Liverpool FC Forum

[Octsky]

Pre-season i think many of us already foresee the danger of  having Torres as our only world-class striker. It is like jumping down an airplane with only a parachute and no spare. What happens to Keane? Crouch? Owen? Bellamy?

So Rafa is playing with fire, he deserved to get burn. Only the club and fans are innocent parties.
Also the treatment of Babel is a disgrace, if you are not going to play him, then fu.ck.ing loan him back to Ajax or sell him to Brimingham for 9 mil instead of letting him rot on the bench, spoiling team morale and his market value.

Rafa is really stupidly stubborn.

Oi, dickhead - Babel REFUSED to join Brum.

Why don't you blame Rafa for the fact that your boyfriend doesn't fancy you anymore, too?

Lady's funspot.

Faith is good Lando, but blind faith kills.
you actions are no different from following a cult, we are a club, think for a moment instead of following blindly.
Labeling you an extremist is an gross understatement.

i too back Daglish to take over temporary, we need someone with the heart to lead the club over this crisis. Someone the players will respect and follow.

[Waldo]

To quote Rafa "if I decide to stay, it will be because (for) the fans"- that is the clearest indication yet that he is considering his position!!!!

[Dirty Barry]

We still have a very good chance of finishing 4th especially if we win on Wednesday, I know it's well below expectations at the start of the season but while that possibility is there I don't think he will be sacked.

While I think he probably should be let go I don't think he will until there is no way back, lose on Wednesday though I think even Rafa will find it hard to be positive about his future.

[teamleader1]

We still have a very good chance of finishing 4th especially if we win on Wednesday, I know it's well below expectations at the start of the season but while that possibility is there I don't think he will be sacked.

While I think he probably should be let go I don't think he will until there is no way back, lose on Wednesday though I think even Rafa will find it hard to be positive about his future.

I think the fact that we still have a decent chance of making the top 4 even top 3 is a possibility makes it even more important that we stop this slide now
Because if we carry on like this under Rafa we will soon be aiming for a top 7 finish.

[Dirty Barry]

We still have a very good chance of finishing 4th especially if we win on Wednesday, I know it's well below expectations at the start of the season but while that possibility is there I don't think he will be sacked.

While I think he probably should be let go I don't think he will until there is no way back, lose on Wednesday though I think even Rafa will find it hard to be positive about his future.

I think the fact that we still have a decent chance of making the top 4 even top 3 is a possibility makes it even more important that we stop this slide now
Because if we carry on like this under Rafa we will soon be aiming for a top 7 finish.

Good point my only worry is there is not enough in the squad for anyone to make a reasonable difference, I mean Lucas and Co would be no matter who was in charge.

Though on the plus side it would give someone 6 months to get rid of the dross and maybe they could get a couple of good loan signings.

I don't know we are really, damned if we do damned if we don't.

[NANNY RED]

I am not clueless or blind ,i havnt got me head in the sand,just thought id get that in before anyone else does,like

But this is a good fecking article,

The Last Word: Never mind the moans, look at the big picture

The media won't stop calling for the head of Benitez but the Anfield faithful keep dealing in the long term

By James Corrigan
Sunday Telegraph


When Rafa Benitez struggled at Valencia, the press called for his head but the club rightly stood by their man


I see Liverpool are 100-1 to win the Premier League this season, which happens to be the same price as the incumbent Prime Minister publicly admitting the existence of aliens. I'm thinking of placing £10 on the double, which would pay more than £100,000. Shall I go for it? Or play safe, and just back Gordon Brown coming clean on ET?


Yes, the Rafa Benitez jokes are doing the rounds. At least they are on message boards. In the columns, over the airwaves and on the telly, the outpourings are rather more serious. Indeed, these musings are as earnest as they are almost unanimous.

Certainly it would not be right to call these "neutral" discussions "a debate". That would imply there are two cogent sides to the argument. There aren't. Not in the media anyway. There is no argument. Rafa must go. It's a farce he has lasted this long...

Could they all possibly be wrong? And could the complete lack of ambivalence be down to the length of the execution? After all, there's only so many times one can lop off a man's head without it getting messy and, quite frankly, a tad tedious.

No. Not by their criteria anyway. Benitez ticks every box on the bereft gaffer's charge-sheet, from governing a plainly uninspired group of unworthy players to signing more than brilliance in his £200m-plus dealings.

But then there's the bigger picture which, as big pictures tend to do, only allows the here and now its percentage share of the canvas. First, there is the little matter of Benitez's achievements, which most would surely agree have established him as a manager who knows one end of football from another. A Champions' League and an FA Cup with Liverpool; two La Ligas and a Uefa Cup with Valencia. That's five titles in eight seasons. Hardly Mike Bassett, now is it?

If all this was in the all-too-distant past, what about the all-so-near past? Last season Liverpool happened to break a few records in not winning the Premier League. No team before have ever finished runners-up boasting so many points (86) and so few defeats (two). It was as close to a 19th League title as Liverpool have come in 19 years.

So which will come to be seen as the blip: '08-09 or '09-10? Well, see where Liverpool were when Benitez arrived. They had won three domestic cups in nine seasons and reached one European final (the Uefa Cup in 2001). In the League they had finished in the top two just the once ('01-02).

Now analyse what Benitez spent on a side who suddenly became good enough to reach the Champions' League final twice in three years as well as advancing to a semi-final and a quarter-final in the next two years. His net outlay is often quoted at being more than £120m – only Chelsea have spent more. But these figures are skewed, and a more realistic figure is £90m. That works out at about £18m per season, and with this he overhauled a squad which boasted six, perhaps seven players capable of performing at the highest level. That should be remembered when his spend is compared with those of Manchester United and Chelsea. Their training grounds were already beset with quality when Benitez showed up. We aren't talking level playing squads.

So is his record that awful in the light of all this? Put it this way, if a manager achieved the same results with the same finances in five years at, say, Tottenham, he would be labelled a miracle-worker. Except Benitez is not being judged on Spurs' history but on Liverpool's, if not his own. He is the victim of the Anfield succession.

It's inevitable he would be. People look at what is basically the same team who beat Manchester United 4-1 at Old Trafford in March (from that team only Sami Hyypia has left the club) and wonder what has happened. Have they become a bad squad overnight, simply because of the loss of Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa? Has the manager inexplicably lost the plot, never to recover it? Should five years of progress be deemed as woefully insufficient when compared with five months of mediocrity?

The media's answers seem to be yes, yes and yes again. The Liverpool faithful do not see it this way. Perhaps the hatred of the American owners does incline them to close ranks and stand by their footballing man, but they are the ones dealing in the long term. True, the Anfield boos rang out after the FA Cup exit to Reading on Wednesday, yet they were anything but resounding. One internet poll on Friday said 80 per cent of Liverpool fans still support the manager.

Maybe this particular majority recognised the beauty of a second chance. Benitez certainly does. He has been here before. After winning La Liga by seven points in his first season, the very next Valencia dropped to fifth and ended up trailing by 18 points. The Spanish press called for his departure, but the club held firm. A year later, Los Ches lifted the title again.

Will Liverpool's patience be anywhere near as rewarding? We are about to find out, as Benitez is safe for the season. From the sack, that is. His critics will not call off the dogs even if the top-four placing does materialise. They are in way too deep. Benitez is already a goner; under him the situation is irrecoverable. Goodness knows what they'll say if it isn't.

[Igor Zidane]

If Liverpool think they are in trouble now, just wait until Rafa walks

http://www.independent.ie/sport....31.html

L iverpool's traditional January crisis has momentum this year. Perhaps this is because it follows on so swiftly from their December crisis which had been directly prefaced by a November crisis that in itself was merely an extension of the October crisis which would not have come about except for their September crisis simply being a continuation of their August crisis that was merely a hangover from their close season debacle.

For much of last season they were in crisis too, even for the long periods when they were top of the league. During those troubling times it was generally agreed that Rafael Benitez must be doing something right, although nobody could agree on exactly what it was.

The best they could often come up with was the signing of Javier Mascherano. He deserved no credit for signing Fernando Torres. That was a no-brainer, except for all the smart men who didn't sign him.

Winning matches was then at least a part of it, but there has always been a great reluctance to give Benitez credit for that, with the view often being that he won the wrong ones.

He didn't understand the English game, they said, as he went on to win the European Cup, perhaps giving the fans their finest moment in Liverpool memory, something they have, much to the displeasure of the media, been reluctant to forget about ever since. Last season, Liverpool challenged for the title, performing as well as they had in 20 years, beating the teams they were supposed to beat.

Now that Liverpool have stopped winning matches, there is no reason to search desperately for reasons to praise Benitez. Liverpool are a team designed for knockIf -out competitions and now they have lost the main feature of teams designed to win knock-out competitions: the ability to win matches.

For some perspective out of the reach of the phone-in callers who wonder why Peter Crouch is not playing for Liverpool (Crouch turned down a new contract at Liverpool so it would be an egregious breach of employment law if they continued to select him now) or suggest David Bentley as the missing link, it is worth revisiting Liverpool's January crisis from last season.

There were a number of reasons to criticise Benitez last January, but the main one was his treatment of Robbie Keane who, according to the critics, hadn't been given a chance. Keane started nearly every league game during his time at Liverpool but, again, that didn't matter. Keane rarely starts for Tottenham but that is understandable because Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe are untouchable. If he leaves White Hart Lane, nobody would see it as a failure of Harry Redknapp's famed man-management skills.

In some ways, it is the same this season. Liverpool have had a poor time, but, in the context of this crazy season, only the exit from the Champions League has been truly damaging. The FA Cup remains an irrelevance and would have been ignored by those who now stress its importance if Liverpool had won it.

The crazies have been bolstered by comments from ex-players like Ronnie Whelan. In the devalued currencies of punditry, Whelan is the Zimbabwean dollar, but he found a few places where his money was good last week.

As the phone-in callers deal in the superficial, it is worth contrasting the praise handed out to Alex Ferguson last week, when it became known that he was acting under some severe financial constraints, with the treatment of Benitez. Despite starting with a number of advantages like a massive stadium and a team used to winning titles, United are now utterly dependent on Wayne Rooney. Liverpool, at least, are utterly dependent on two players.

Benitez has never known a day at Anfield when the club wasn't being spectacularly badly run. Since the sale to Hicks and Gillett, the problems shared have become problems doubled.

Last week, Liverpool's new owners were again giving an indication of how far they had sunk when Tom Hicks Jr resigned after telling a fan in an email to "blow me, f**k face, go to hell, I'm sick of you."

This was pithy and to the point but, in the age of outrage, it understandably provoked a lot of anger among Liverpool fans. It did not change their fundamental position on any member of the Hicks family. They wanted them out beforehand and they wanted them out afterwards. Hicks' wild email made no difference and, it has become so normal, that nobody even wonders about the disruption to the team.

Nothing that Benitez achieves seems to change the view that Liverpool are in crisis. So this season seems to be a continuation of the bad years, bad years when Benitez was winning against all odds.

He has made a few mistakes. Perhaps he should not have talked about Liverpool's debt to such a degree as it has undermined the club and, in constantly looking to re-sign Emile Heskey, he has looked like being the first employee who instigates his own constructive dismissal.

He is probably too far gone now. The forces he tried to take on, the media he treated with contempt in particular, create their own momentum and affect confidence. Liverpool are a complex, dysfunctional club and they judge Benitez on the superficial to the end.

Liverpool have been talking about their disappointing season since they lost to Aston Villa in August. The reality is that only in recent weeks has the league title become virtually impossible but I would guess privately Benitez hasn't ruled it out.

Benitez remains true to a value system that he has employed since he arrived. On Wednesday night, once more he refused to engage and, once more, it was another reason to criticise him. The presenters, the reporters and the phone-in callers all seemed to assume they were more upset about the defeat to Reading than Benitez. In their world, so free of compassion, perspective and insight, they were probably right. In the real world, they were, as so often, wrong.

So I hope he stays true to his code as they hound him from the job. He has been a resounding success but it may be time to walk away. He deserves more than the contempt of pundits like Whelan. Benitez cares too much. He should address those who have stacked the odds against him and, one last time, tell the truth in language they might understand: "Blow me, f**k face. Go to hell, I'm sick of you."

[account deleted by request]

I am not clueless or blind ,i havnt got me head in the sand,just thought id get that in before anyone else does,like

But this is a good fecking article,

The Last Word: Never mind the moans, look at the big picture

The media won't stop calling for the head of Benitez but the Anfield faithful keep dealing in the long term

By James Corrigan
Sunday Telegraph


When Rafa Benitez struggled at Valencia, the press called for his head but the club rightly stood by their man


I see Liverpool are 100-1 to win the Premier League this season, which happens to be the same price as the incumbent Prime Minister publicly admitting the existence of aliens. I'm thinking of placing £10 on the double, which would pay more than £100,000. Shall I go for it? Or play safe, and just back Gordon Brown coming clean on ET?


Yes, the Rafa Benitez jokes are doing the rounds. At least they are on message boards. In the columns, over the airwaves and on the telly, the outpourings are rather more serious. Indeed, these musings are as earnest as they are almost unanimous.

Certainly it would not be right to call these "neutral" discussions "a debate". That would imply there are two cogent sides to the argument. There aren't. Not in the media anyway. There is no argument. Rafa must go. It's a farce he has lasted this long...

Could they all possibly be wrong? And could the complete lack of ambivalence be down to the length of the execution? After all, there's only so many times one can lop off a man's head without it getting messy and, quite frankly, a tad tedious.

No. Not by their criteria anyway. Benitez ticks every box on the bereft gaffer's charge-sheet, from governing a plainly uninspired group of unworthy players to signing more than brilliance in his £200m-plus dealings.

But then there's the bigger picture which, as big pictures tend to do, only allows the here and now its percentage share of the canvas. First, there is the little matter of Benitez's achievements, which most would surely agree have established him as a manager who knows one end of football from another. A Champions' League and an FA Cup with Liverpool; two La Ligas and a Uefa Cup with Valencia. That's five titles in eight seasons. Hardly Mike Bassett, now is it?

If all this was in the all-too-distant past, what about the all-so-near past? Last season Liverpool happened to break a few records in not winning the Premier League. No team before have ever finished runners-up boasting so many points (86) and so few defeats (two). It was as close to a 19th League title as Liverpool have come in 19 years.

So which will come to be seen as the blip: '08-09 or '09-10? Well, see where Liverpool were when Benitez arrived. They had won three domestic cups in nine seasons and reached one European final (the Uefa Cup in 2001). In the League they had finished in the top two just the once ('01-02).

Now analyse what Benitez spent on a side who suddenly became good enough to reach the Champions' League final twice in three years as well as advancing to a semi-final and a quarter-final in the next two years. His net outlay is often quoted at being more than £120m – only Chelsea have spent more. But these figures are skewed, and a more realistic figure is £90m. That works out at about £18m per season, and with this he overhauled a squad which boasted six, perhaps seven players capable of performing at the highest level. That should be remembered when his spend is compared with those of Manchester United and Chelsea. Their training grounds were already beset with quality when Benitez showed up. We aren't talking level playing squads.

So is his record that awful in the light of all this? Put it this way, if a manager achieved the same results with the same finances in five years at, say, Tottenham, he would be labelled a miracle-worker. Except Benitez is not being judged on Spurs' history but on Liverpool's, if not his own. He is the victim of the Anfield succession.

It's inevitable he would be. People look at what is basically the same team who beat Manchester United 4-1 at Old Trafford in March (from that team only Sami Hyypia has left the club) and wonder what has happened. Have they become a bad squad overnight, simply because of the loss of Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa? Has the manager inexplicably lost the plot, never to recover it? Should five years of progress be deemed as woefully insufficient when compared with five months of mediocrity?

The media's answers seem to be yes, yes and yes again. The Liverpool faithful do not see it this way. Perhaps the hatred of the American owners does incline them to close ranks and stand by their footballing man, but they are the ones dealing in the long term. True, the Anfield boos rang out after the FA Cup exit to Reading on Wednesday, yet they were anything but resounding. One internet poll on Friday said 80 per cent of Liverpool fans still support the manager.

Maybe this particular majority recognised the beauty of a second chance. Benitez certainly does. He has been here before. After winning La Liga by seven points in his first season, the very next Valencia dropped to fifth and ended up trailing by 18 points. The Spanish press called for his departure, but the club held firm. A year later, Los Ches lifted the title again.

Will Liverpool's patience be anywhere near as rewarding? We are about to find out, as Benitez is safe for the season. From the sack, that is. His critics will not call off the dogs even if the top-four placing does materialise. They are in way too deep. Benitez is already a goner; under him the situation is irrecoverable. Goodness knows what they'll say if it isn't.

clueless/blind/got your head in the sand Nanny 

The "big picture" is that we have won NOTHING for 3 going on four years. We are out of the title race out of the CL out of the FA cup and out of the League cup, all before Christmas or in the case of the FA cup at the first opportunity. We are struggling for a top 4 place while playing some of the worst football I can remember (even worse than under Souness). Our two best players are both injured, arguably in part due to having to play with injuries that needed ops rather than playing on, our £20million season saver has spent months getting fit and now he is can't get a start, and in truth hasn't looked anything like a £20million player upto now.

We have a variety of ex players (all gobsh!tes ?) saying that its time for change, we have owners that haven't had a board meeting in over two years and would rather stab each other in the back than work together, so the likelyhood of any decision by them is practically nil.

Infact I think we will have a new stadium before we have another league title...... thats how bad things are.

[Emerald Red]

Murphy lays the smackdown on benitez


http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_5866564,00.html

Danny Murphy feels Liverpool have gone backwards under Rafa Benitez since he left the club in 2004.

The experienced midfielder, who is now on the books of Fulham, believes the time has come for sweeping changes to be made at Anfield if they are to set out on the road to recovery.

The 32-year-old playmaker is of the opinion that in order for progress to be made, Benitez needs to be shown the door and a new manager brought in to help steady the ship.

With pressure mounting on the Spaniard with each passing game, it may only be a matter of time before Murphy's beliefs are shared by the Liverpool board.

A disastrous 2009/10 has underlined just how far away the club are from being regular contenders for major trophies, and much of the blame for their ongoing failings has been laid at Benitez's door.

"If you ask me has the time for Liverpool come to look for a new manager then I have to say 'yes'," Murphy told the News of the World.

"That is not me slating the guy because he forced me out when I didn't want to leave the club in the first place. Neither am I saying he is a bad manager. But over the last year or so the club have not moved forwards, in fact they are going backwards.

Mistakes

"I will always be a fan. I keep in touch with a lot of people close to the club and many think the time has come for a new manager. I agree providing that process doesn't cripple the club financially in terms of pay-offs."

He added: "Liverpool's problems at the moment are not just about some of the bad buys they have made for a lot of money over the last few years, but also the mistakes they've made in letting players go.

"I am not thinking of an obvious one like (Xabi) Alonso, but why on earth did Benitez sell players like Peter Crouch and Craig Bellamy when they are so reliant on Fernando Torres?

"It goes without saying the team have ended up relying too much on Torres, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

"Over the past two years Benitez has made too many bad decisions. History says he has won the Champions League and the FA Cup for Liverpool, although even then people can argue about the merit of those wins.

"What I do know is that after being there for this length of time the debate should no longer be about Liverpool qualifying for the Champions League or where they finish in the league but actually winning the title. And that's not going to happen again this season. So something has to change.

"People go on about how well Liverpool did last season by finishing runners up? So what? We finished second under Gerard Houllier with 80 odd points. Our team also won three big trophies in one season. So things haven't really got much better. If anything they have got worse."

super Danny Murphy!....spot on....tells it like it is....

Only because he was shown the door and replaced by a better player? Yes, we went backwards when we replaced him with Alonso, and his mate Owen with Torres.

[muzza798]

Ive changed my mind and want him sacked. Tbh if we dont come top 4 and manage to hold onto our best players we arent in the brown stuff. With the massive and i mean massive amounts of cash available in the summer we'll be able to buy lots of players. Not the best players because we wont be in the CL but we can get players like Chamakh etc who will cost 15mil-ish. When we get 4 or 5 players who can see our potencial Mourinho can take us to the top. Basically this season will be absolute bolloc*s but next year with the investment i see us challenging for 1st and we could win the FA cup or something.

[LFC2007]

And then we could visit button moon, or something.

[NANNY RED]

Cant wait for Wed night even though im not going , just cant wait for the gobs on sky an all the other t.wats of journos to see the faces on them , we are gonna be bouncing ,singing loud an clear ,F lag waving WE ARE FOCUSED ON SUPPOrting our manager,

Feck off all the media sh.it stirring , Stay out of our bussiness Thats is all

[muzza798]

With H&G selling their American teams, us getting 80mil of Standard Charted or w/e and the likely 100mil investement from abroad things are looking up. We've hit the wall but in a year or 2 we'll be back stronger than ever. This time out of the CL and cups etc could be the catilist for us improving.

Look at the England team. It took us getting knocked out of the Euro's to get a decent manager apointed and now were playing some of the best football ive seen in a long time. Same case for Liverpool. We rightfully dont get in the CL, apoint a new manager, refocus and pick our selves up and and move on. If England had qualified we'd still be playing the same still and be worse off. England getting knocked out shook up the team and made them play with about 120% more effort. Not getting into the CL may be the best thing for us.

[Emerald Red]

Ive changed my mind and want him sacked. Tbh if we dont come top 4 and manage to hold onto our best players we arent in the brown stuff. With the massive and i mean massive amounts of cash available in the summer we'll be able to buy lots of players. Not the best players because we wont be in the CL but we can get players like Chamakh etc who will cost 15mil-ish. When we get 4 or 5 players who can see our potencial Mourinho can take us to the top. Basically this season will be absolute bolloc*s but next year with the investment i see us challenging for 1st and we could win the FA cup or something.

Reminds me of this image I seen over on RAWK with this caption underneath.



Hicks:  "..... and then I said we'd spend in the summer."

[Igor Zidane]

THIS ON WEDNESDAY AGAINST SPURS


http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/5504/liverpoolfans398364aeg3.jpg