously wouldn't think he'd earned it. I remember reading something about Roy Keane or was it Paul Scholes who said the same thing about the Champions League because he missed the final, and that was while they were still playing for Man Utd.

Although having played in some games at the start of the season, if Liverpool now went head to head with the Mancs and got up in the last game of the season, Keane is hardly going to feel part of it is he? Just being honest I think, and you can hardly blame him. He'd look a bit of a bullsh!tter telling everyone when he's 65 that he won a Premier League title with Liverpool. He may qualify for a medal were we to win it, but he's not silly enough to believe he deserves it.

[SupitsJonF]

Can't see why people find this thing about the medal particularly offensive. He obviously wouldn't think he'd earned it. I remeber reading something about Roy Keane or was it Paul Scholes who said the same thing about the Champions League because he missed the final. Although having played in some games at the start of the season, if Liverpool now went head to head with the Mancs and got up in the last game of the season, Keane is hardly going to feel part of it is he? Just being honest I think, and you can hardly blame him. He's look a bit of a bullsh!tter telling everyone when he's 65 that he won a Premier League title with Liverpool. He may qualify for a medal were we to win it, but he's not silly enough to believe he deserves it.

Why give it to his brother when he can give it to me 

And Keane WILL play a part in our season if he fails to score against us in the last game, or scores an OG.  That would be nice 

[bigmick]

Can't see why people find this thing about the medal particularly offensive. He obviously wouldn't think he'd earned it. I remeber reading something about Roy Keane or was it Paul Scholes who said the same thing about the Champions League because he missed the final. Although having played in some games at the start of the season, if Liverpool now went head to head with the Mancs and got up in the last game of the season, Keane is hardly going to feel part of it is he? Just being honest I think, and you can hardly blame him. He's look a bit of a bullsh!tter telling everyone when he's 65 that he won a Premier League title with Liverpool. He may qualify for a medal were we to win it, but he's not silly enough to believe he deserves it.

Why give it to his brother when he can give it to me 

Well there is that I suppose John yeah, fair point 

[Bam]

Tony Cascarino

Deflecting the blame. Everyone in football does it: players on to managers, managers on to chairmen, fans on to all three. And this week we've seen a perfect example as Rafael Benitez tried to lay the blame for Robbie Keane's failure at Anfield on the forward himself. The reality is that it's the Liverpool manager who got it spectacularly wrong.

It was scandalous to hear Benitez suggest that Keane wasn't good enough for Liverpool and couldn't stand the pressure. This is an experienced player, Ireland's captain and top goalscorer, who went to Inter Milan as a kid and who was great for Spurs. It's true that Keane didn't perform but how could he when he was messed around, in and out of the team, switching positions but never in his best role, being dragged off early in games or put on the bench.

I'd like to ask Benitez how he ever saw Keane fitting into his side, what the original plan was. In hindsight he should have kept Peter Crouch. I never thought Keane could play alongside Fernando Torres, they just weren't likely to gel. My thinking when the move was first announced was that Benitez wanted to emulate the movement of Manchester United's forward line last season, where Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney interchanged and alternated. But that wasn't the case because Keane was clearly told to stay on the left. And with Steven Gerrard bombing on to join Torres in the box, that made Keane even more redundant.

The manager's attitude seemed to be: Keane doesn't fit, so I won't try and adapt the team or be more flexible, I'll just leave him out. It's a manager's job, though, to get the best out of his players, to find a way to fit all the pieces in the puzzle – especially when they are as expensive and talented as Keane.

Benitez gave up on his £20 million man very quickly. But all players need to feel wanted. Robbie has always been confident but his self-belief will have been affected because his manager wasn't making him feel welcome. Benitez is always distant and ruthless anyway. And at times over the years he's hardly seemed enthusiastic about a player so critical as Steven Gerrard. He's been lucky Gerrard hasn't been more outspoken.

But his treatment of Keane went far beyond his normal coldness, he was practically disassociating himself from the striker from quite early in the season, blaming him for not performing. That will have been hard to take and can only have made his form worse. After only six months at the club he knew he had to leave. There was no choice: when a manager doesn't want you, it's time to go. Even with Liverpool in the title hunt and Champions League, there was no point in staying.

Will losing Robbie damage Liverpool's title hopes? They're not good enough to win it anyway. It will be costly because many Liverpool fans will not have liked the way Benitez treated Keane, and their admiration for the manager will lessen as a result. At 28, Keane still has three or four years at the top of the game and he will go on to be a good player for Spurs and score some important goals. His brief spell on Merseyside will be quickly forgotten.

But not by everyone. When the time comes for Benitez to leave Anfield and we all reflect on his reign, the way he failed to get the best out of Keane, and failed to treat him with respect, will be a big black mark against him. And perhaps it will contribute to his eventual downfall.

















Cascarino makes a couple of decent points here.I guess the main one being he has seriously divided the supporters for the first time.I really hope he knows what he`s doing.

Its typically bias to see all the Paddy's flooding the boards, jumping on the 'Keane was treated unfairy' and 'Good enough for LFC'  bandwagon.

[Igor Zidane]

Tony Cascarino

Deflecting the blame. Everyone in football does it: players on to managers, managers on to chairmen, fans on to all three. And this week we've seen a perfect example as Rafael Benitez tried to lay the blame for Robbie Keane's failure at Anfield on the forward himself. The reality is that it's the Liverpool manager who got it spectacularly wrong.

It was scandalous to hear Benitez suggest that Keane wasn't good enough for Liverpool and couldn't stand the pressure. This is an experienced player, Ireland's captain and top goalscorer, who went to Inter Milan as a kid and who was great for Spurs. It's true that Keane didn't perform but how could he when he was messed around, in and out of the team, switching positions but never in his best role, being dragged off early in games or put on the bench.

I'd like to ask Benitez how he ever saw Keane fitting into his side, what the original plan was. In hindsight he should have kept Peter Crouch. I never thought Keane could play alongside Fernando Torres, they just weren't likely to gel. My thinking when the move was first announced was that Benitez wanted to emulate the movement of Manchester United's forward line last season, where Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney interchanged and alternated. But that wasn't the case because Keane was clearly told to stay on the left. And with Steven Gerrard bombing on to join Torres in the box, that made Keane even more redundant.

The manager's attitude seemed to be: Keane doesn't fit, so I won't try and adapt the team or be more flexible, I'll just leave him out. It's a manager's job, though, to get the best out of his players, to find a way to fit all the pieces in the puzzle – especially when they are as expensive and talented as Keane.

Benitez gave up on his £20 million man very quickly. But all players need to feel wanted. Robbie has always been confident but his self-belief will have been affected because his manager wasn't making him feel welcome. Benitez is always distant and ruthless anyway. And at times over the years he's hardly seemed enthusiastic about a player so critical as Steven Gerrard. He's been lucky Gerrard hasn't been more outspoken.

But his treatment of Keane went far beyond his normal coldness, he was practically disassociating himself from the striker from quite early in the season, blaming him for not performing. That will have been hard to take and can only have made his form worse. After only six months at the club he knew he had to leave. There was no choice: when a manager doesn't want you, it's time to go. Even with Liverpool in the title hunt and Champions League, there was no point in staying.

Will losing Robbie damage Liverpool's title hopes? They're not good enough to win it anyway. It will be costly because many Liverpool fans will not have liked the way Benitez treated Keane, and their admiration for the manager will lessen as a result. At 28, Keane still has three or four years at the top of the game and he will go on to be a good player for Spurs and score some important goals. His brief spell on Merseyside will be quickly forgotten.

But not by everyone. When the time comes for Benitez to leave Anfield and we all reflect on his reign, the way he failed to get the best out of Keane, and failed to treat him with respect, will be a big black mark against him. And perhaps it will contribute to his eventual downfall.

















Cascarino makes a couple of decent points here.I guess the main one being he has seriously divided the supporters for the first time.I really hope he knows what he`s doing.

Its typically bias to see all the Paddy's flooding the boards, jumping on the 'Keane was treated unfairy' and 'Good enough for LFC'  bandwagon.

agreed 100%. I really liked Keane as a player , i trully thought he would do the BIZ at Liverpool . For christ sake he's not the first and certainly wont be the last who couldn't cut it at Liverpool . Please spare me the he didn't get a chance bollox aswell . He had more than a chance , what's the difference between him and Torres in value ? About £3million ,well feck me someone tell me who's taken there chance and shown there value out of those two .

[Ciggy]

I seen Keane has been very bitter about his return to Spurs, knew it wouldnt be long before he said something.

But no longer a Liverpool fan what a joke.

[Owzat]

Way too many pages of a thread dedicated to a player who tried, failed, didn't score many goals and was here SIX MONTHS. He's gone, he can't prove he's good enough and, whether given a fair crack or not in your opinion, didn't take his chances in six months. Personally I think this thread has done it's time, it's just descended into what other Keane threads were - inevitably

1801 mins is plenty of time to score more than seven goals. N'Gog has had 394 mins in his Liverpool career, Keane had 4.5x that. And if he has said he's no longer a Liverpool fan then he never really was one, just another plastic from the emerald isle deciding Liverpool is his "chosen club".

[Igor Zidane]

I seen Keane has been very bitter about his return to Spurs, knew it wouldnt be long before he said something.

But no longer a Liverpool fan what a joke.

Feck em lynds , he's yesterday's man now . We move on! Moaning little sh!tehawk.

[maypaxvobiscum]

Portsmouth striker Peter Crouch has sympathy with Robbie Keane over his treatment at Liverpool, labelling Rafael Benitez's methods as "frustrating".


Keane was largely a bit-part player in his short stay at Anfield, scoring seven goals in 28 games before securing a move back to Tottenham.

And Crouch, who suffered similar treatment before joining Portsmouth last summer, said he felt for the Republic of Ireland striker.

"There are a few similarities between what has happened with Robbie and my own situation. I feel sorry for him," Crouch told The Sun.

"We all know what a great player Robbie is but he didn't get a fair crack of the whip at Liverpool.

"But that is the way Rafa operates and it can be very frustrating because, when I was there, he never really explained why I was not playing.

"There were times when I thought he didn't fancy me but then he'd start me for two or three games on the spin.

"It got to the stage where I gave up second guessing which games I would be playing and which ones I wouldn't.

"The biggest letdown for me was the Champions League final against AC Milan, when Rafa went with one up front and played Dirk Kuyt, as I was desperate to show what I could do on the big stage.

"The Liverpool fans won't care about what Rafa is like as long as they keep winning and you cannot argue with his record but, at the same time, it can be very frustrating."