Liverpool FC Forum

by **account deleted by request** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:47 pm

me too Rob, me too mate

by **tubby** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:18 pm

roberto green wrote:
bavlondon wrote:
RED BEERGOGGLES wrote:
s@int wrote:It maybe the chance Mourinho as been waiting for mate. Chance to prove he can do it with a club in disaray and little money. Chance to build something meaningful out of the rubble of a once proud club. Chance to prove he is infact "the special one" and not just another "lucky manager" who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Chance to prove he can make the pheonix rise from the flames. Thats more chances than we have created all season

Do you think he has that in his locker though Saint ,to succeed with little or no funds ,I know people mention Porto as an example but they where or remain one of the richest in the Portuguese league

Not to mention they were already part of a handful of the same teams that compete year in year out. It's like taking over Rangers or Celtic. He'd be crazy to come here under the present ownership, any top manager would tbh.

To me Mourinho plays to the fans, he has a big ego that's for sure but he loves all the attention he receives and that's were our fans come in, look back as far to the Carling cup final when he held his finger to his mouth i think that's when he first realised how "special" our fans were and if he needed reminding he only had to wait a few months later to the semi final of the champions league were he was blown away by the atmosphere of the fans, Mourinho would love to have fans as noisy on a champions league night behind him, I really think he is waiting in the wings for this job.....

Well i certainly hope so

Im sure he would love to hear the fans singing his name but let's not get carried away here we need better players as well. We need to see first what money is available in the summer. Hicks has said it will be a 'big summer' and we have the new shirt deal money coming in as well so it might be enough to entice him. Too many ifs and buts though, and we don't even know if Rafa is going to be around then.

by **LFC2007** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:29 pm

The supposed gag-clause doesn't have to be seen as moral concession by Rafa. I question how it would 'preclude' him from fulfilling the role of the "principled man". He could lift the lid again like last time but consensus preferred comment to be kept in-house so what would be the point? And, besides, we know the club's in financial turmoil, a gag-clause won't alter that, and there's a good chance Rafa understands about as much as we do when it comes to the debt. But the cynic would see it as a sign of complicity on a simple basis; that big organisations that employ 'important' people who get paid vast sums are involved in shady activities with self-interest at heart.

Moreover, if this was a man driven exclusively, or almost so, by the guarantee of a long, lucrative contract, why would he delay over issues relating to how the club is run; the academy for instance? The cynic will say it's a smokescreen.

I vaguely recall Kuyt commenting that he either wouldn't sign or was waiting to sign a new deal, once Rafa had signed his new deal. I don't know the reasoning for this, although the cynic will know for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was a negotiating tactic orchestrated by Rafa in order to benefit him and him alone. It couldn't have been an agreed decision that served a useful purpose.

by **account deleted by request** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:35 pm

What useful purpose was served by asking players not to sign new deals until his own was sorted? Apart from the implied threat that we might lose players for nothing if Benitez left.

by **tubby** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:38 pm

Yeah that was a bit of a silly thing to do. Didn't understand that one myself tbh.

by **roberto green** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:50 pm

As i said in another thread the day Rafa leaves John Lennon airport for good that he will be walking hand in hand with Kuyt with Montrse and his kids behind and Lucas carrying the luggage

by **LFC2007** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:50 pm

Well, the manager shapes the team, he sets objectives and determines strategy. Therefore who stays and for how long and for what slice of the budget or who goes and when, depends on the manager's long-term outlook. The board won't be unfamiliar with that approach. It is then a perfectly reasonable supposition to say that the board viewed the sorting of the manager's contract out prior to a few of his players was an agreed priority, rather than a coercion.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:03 am

The point being if Rafa had NOT signed a new contract, would it have been in Liverpools best interest to have players able to leave for nothing even if they arn't part of the incoming managers plans? The answer is no BTW.

by **LFC2007** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:51 am

That assumes that they would have left for nothing had Rafa not signed a new contract. We're talking about a few players who had at least a year left over on their remaining deals. And with the players willing to sign on the dotted line, there was enough time to get Rafa's deal sorted and then those players whose deals were 'running out' as it were.

This is about the board's perspective, remember, not what we as outsiders see as the most rational process.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:07 am

Rafa Benitez told me NOT to sign new Liverpool deal until he had, says Dirk Kuyt
Published 00:00 01/03/09 By By Simon Mullock

Dirk Kuyt has put a new twist on the contract storm that has engulfed Liverpool.

The Dutch striker claimed boss Rafa Benitez told him NOT to sign a new deal until his own future as manager had been secured.

Benitez has won the power struggle that threatened to tear Liverpool apart following the announcement that Rick Parry will stand down as chief executive at the end of the season.

The Kop boss has repeatedly been scathing about Parry's failure to seal new agreements for a group of players whose contacts expire at the end of next season including Kuyt, Daniel Agger, Alvaro Arbeloa and Emiliano Insua.

Kuyt's claim that Benitez told him to wait until the managerial situation at Anfield has been settled before entering into talks contradicts the Spaniard's public statements that Parry is to blame for the delays.

Kuyt said: "Rafa told me he wanted to give me a new contract, but because of his own contract he wanted to sort that out first and then we'll see what's happening.

"I've just been trying to focus on the games and not worry too much.

"Because I'm happy at Liverpool and I enjoy it I want to stay. I don't know if my future is linked to the manager, because that depends on what the club wants.

"If the club want to give me a new contract, I'm more than happy to talk about it.

"I've never been thinking about whether the manager would go or not. It's other people who are talking about this."
[url=http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Rafa-Benitez-told-me-NOT-to-sign-new-Liverpool-deal-until-he-had-says-Dirk-Kuyt-article285

00.html]LINK[/url]

Arbeloa left for a pittence because he was in the last year of his contract, so would the others. Hardly looking after LIVERPOOL'S BEST INTERESTS.

by **LFC2007** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:10 am

Feckin Parry :laugh:

Ah, it's been edited.

Well, Insua's contract actually runs until 2011, a season later than the article states and isn't a 'key' player. Meanwhile Kuyt and Agger both signed long-term deals, proving that it was possible to get Rafa's done with time to secure the others. Arbeloa was sold but seemed very keen on Madrid anyway. True we may have received a slightly higher fee (not a lot more I don't think), but then you're assuming that Rafa held up these talks, which hasn't been proven. Not even Kuyt's comments are sufficient since I am arguing against the possibility that Rafa held up contract talks without the consent of the board. Besides this, one might argue why these contracts weren't sorted well before the topic of Rafa's own contract rose to the top of the agenda.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:30 am

Nah ..... your just arguing

The point is that we risked losing several players for next to nothing to serve Benitez own ends, not for the good of the club. Whether they eventually signed or not is besides the point ......next time he starts with his tricks we may not be so lucky.

by **LFC2007** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:41 am

Well if you're someone who thinks the manager sold his soul and the club up the river, got into bed with Hicks and manipulated SOS for his own ends, then it comes as no surprise that you also think he forced players to hold off contract talks as a negotiating tactic

No, the more likely scenario is that the board agreed to pursue Rafa's contract ahead of the player's because of the attention it was generating and the need for long-term planning. In the end, two of those players secured long term deals anyway, and we got decent money for a decent player who might not have signed a new deal but would probably have moved anyway, as his subsequent comments suggest.

All that of course when I could just as well blame the executives who didn't sort Kuyt, Agger and Arbeloa's deals well in advance. Why these contracts weren't sorted a year, two years in advance, before Rafa's contract rose to the top of the agenda, these fecking useless executives

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:55 am

I think mine is the more likely of the two explanations, otherwise why would Kuyt say it ? He didn't say the executives at Liverpool told me to wait..... he said Rafa Benitez.

The only reason Rafa's contract got headlined was because he WANTED IT TO, and because he made sure that HIS REFUSAL TO SIGN was made public.

I said it was a mistake at the time to offer him such a contract, and I still think it was a huge mistake.

by **LFC2007** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:15 am

For the reason that major contract issues are discussed and ultimately determined at board level as they are a significant cost. It is likely that Rafa communicated the development to Kuyt. The message: that the club wants to keep you on but that Rafa's situation has taken priority and yours will be sorted shortly.

That's the most likely scenario. Not your suggestion that Rafa said to the board, "I'm going to tell Kuyt, Agger and Arbeloa that their contracts will be put on hold until you sort my contract out." An idea that fits neatly with a view of Rafa that is about as favourable as that toward Tom Hicks.

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