Liverpool FC Forum

[ConnO'var]

Cant believe how negative people are still being about Rafa. FFS We spanked 2 of the biggest teams in the world and deservedly so and yet people want him out. Well you all he is not going anywhere.

In all honesty, I don't think two games, no matter how brilliant they are will be able to change the opinion about he's the right man for the next 5 years. People have an opinion bearing in mind the whole reign.

In fact, I don't think those who deep down didn't believe he was the man in summer changed their minds when we were top of the table some months. Only a League title will convince the totally unconvinced, and even then, some of them *might* think that Rafa was a tad lucky.

It's normal that the undecided people become a 6 after these two victories, but I didn't and I don't expect many switches from "2" to "5".

Such is the fickle nature of the football supporter, like the concept of love is fickle to some people also. If Rafa's Liverpool does win the league, then what do the people who said they wanted him out and nothing else say about it? What do the people who said he will never win a title have to say about it? Will they all of a sudden just change their minds like the wind changes it's direction? Isn't this a contradiction of the very definition of the term "supporter"? I don't know. It's a parodox.

Certainly not a paradox, ER..... We want what's best for LFC..... I for one will hold up my hands and proclaim loudly I was wrong if he brings back the premiership. An error in judgement I would be happy to admit to.

You see.... I support LFC.... not Rafa Benitez. I only want what's best for LFC. Obviously my opinion of what that constitutes is very different from yours.... which is fine.... horses for courses and all that.

But what will never waiver is my love for the club. Through thick and thin I will always support and love Liverpool Football Club. You want to know what's fickle? It's those false fans who only support the teams that are currently on top.

The term fickle, IMHO, does not apply to any true fan on this forum.... be they antis or pros...... a term that is bandied about too often on this boards with little to no justification.

This great divide that has appeared among the fans with regards to the Rafa issue is the great debate of our club's time. A symptomatic sign that things have snowballed to such an extent that the man has become a bigger issue than the club. We have to stop this fickle issue. No one is bigger than the club. No one should be able to hold the club to ransom... something I believe that Rafa is doing with his actions surrounding both his and the players contracts. No one should be allowed to drag our good name through the mud using the media as a tool. In addition to success I want our dignity back..... and the return to the Liverpool way.

You love LFC as much as I do.... Of that I'm positive. But we see the forward path required quite differently. And the one thing I am POSITIVE about is that the pros are not blinkered and the antis are certainly not fickle.

[account deleted by request]

The simple TRUTH Emerald, we have a team that was good enough to win the league, but the manager has made a catalogue of errors that have cost us too many points. Two wins against top sides does not in my opinion make up for all the errors that proceeded them.

Overjoyed that we won yes, believe that Rafa is the man to win the prem for us .....no. I think we will ALWAYS have too many Rafa day's , the days when he gambles with the formation and the team and it bites us in the a$$. 

As I posted elsewhere, thw mancs have dropped 8 points to clubs outside the top four......... we have dropped 24. That tells me that the team is good enough but maybe the manager isn't.

I'm not so sure. I do agree, he has been at fault for some of those points dropped. Without question. But some of our players can be held accountable also. If we can destroy teams like United, and beat Chelsea twice, surely we can beat the lesser teams too when we're in the mood for it. It's not exactly as if United have found it easy either against teams outside of the top 4. Yes, they have picked up more points, but for a while they were 1-0 specialists, and got lucky. There's a very narrow margin. Is it luck, Fergie's tactical nouse and experience of winning the league, or quality and depth of squad? Is it injuries? Then again, that'll be luck also.

I do think if Rafa knows how to beat the bigger sides, then he certainly knows how to beat the lesser ones also, but is prone to being too clever for his own good which results in us dropping points we shouldn't. I'm not sure either if what has been going on with the owners and the board has any kind of negative effect, but it's bound to. I'm not using that as an argument of excuse. I'm on the fence regarding that debate, but I honestly do believe that if we were to play Stoke, West Ham and any other team we dropped points against tomorrow with the system Rafa has been playing the past few matches with Torres and Gerrard in sync with eachother as they are now, then we'd win by a clear distance. Put simply, I just think it would be a massive mistake for him to be sacked or to leave and I admit that the last two results have a huge influence in that thinking.

Thats fair enough mate, we see things slightly differently but thats only to be expected.

I think the key is can Rafa learn from his mistakes, and this is the part where we can only guess. I don't for example think he will ever leave us without a credible alternative to Torres and Gerrard again. Thats one mistake I am sure he has learned from. Whether he can resist "fiddling " with the team and formation on occasion is where I have my real doubts.

Sometimes it more important to send the team out confident of victory rather than "tactically superior".

[Emerald Red]

The simple TRUTH Emerald, we have a team that was good enough to win the league, but the manager has made a catalogue of errors that have cost us too many points. Two wins against top sides does not in my opinion make up for all the errors that proceeded them.

Overjoyed that we won yes, believe that Rafa is the man to win the prem for us .....no. I think we will ALWAYS have too many Rafa day's , the days when he gambles with the formation and the team and it bites us in the a$$. 

As I posted elsewhere, thw mancs have dropped 8 points to clubs outside the top four......... we have dropped 24. That tells me that the team is good enough but maybe the manager isn't.

I'm not so sure. I do agree, he has been at fault for some of those points dropped. Without question. But some of our players can be held accountable also. If we can destroy teams like United, and beat Chelsea twice, surely we can beat the lesser teams too when we're in the mood for it. It's not exactly as if United have found it easy either against teams outside of the top 4. Yes, they have picked up more points, but for a while they were 1-0 specialists, and got lucky. There's a very narrow margin. Is it luck, Fergie's tactical nouse and experience of winning the league, or quality and depth of squad? Is it injuries? Then again, that'll be luck also.

I do think if Rafa knows how to beat the bigger sides, then he certainly knows how to beat the lesser ones also, but is prone to being too clever for his own good which results in us dropping points we shouldn't. I'm not sure either if what has been going on with the owners and the board has any kind of negative effect, but it's bound to. I'm not using that as an argument of excuse. I'm on the fence regarding that debate, but I honestly do believe that if we were to play Stoke, West Ham and any other team we dropped points against tomorrow with the system Rafa has been playing the past few matches with Torres and Gerrard in sync with eachother as they are now, then we'd win by a clear distance. Put simply, I just think it would be a massive mistake for him to be sacked or to leave and I admit that the last two results have a huge influence in that thinking.

Thats fair enough mate, we see things slightly differently but thats only to be expected.

I think the key is can Rafa learn from his mistakes, and this is the part where we can only guess. I don't for example think he will ever leave us without a credible alternative to Torres and Gerrard again. Thats one mistake I am sure he has learned from. Whether he can resist "fiddling " with the team and formation on occasion is where I have my real doubts.

Sometimes it more important to send the team out confident of victory rather than "tactically superior".

It's not that we see things slightly differently at all. In fact, I can certainly understand totally your stance on things. It's just that I believe that he does have it in him to get it right in the league sooner rather than later. I personally don't believe it's going to hurt us as a club to give him the time to find out. I think that because of the flying start we had, many people got ahead of themselves and built up the expectation that if we end up not winning it, then everything is all his fault and he has to be sacked. More so the fact that people will blame him for United catching up on our record, which is totally unfair and right out of order. We're just on the verge of having the perfect squad to challenge for the league and CL for a few seasons to come. Let's see how we go in our next few games against so called lesser teams.If we blow up through dodgy team selections and subs, then I'll have no real complaints. My only concern is that we have easily the best manager in Europe. To sacrifice that in the hope that we get a manager in to do a half decent job in the league at the expense of European domination is a little bit of a daunting prospect. One that I'm not too keen on. Sometimes its better sticking with the devil you know than the one you don't. You know, the next manager in will not guarantee league titles.

[redbeergoggles]

Posters crying out for Benitez to be ousted, should take note of much heralded replacement Mourinho's abject surrender to the Mancs in the Champions League ..      Tactically clueless !) Benitez with the right backing and funds can make Liverpool peerless in that I trust

[bigmick]

As always some interesting posts. I don't honestly think anyone is "clamouring for Rafa to be ousted" anymore than I think Mourinho's Inter "ajectly surrendered" to the Mancs. There's a thread for that discussion elsewhere though so we won't get into it here.

"Fickle" rears it's head again, although so far "not a real fan" and "hoping Liverpool lose" has not put in an appearance, though it will.

For my part, I've been saying for a good while now (three seasons) that we have a team which is/was plenty good enough to challenge for the title. This season, we probably have a team which is/was good enough to win it, and this is particularly the case given the fact that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United managed to syncronise their fall out of the blocks. The cigar they enjoyed together after the starting gun had sounded gave us a massive opportunity, an opportunity we took in both hands in the sense that we managed to beat both Chelsea and Man Utd Home and Away. If someone had said to you before the season started that one of the big four was going to beat Chelsea and Man Utd Home and Away you would have sworn blind they would be Champions. Equally, if someone had told you that one of the big four (Chelsea) was going to pick up one point from a possible fifteen in big four head to heads and still be level on points with that team, you wouldn't have believed them.

When I said three seasons ago that we were plenty good enough to have launched a title challenge that season, we actually finished 21 points behind. People laughed in my face (probably correctly but anyway God loves an optimist, that was before I was called "negative"). Last season, I said we had been plenty good enough, and we finished 11 points off the top. This season, we've added the fits and starts left midfielder Albert Riera to the first team, and suddenly we've had a challenge. Has Albert Riera been sufficient to bridge that gap, even with Torres injured most of the season? My opinion is no he hasn't, the reason the gap has lessened is that we've made less of the truly silly mistakes, which has put us into contention.

And people talk this season of "if Torres had been fit, we'd be miles clear by now". Well hang on, he was fit last season and scored 30 goals, we weren't miles clear then were we? The answer is of course, no we weren't. No, we were resting him and Gerrard at the "farce of Fratton Park", we were telling the World he couldn't play between the lines in the Bungle of Birmingham, and we were establishing once and for all that Peter Crouch couldn't play on the left wing in the madness at the Madjescki (new one that). The point being, that with tinkering, shuffling, nudging, resting and the like, we are always a Martin Skyrtel at left back away from a bad result. It seems to me that regardless of any superiority we have, we will always find a way to trip ourselves up by being too clever, too complicated etc.

Rafa has changed, and I hope he continues so to do. Then perhaps we can all love him like many already do. The next big change, along with leaving the dimmer switch alone for much longer next time, is in being much more attacking during the course of matches. I know when we drew with Stoke, Fulham, West Ham and the like there was plenty of "it's one point gained FFS" and "I don't fecking believe some of the idiots on here". As we all know though, it's the laws of newkit number one, those who debate with the most abuse are often the ones who are talking the most sh!t. It was proven again here, if we had those games back now we wouldn't be saying "I don't fecking believe this place", we'd be agreeing that perhaps they weren't the best results. Equally, some of the people who thought that all those draws might cost us the league weren't total c...s after all, they might have been onto something. Same as when we settled for a draw at the Emirates, "I don't fecking believe this place" etc.

So we need to rotate less, we need to attack more, and we need to concentrate any buying we do on quality players who get into the first team, and hopefully have some flair. I think pretty much everyone would agree with that, be they Rafa inners or outers, lets hope that's what he does. Then I can be fickle and say I was wrong all along and we won the league  .

[Sabre]

Cant believe how negative people are still being about Rafa. FFS We spanked 2 of the biggest teams in the world and deservedly so and yet people want him out. Well you all he is not going anywhere.

In all honesty, I don't think two games, no matter how brilliant they are will be able to change the opinion about he's the right man for the next 5 years. People have an opinion bearing in mind the whole reign.

In fact, I don't think those who deep down didn't believe he was the man in summer changed their minds when we were top of the table some months. Only a League title will convince the totally unconvinced, and even then, some of them *might* think that Rafa was a tad lucky.

It's normal that the undecided people become a 6 after these two victories, but I didn't and I don't expect many switches from "2" to "5".

Such is the fickle nature of the football supporter, like the concept of love is fickle to some people also. If Rafa's Liverpool does win the league, then what do the people who said they wanted him out and nothing else say about it? What do the people who said he will never win a title have to say about it? Will they all of a sudden just change their minds like the wind changes it's direction? Isn't this a contradiction of the very definition of the term "supporter"? I don't know. It's a parodox.

Certainly not a paradox, ER..... We want what's best for LFC..... I for one will hold up my hands and proclaim loudly I was wrong if he brings back the premiership. An error in judgement I would be happy to admit to.

You see.... I support LFC.... not Rafa Benitez. I only want what's best for LFC. Obviously my opinion of what that constitutes is very different from yours.... which is fine.... horses for courses and all that.

But what will never waiver is my love for the club. Through thick and thin I will always support and love Liverpool Football Club. You want to know what's fickle? It's those false fans who only support the teams that are currently on top.

The term fickle, IMHO, does not apply to any true fan on this forum.... be they antis or pros...... a term that is bandied about too often on this boards with little to no justification.

This great divide that has appeared among the fans with regards to the Rafa issue is the great debate of our club's time. A symptomatic sign that things have snowballed to such an extent that the man has become a bigger issue than the club. We have to stop this fickle issue. No one is bigger than the club. No one should be able to hold the club to ransom... something I believe that Rafa is doing with his actions surrounding both his and the players contracts. No one should be allowed to drag our good name through the mud using the media as a tool. In addition to success I want our dignity back..... and the return to the Liverpool way.

You love LFC as much as I do.... Of that I'm positive. But we see the forward path required quite differently. And the one thing I am POSITIVE about is that the pros are not blinkered and the antis are certainly not fickle.

It's a good post.

I'll say there are fickle fans, and all of us are fickle at some extent, but it shouldn't be wielded as a weapon, and that's what I wanted to prove with this thread.

We're all fickle, because we all win and lose faith on the manager. In Istambul we won, in Middlesborough game we lost faith. It's not the eloquent posts of the people who change opinions, it's results, why the Faith-o-meter high is higher now, because we the pros post well? no! most of the pros are banned or too angry to post here. It's the results.

Some of us, we don't seem fickle because our changes go from 9 to 7 (or from 0 to 3 ). If we are very depressed we might be 6.

Others, are around the 5, and naturally go from 6 to 4.

It's normal. We all win and lose faith.

It's unfair to tell a fan that loses faith unloyal. It's unfair to tell a fan that belives on the manager, a Rafa fan.

For me all these processes of losing faith and winning faith are natural.

[heimdall]

Cant believe how negative people are still being about Rafa. FFS We spanked 2 of the biggest teams in the world and deservedly so and yet people want him out. Well you all he is not going anywhere.

And feck you right back, he is off in the summer anyway whether we like it or not. Personally I love it. 

[bigmick]

Cant believe how negative people are still being about Rafa. FFS We spanked 2 of the biggest teams in the world and deservedly so and yet people want him out. Well you all he is not going anywhere.

And feck you right back, he is off in the summer anyway whether we like it or not. Personally I love it. 

Can't say I agree with you there mate, I think he is a certanty to sign his new contract. As I've said many times, Rafa is nobodies idiot. Which other league is there in the World which offers you the opportunity of a "long term project"? If we don't win the Champions League this season, that'll be three seasons without a trophy, one FA Cup in the last four seasons.

It doesn't matter how much anyone talks about madrid, you don't give that up to go to a job where you might only last six months. Nope, he's staying mate and we're in for the long haul.

[redbeergoggles]

Cant believe how negative people are still being about Rafa. FFS We spanked 2 of the biggest teams in the world and deservedly so and yet people want him out. Well you all he is not going anywhere.

And feck you right back, he is off in the summer anyway whether we like it or not. Personally I love it. 

Norwegians eh ,forever the obligatory all seeing eye ,just off the record fella, any other budding Pyschic fellow countrymen
Benitez is going nowhere anytime soon  ..

[GYBS]

An 8 for me , plenty more good times from Rafa and the team to come . I still have my head buried in the sand - oops sorry i meant i still believe and have faith in him . 

[bigmick]

An 8 for me , plenty more good times from Rafa and the team to come . I still have my head buried in the sand - oops sorry i meant i still believe and have faith in him . 

The post was better before you edited it mate. Once more we are seeing the "ooh aren't I clever" phenomenon on here. Why oh why will people not learn, both sides do it and it doesn't matter how many times you point it out.

Pro's being pro's are back slapping away, getting little digs in where they think they are deserved. There's people talking with irony about how Man Utd are a "poor side", people imploring posters to HAVE SOME FAITH IN THE MANAGER!!!!!!!! and now the irony of the "head in the sand jibe".

We watch football for all these years and still we don't pick up on the little nuances. You take three goalkeepers to World Cups not because you'll ever need them, but because you know that if you don't the two goalkeepers you do take will get injured on the bumber cars. It's the laws of football. You have striker back up at all times because you know the minute you don't, both of your strikers will get injured and you'll lose your chance of winning the league. The laws of football again. And you don't get too full of yourself when things go right, because you absolutely know what will happen next. Don't tempt fate lads, FFS.

To that end, I didn't agree with Rafa talking about how Man Utd were "weak" if you attacked them in this way and that way. Apparently hoofing it out of defence so Vidic could fall over it and then Torres could score was part of the grand plan. It looked a bit gloaty to me, and will once again tempt fate a bit. Iwonder if that same ploy will work if we draw them in the Champions League, or whether it's more or less likely to now we've told everyone about it.

The gods of football, don't anger them 

[GYBS]

Its simple for you mick we mentioned that people who support Rafa getting insulted and stick - a claim which you yourself have said you never see on here - so just pointing out that i still belive or have my head in the sand which ever way you want to read it - is it was tongue in cheek and certainly not worth a 3 paragraph novel   nothing being full of myself or anything like that just showing my faith

[bigmick]

3 Paragraph novels? You really ought to try other sections of the bookshops than the ones you currently pick up your reading material in. There's more to life than the Gruffalo you know (although not that much I'll grant you ).

Just trying to keep you honest mate. Give it a week or two and those pesky owners or Parry will be having an influence over the team again.

[GYBS]

Parry just be blamed for missing out on messi , apparently he was offered to us for 10 pence and a bag of lollipops when he was 11 years old by his boys club but Parry didnt want to give up the lollipops

And no need to go to a bookshop mick - if i need long stories to read just come on here and look for where you have posted

[redbeergoggles]

As always some interesting posts. I don't honestly think anyone is "clamouring for Rafa to be ousted" anymore than I think Mourinho's Inter "ajectly surrendered" to the Mancs. There's a thread for that discussion elsewhere though so we won't get into it here.

"Fickle" rears it's head again, although so far "not a real fan" and "hoping Liverpool lose" has not put in an appearance, though it will.

For my part, I've been saying for a good while now (three seasons) that we have a team which is/was plenty good enough to challenge for the title. This season, we probably have a team which is/was good enough to win it, and this is particularly the case given the fact that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United managed to syncronise their fall out of the blocks. The cigar they enjoyed together after the starting gun had sounded gave us a massive opportunity, an opportunity we took in both hands in the sense that we managed to beat both Chelsea and Man Utd Home and Away. If someone had said to you before the season started that one of the big four was going to beat Chelsea and Man Utd Home and Away you would have sworn blind they would be Champions. Equally, if someone had told you that one of the big four (Chelsea) was going to pick up one point from a possible fifteen in big four head to heads and still be level on points with that team, you wouldn't have believed them.

When I said three seasons ago that we were plenty good enough to have launched a title challenge that season, we actually finished 21 points behind. People laughed in my face (probably correctly but anyway God loves an optimist, that was before I was called "negative"). Last season, I said we had been plenty good enough, and we finished 11 points off the top. This season, we've added the fits and starts left midfielder Albert Riera to the first team, and suddenly we've had a challenge. Has Albert Riera been sufficient to bridge that gap, even with Torres injured most of the season? My opinion is no he hasn't, the reason the gap has lessened is that we've made less of the truly silly mistakes, which has put us into contention.

And people talk this season of "if Torres had been fit, we'd be miles clear by now". Well hang on, he was fit last season and scored 30 goals, we weren't miles clear then were we? The answer is of course, no we weren't. No, we were resting him and Gerrard at the "farce of Fratton Park", we were telling the World he couldn't play between the lines in the Bungle of Birmingham, and we were establishing once and for all that Peter Crouch couldn't play on the left wing in the madness at the Madjescki (new one that). The point being, that with tinkering, shuffling, nudging, resting and the like, we are always a Martin Skyrtel at left back away from a bad result. It seems to me that regardless of any superiority we have, we will always find a way to trip ourselves up by being too clever, too complicated etc.

Rafa has changed, and I hope he continues so to do. Then perhaps we can all love him like many already do. The next big change, along with leaving the dimmer switch alone for much longer next time, is in being much more attacking during the course of matches. I know when we drew with Stoke, Fulham, West Ham and the like there was plenty of "it's one point gained FFS" and "I don't fecking believe some of the idiots on here". As we all know though, it's the laws of newkit number one, those who debate with the most abuse are often the ones who are talking the most sh!t. It was proven again here, if we had those games back now we wouldn't be saying "I don't fecking believe this place", we'd be agreeing that perhaps they weren't the best results. Equally, some of the people who thought that all those draws might cost us the league weren't total c...s after all, they might have been onto something. Same as when we settled for a draw at the Emirates, "I don't fecking believe this place" etc.

So we need to rotate less, we need to attack more, and we need to concentrate any buying we do on quality players who get into the first team, and hopefully have some flair. I think pretty much everyone would agree with that, be they Rafa inners or outers, lets hope that's what he does. Then I can be fickle and say I was wrong all along and we won the league  .

Mick we all intrinsically agree on one point ,we all want the best for Liverpool Football Club ,but the debate regarding Rafa will rage on ,I have said before personal ego's do not amount to much on this forum ,I have never been one for habitual self congratulation.
As for your point about Torres, I would have to say Liverpool played largely to his strengths last season ,as opposed to this season when the wingers have been utilised to a better effect to account for fernando's absence ,but still this has robbed us of our most potent attacking force .
I think the draws we have had this season could easily have been wins but for crossbars and posts and the visiting teams reluctance to leave their own half, albeit the Middlesborough game which I agree was a debacle.
Football is a unpredictable game fella ,thats why we love it ,and I believe that Rafa is the best man for the job .
As for the Skyrtel episode at left back, isnt it Rafa's ability to be clever and complicated that allows him the fortitude to succeed in a tactical chess match against the bigger sides, its been proven time and time again Rafa has few peers when the big games come along ,so to remove this particular trait from his game would make him ordinary and we dont need ordinary at Liverpool .
I too think some of his decisions ie Skyrtel at left back are indeed questionable ,but who in all honesty would them two imbeciles that run our club acquire to replace Benitez .
Fact is until we rid the club of the inner turmoil thats haunted us all season (Hicks n co ) then it really will take a phenomenal manager to take us forward .
Ok I digress I for one never envisaged winning the title this season ,too huge a leap from Fourth to First ,and I never believed Keane would be our missing piece of the jigsaw ,but I knew we would improve under Rafa and that faith has been justified ,We can play verbal tennis all day Michael, but lets say we both have the best interests of the club at heart albeit slightly different perspectives .