Liverpool FC Forum

by **Sabre** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:40 am

I disagree on Crouch, I rate the player and he'd be a success in Spain. The problem being that perhaps he's not good enough to be first option in Real Madrid and Barcelona, and currently, Portsmouth or Aston Villa can pay more wages than Atletico or Valencia.

But Crouch would be a success like Nicola Zigic has been, another very tall player.

About Rafa's plan, the plan wasn't to get the hang of english football, the plan was to make us challenging for the title again. And yes, he's on his course.

With the one year plan lines, surely you don't mean that Mourinho with the same resources that had Rafa when he came here would have done the job, right?

If Rafa receives a new contract now, I'd ask him to challenge next year too. But 5 years ago, I wouldn't have asked a 2 years plan not to Mou, not to anyone. There was a long way to go.

by **account deleted by request** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:42 am

I agree Mick, but I was talking about Ferguson not Rafa, although I agree a lot of what I said could also be applied to Rafa. The main problem with the slow 5/7 years method is that sometimes it doesn't come soon enough for some of the great players who have played for the club. At the mancs it came just in time for Robson, will it come in time for Gerrard, Carra and Hypia here?

by **bigmick** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:52 am

Sabre wrote:I disagree on Crouch, I rate the player and he'd be a success in Spain. The problem being that perhaps he's not good enough to be first option in Real Madrid and Barcelona, and currently, Portsmouth or Aston Villa can pay more wages than Atletico or Valencia.

But Crouch would be a success like Nicola Zigic has been, another very tall player.

About Rafa's plan, the plan wasn't to get the hang of english football, the plan was to make us challenging for the title again. And yes, he's on his course.

With the one year plan lines, surely you don't mean that Mourinho with the same resources that had Rafa when he came here would have done the job, right?

If Rafa receives a new contract now, I'd ask him to challenge next year too. But 5 years ago, I wouldn't have asked a 2 years plan not to Mou, not to anyone. There was a long way to go.

With apologies to S@int who raises a good point, I'm going to come back to Sabres which is absolutely cruxial (don't bother looking it up Sabes, I made it up

feck it I've had a whisky).

Now I'm reluctant to get involved in discussing Mourinho in here as he wasn't even mentioned in the inital poll, not even in the top eight, but since Sabes has brought him up lets have a look :;):

I don't think he could have come in and won the league in his first season at Liverpool no. I think that was impossible. I may be wrong of course, and given his recods I think it's probably fair to say I think he would have come in the top four, but I don't think he would have won it no.

From there, who can say how he would have gone? Nobody, so I'm not even going to go there. All you can do, is look at how we have gone under Rafa. The facts are we got our highest points total in Rafa's second season, followed by a huge fall then two improvements which didn't quite take us back to where we were.

This season, we have a chance of revisiting those hieghts we reached three seasons ago.

Who can say whether Mourinho would have gone better than that? Nobody can say for certain either way. We have so far won two trophies in four seasons under Rafa, time will tell whether we can make it more than two in five, by winning either the Champions League or the Premiership this season.

by **Sabre** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:12 pm

The first year was impossible, ok. Nowadays it's possible. Because you have Alonso, Torres, Mascherano, Reina, and some good players like Agger, Aurelio and Riera.

I don't know what Mou (who I didn't brought here, I just *mentioned him* because he was obviously referred

) would have done, but he'd have to bring players of the same calibre.

Would he get an Alonso for 11M? well he might get a Makelele, a worse player (yes I know many disagree) in terms of skill, but a great player for the position.

Would he get a Torres for 20? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, and if he did, only in the third season, because Rafa didn't have the cash to splash 20M the first years

Would he have got a Mascherano from West Ham? hmmmmmmmmm

Would he got a better keeper than Reina? hmmmmmm.

Would he have made Carra the CB we value? probably yes, if Carra didn't punch him first.

Would he bring less trial and error players? Probably yes, because Rafa has been poor in that department.

Perhaps when Lando says Mou reached to teams that already had a squad he's being a bit unfair with Mourinho. Nonetheless, it's true that it's not the same thing to build up a team or to improve a bit a team that is already is strong.

I won't deny his record has been excellent, I just dismiss the idea of underrating what Rafa has done for this club.

Call me conservative but I'd hate the notion of reaching the same conclussion Chelsea reached with Mou, that is, underrating what he had achieved (which I also did), and get an Scolari, or a Hiddink, or Rijkaard and regret it.

If Mou comes, I guess I'd learn to love him to, it wouldn't require much more than 6 red victories in a row for that. But still it would be a gamble, there are not sure bets in football.

by **supersub** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:14 pm

This poll has been closed due too members complaints that it was incomplete without Jose.
If said members feel the need to create a new poll or discussion thread relating to this poll topic then by all means do so.

by **supersub** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:16 pm

closure was asked by the thread creator and is therefore irreversible

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