Liverpool FC Forum

[Rockthekop]

indifferent, but then you could say that about almost any manager. in the last two years united spent £80m on hargreaves, berbatov, nani and anderson for example, all of whom have huge question marks looming over them. the difference being, due to his success, ferguson's bad buys get nowhere near the same scrutiny as any bad buy we make.

what does my head in is that the media just use rafa's bad buys as a stick to beat him with. they fail to mention him signing one of the top 3 keepers in europe, signing alonso for £10m and selling him for £30m, signing torres and mascherano who are the best in the world in their respective positions. and that's not to mention the likes of johnson, agger, garcia and benayoun.

To be fair though apart from the players you mentioned who else could you consider a good signing? There's not many.

[stmichael]

indifferent, but then you could say that about almost any manager. in the last two years united spent £80m on hargreaves, berbatov, nani and anderson for example, all of whom have huge question marks looming over them. the difference being, due to his success, ferguson's bad buys get nowhere near the same scrutiny as any bad buy we make.

what does my head in is that the media just use rafa's bad buys as a stick to beat him with. they fail to mention him signing one of the top 3 keepers in europe, signing alonso for £10m and selling him for £30m, signing torres and mascherano who are the best in the world in their respective positions. and that's not to mention the likes of johnson, agger, garcia and benayoun.

To be fair though apart from the players you mentioned who else could you consider a good signing? There's not many.

Well you could add Arbeloa and potentially Rodriguez to that list. They cost £4m between them. Lucas cost 6m where as Anderson cost United £15m+. He was signed as a replacement for the ageing Scholes. He wasn't good enough to do that job so they dropped him back to play in the holding role and he can't do that either. He's scored 1 goal in 98 appearances for them. I know who's been better value for money. That's not to mention the fact that Riera has been a regular Spanish international player since signing for us.

But what do the media ultimately judge him on? The signing of Keane, Aquilani, Babel and Kuyt primarily. We got £16m back for Keane, Aquilani was supposed to be fit in late August but sh#t happens. Babel cost £11m but we were offered £9m for him the other week and Kuyt has almost 50 goals in 160 appearances.

[KennyisGod....still]

the press seem to have an agenda hidin behind th fact that Liverpool should be winnin trophies left right and centre, so Rafa suffers cuz we aint. I fail to see where the unwritten law states that to be the case but also I do see that he stands up an criticises the darlin of the press in ferguson. Not a clever thing to do in this country - look around, any other manager doin it? Is he wrong? But th press forget that ferguson only speaks when he feels like it whereas Rafa takes the conference win lose or draw....

I feel for the man in that yes he's had money but he's had t wheel an deal to get it compared to others. I cant see that changin regardless of who's in charge, be it Kenny or maurinho, an yes theres been some failures along the way. But when you're havin to sell your first teamers to try an improve your first team then any possible failures will show up in spectacular style, not be able to be bought in slowly like we always used to. Ok, Aquilani had a slow passage in, but there were prevailin reasons.

For where we are with twit and tw@t i think he's doin as well as can be expected....sure, i'd love to see us kick on be challengin for evry trophy, but it just aint feasible in my mind. And certainly aint feasible just because we're Liverpool - those days are well gone unfortunately.

[Sir Roger]

so we did all that and we still havent won a trophy in x years or won the league in xx years?

Well yeh  your right daws . The post was more to show the progress we have made under Rafa . But yes we haven't won nowt for years and years.

Four years and counting

[Penguins]

I think it was good the first 4 years and got all the big buys right and improved and played with is big buys. But then he devloped favourites in Lucas and Kuyt who albeit hardworking isn't very good footballers. But the last couple of years he has bought Babel and Aqualiani for a compined 30 million who have more materials in their inventory than Kuyt and lucas will ever have but has been given 0 chance almost which gives them 0 confidence. Lucas and Kuyt was allowed to play countless of times when they were totally **** but Babel and Aqualiani are treated like **** and benched after a good game. Just like Crounch who was 10 time the striker Kuyt will ever be but was always benched.

My patience is wearing thin.

[Avi Cohen]

we have made loads of progress, the question we're all asking now is can we continue to progress under Rafa or will someone else take over?

Well that's the big question mate . I just can't see how bringing in a new man now ,( cos that's what alot of people are asking for )will change anything . Will a new man win us the league now , will he have money to spend , will he do a better job , will he want to change the whole club ethos again and have another 5 year plan . Will the supporters give him 5 years . All questions that can be left until the end of the season imo .

I can't answer that but if the new guy knew what makes for good football, not play two defensive midfielders and a lone striker against relegation teams, not insist with a straight-jacket formation, willing to change things when needed, not continue with tactics (zonal marking) when they obviously don't work, and was to encourage his team to get forward instead of defending being the first and only instinct - he'd be a breathe of fresh air to me.