peewee wrote:i posted this today
Dear Rafa,
I hope you get to read this letter.
Liverpool Football Club has been my life since I went to my first game in 1973; I have seen more ups than downs so I am more fortunate that our younger supporters who have never seen the title won, I am starting to get concerned that they will never see this.
You have been our manager for one full season now, and a few months of your second season, no putting aside the fantastic Champions League victory what have you actually achieved?
In the league you had us closer on points to the bottom than to the top, you failed to qualify for the Champions League on league position, and in fact we were beaten by our city rivals to that spot, a team that is now proving its true value at the foot of the Premier League. You had us go at the FA cup in an embarrassing fashion.
We are trusting you with something that is most precious to us, to us it's not a job, to us it is a passion, it's a religion and to a lot of us it's possibly the most important thing we have. Our happiness is based on what we achieve in football, we were all able to gloat over the summer about being Champions of Europe again but the pleasure in that is now being taken away. I wanted to prove to people we deserved to win it, that we were a class outfit, to be proud watching us perform in the new season, to see attacking football, to see goals. You are not allowing us to see this. You are stifling any creativity we may have, you are failing to provide us with the opportunities to score goals with your negative tactics, you need to switch this before it's too late and we fall too far behind.
Why are we worrying so much about the opposition, let them worry about us, let them look at our team sheet and know that will be on the back foot all game, also stop with the long ball, its pointless, all its doing is giving the opposition the chance to come back at us again.
Also why are you persisting with players who obviously don't cut it? When will Garcia realize that his flicks don't work, when will he realize we play in red and pass it to his own players. When will Traore realize that he has to concentrate for the whole game (or when will you realize that we have two players more effective than him in that position)?
When will Reina come for the ball and collect it? When will you realize that when we are 3-1 down we need to score at least two goals to get anything from the game and the best way to do this is to put forwards on the pitch (not just give them 10 minutes, whatever your feelings the club comes first and Cisse should have been given some opportunity earlier, not just grudgingly given 10 minutes). There are so many other things that I can say to you Rafa but I have a job and need to get back to that.
Now I will never confess to knowing a tenth of what you know about football, but even I can see that it is not working, even I can see now is the time to change tactics and at least give us a chance to score goals and steamroller teams. Just try it, you may like it.
I said it at the start of the letter, this team is precious to us and like anything precious we don't want it broken. I would never dream of buying a fast luxury car and then only using 3 gears, please stop doing that to my club.
thanks
Dear oh dear oh dear
The fact is, Liverpool DID win the Champions League. This was not some piece of magic conjured up by Rafa and his players in order to disguise his ineptitude as a manager! What kind of display of passion is required at half-time, being 3-0 down to AC Milan, to have your players come out and actually play on with their heads up, never mind go on to actually win?
Rafa is building his own squad. He had documented problems in the summer getting in the players he wanted (Milito, Gonzales, Simao, etc), and is still playing with a squad of Houllier's creation for the most part. The signs are good, Liverpool have only lost one match so far in the league this season, and that to the probable champions. He's building from the back, like he did at Valencia, and very few can doubt that champions are moulded from the back forward. Win our two games in hand, and suddenly Liverpool are on 13 points, it doesn't look so bad, does it?
Rafa is a man who goes home at night, only to ask his wife to tell him a little more about Liverpool's history, as she reads books on the eras gone by to give him insight into the way things were when Shankley built his own era. He watches DVDs of matches from that time, and understands the value and importance of Liverpool's people and supporters.
If you're not convinced of his passion, watch his press conference the day he left Valencia, and tell me that is a man who lacks it.
He's the man for the job, I knew that from the moment I saw that straight after victories, he walks over the pitch to find his players and point out their mistakes, rather than congratulate them on victory.
Have faith. 