Liverpool FC Forum

[account deleted by request]

Taken from a spanish Red......

Rafa Benitez was interviewed on Spanish radio last night (Monday) on El Larguero show (link below) - Spain's most famous sports/football radio program.

http://www.cadenaser.com/deporte....Aes

He was continually asked about the Spain job and about returning back to Spain.

His answer was always the same "I´m not going anywhere, I'm so happy in this wonderful city, full of wonderful people - I don't intend to go until, at least, I've won the Premier League" to which the journo said "But you've won the Champions League Rafa" and Rafa replies "I know, and we might again BUT I want to win the Premier at this wonderful club". 

He also found time to take a swipe at The S*n and The Sunday S*n (NOWT) which he said was "full of lies and more lies and always mixing their questions, with his actual answers".

Really, really positive long interview with Rafa in which he says his focus is on the quality of Youth at the Academy at the club, and that the future looks very bright in that regard, particularly next season when 7 not 5 players will be allowed to sit on the bench (I didn't know that!) and that way can give the youth more of a change to play 1st team football and debuts....seems very excited about the Youth (must watch the reserves tonight on LFC.TV!).

He also mentions his relationship with the Americans is much better now "after our famour clear the air meeting of 22nd of December".

Had a real go at the Intl calendar fixture list, in reference to Torres injury and Masch playing in LA of all places ...saying players should not be playing friendly Intl fixtures in the middle of critical periods of the league and champs league.

Had a go at the idea of having games abroad at the end of the season, saying that it would be impractical for teams chasing prem titles or CL or UEFA slots or fighting for survival to have to play in places like Hong Kong in a competitive (not friendly) environment in terrible humid conditions, such as the pre-season games vs Pompey (which he also mentioned). He said he was all for pre-season friendly but not travelling to the other corner of the planet at the end of the season for competitive matches - he said "this whole idea has no head or feet to it".

Was very complimentary about the work that his compratriot Juan de Ramos is doing at Spurs, but underlining that he had a good squad to begin his Spurs leadership with.

He totally ruled out the Spanish national job in the summer, saying he wouldn't mind that way down the road when he is older and does not have the energy for the day to day struggle of managing a club - to which La Morena (the journo) said "what when your 65 then?" ...and he said "yeah, something like that!".

He even had time to joke about the years he intends to stay in Liverpool saying that he and Montse speak decent english now, that his daughters speak very good english (and are a joy to listen to)... and that even his Spanish Mother-In-Law was learning a bit of the language!

Top, top man and pro - who does have a sense of humour with the press, after all, even if it's with just the spanish press (who he probably trust a tad more, particularly in his mother tongue and LIVE on the radio, no room for mis-quotes there...)!

The man is very much in love with Liverpool Football Club


ripped from Rawk

[NANNY RED]

What a great read Saint, Sabre will be purring listening to that 

[god_bless_john_houlding]

Good read saint and I'm not going to take the opportunity to have a dig at the fella, whereas some undoubtadly will.

[maguskwt]

Right regarding the secret pm . Someone posted something on another forum from a reliable source . Now he was apparently a little premature in posting his info (not saying he was wrong ,just hasty lets say) . Now all threads relating to the H+G ,DIC thingy have been taken off the said forum . The excuse given was to prevent gossip basically (what's an internet forum for you may ask ,so do i.)and all theads regarding the issue were either removed or locked. The same posts that were put up here were also removed. the only explanation give was by superklinksub. No secrets or something like that. Anyway nothings going on and it's all pie in the sky we are told . And if you believe that then you might aswell believe what rob beasley say's 

To be continued ...........

must be the freemasons behind all of this...

[Bad Bob]

Leon's answer when I asked why the thread was deleted:-

I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for a deleted thread, and you curse the MOD's. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That deleting that thread, while tragic, probably saved arguements. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves arguements. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a mouse, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

   

[Reg]

Mis post

[RedBlood]

i took this from the lfctv site, i think its a good read and some of you rafa haters would benifit from reading it



According to Jamie Redknapp, Liverpool "have got no chance" of ever winning the league under Rafa Benítez. 


 
Presumably Redknapp would have said the same in 1990 about Alex Ferguson, who had taken a top four side at United for the previous four seasons under Ron Aktinson and turned them into ninth placed finishers (on average) over his first four seasons?
 
Benitez's league record outstrips Ferguson's in every possible way when comparing their respective first four years in charge, and while football has changed, and the past cannot be compared to the present with total accuracy, the fact is that no-one in the world thought Alex Ferguson could ever win a league title at United, and certainly not the United fans holding up banners asking for him to be sacked.
 
I'm sure Ferguson proved more insightful men than Redknapp wrong.
Just because Ferguson ended United's 26-year drought it doesn't therefore automatically follow that Benítez will do the same at Liverpool, but equally, you need to compare the managers to where they were in their respective tenures to get the context right.
 
The comparisons between United back then and Liverpool now are apt: England's two biggest clubs, with all the monumental pressure that comes with it, both trying to end a two-decade drought without the league title. Except Ferguson took four years to win his first trophy, and spent most of that time in the bottom half of the table.
 
If anyone should know how difficult it is to win the league at Liverpool it's Redknapp. He was part of teams in the '90s that finished sixth, eighth and seventh. More tellingly, this was also when the team were pretty pathetic in Europe too, and only the occasional visitors to a cup final.
 
Indeed, Benitez took the Reds to more finals in his first three years - and more important ones at that - than Souness, Evans and Houllier managed in the entire '90s. With that in mind, I'd like to see the ex-captain showing the current manager a little more respect.
 
Redknapp has now joined the list of those thinking that because Benitez has had more success in Europe with Liverpool, that is his priority. This is lazy stereotyping. Redknapp also talks about rotation (yawn) again, but misses the point that as with Wenger and Ferguson, Benitez rarely changes his core of key men except for the Carling Cup. When fit, Reina, Gerrard, Torres and Carragher play virtually every game.
 
I admit that I thought Liverpool could mount a title challenge this year, but it's been a campaign fraught with well-publicised difficulties. There's also been a pretty big injury list all season long, affecting several key players.
 
But I have also long been aware that it's going to be far harder for the Reds to end a two-decade wait for the title than it would be for the other three big teams to become Champions.
 
At Liverpool there's a much more complex scenario. Psychologically speaking, Liverpool are in the toughest position of any Premier League team.
 
First of all there's the unprecedented success that lingers in living memory of every adult, which makes any fine achievement a failure in the eyes of many. It causes the kind of insanity that makes some fans say they don't care about the Champions League.
 
The years of relative failure in the '90s, and in some years since, should lower expectations, but they don't. No-one expects Blackpool or Nottingham Forest to be English champions, but 'by rights' Liverpool should.
 
Why? Some fans say "Because we're Liverpool". But you can't win leagues by merely quoting history at your opponents. You can't dismiss Chelsea, with their expensive squad, and say "but we're Liverpool". On Sunday Chelsea brought on two subs (Malouda and Mikel) who each cost more than any single Liverpool player on the pitch.
 
You can't dismiss United, with their riches and their manager and players with league title success, and say "but we're Liverpool". And the same applies to Arsenal, whose current success owes much to Wenger's experience and scouting over the past decade, and from allowing a young side to blossom.
 
Manchester United and Arsenal, with the same managers as today, won league titles in the years immediately before Benitez arrived in England. Chelsea, with a squad twice as costly as anyone else's, and three times that of Liverpool's, won the league in Benitez's first season in England.
 
So by 2005, Benítez was seriously up against it, before he'd ever really had a chance to get going. If anything, the addition of Chelsea to the power-base and the ability of longstanding managers like Wenger and Ferguson makes it harder to be a Liverpool manager than ever before.
 
By 2005 these three rivals had that success in the bank. But with Liverpool, there's just a growing pressure with every year that passes. And the stereotyping doesn't help.
 
Liverpool, and Benitez, appeared to be put in a psychological straightjacket by the press after that first season: 'duffers' in the league but majestic on the continent. It was putting the club into a box and taping it up. This is a societal trend. Perhaps in the players’ minds it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. No matter who is the manager, how do you overcome that?
 
The first year was always going to be a tough league campaign for Benitez, and of course the manager had to learn about English football; that was only natural, and it was a harsh lesson at times. How could he know as much in those first months as rival managers who had been in their jobs for donkey's years?
 
His second season was a relative success in the league, with 82 points and an outstanding win-percentage: 25 out of 38 won. Add cup games against Premier League opposition, including four ties against Chelsea and Manchester United, and it looked even better. This told me that Rafa could succeed in England. But getting that first league title was always going to be the toughest task of all.
 
Whereas Arsenal unexpectedly won the league under Wenger after 18 months, Liverpool had a surprise European title at the start of Benítez's reign. And anyone who doesn't believe me when I talk about how teams can be stereotyped, just look at Arsenal's 'Invincibles'.
This very 'European' team, whatever its personnel over that time, has thus far failed to win a single European trophy in the 12 years under Wenger.
 
Why is this? Possibly because in those first two or three campaigns, Arsenal failed more so than was expected. While some of that should have been foreseen - it was after all a learning curve in those initial campaigns - it set the same kind of psychological barrier in place that the Liverpool team suffer from in the league. Once you're labelled, it’s hard to escape it.
 
It seemed the better Arsenal got domestically the worse they fared on the continent. Perhaps you could look at Wenger's tactics, etc, but this was a team who, between 2002 and 2004, should have been able to beat anyone. The only time they have reached the last four was when they were beaten finalists in 2006, in the season when everyone felt they were a poorer side and stood far less chance of doing well.
 
This stereotyping, and an overburdening, overpowering expectation, is probably the same for the England national team, and in domestic football, for Newcastle United. The difference, of course, is that Liverpool have been winning things of real note during one particular kind of drought.
 
While I desperately want the league title to return to Anfield, I've been thrilled by the team winning the European Cup, FA Cup, and making it to another Champions League final. I'm incredibly proud that the team has made the last 16 of the Champions League every year under Rafa, not to mention those two finals, because before he arrived that seemed as impossible as it now does to win the league.
 
Liverpool's psychological situation is almost the reverse of Manchester United's. What United would do for another Champions League success, almost a decade after their only final in 15 consecutive years competing in it under Ferguson. You know how much Ferguson desperately wants to win it, yet he hasn't even come close in the last nine years, and didn't even make it past the group stage two years ago.
 
Anyone who's been single and on the dating scene at some point in their life knows that the more you want something, the harder it becomes; you reek of desperation in the search for a partner. You try too hard.
 
Going back to Wenger, the difference between Arsenal and Liverpool is that the Reds' early success came in Europe, and of course that's made subsequent good runs in Champions League easier to achieve.
 
The confidence, the true gut-level belief, was put in place by the run to Istanbul and the final itself. Liverpool have that in the bag now, and under Benitez, always will. That's why the club were able to reach a second final in three years, including victory in the Nou Camp, and also why, when this year's campaign got off to such a bad start (as can happen in football), the team could pull off three remarkable and emphatic victories when every single point was essential.
 
The examples of psychological barriers are everywhere. Why do Liverpool do so much better against Chelsea in the cups than in the league? - and in high-pressure semi-finals to boot. Why have Liverpool yet to beat Manchester United in the league under Benitez, but in the one cup encounter the Reds deservedly won?
 
For me, it speaks of psychological factors, and in sport, they are crucially important but also incredibly difficult to change. Chelsea and United wanted to win those encounters with Liverpool at least as much as they did those league games. But without the oppressive weight of the word 'Premier League' bearing down on them, the Reds had more freedom.
 
But things can change quickly in football. Who thought Arsenal, who finished below the Reds for two seasons, would suddenly click into gear this year? After all, this is the season when Spurs were supposed to finish above the Gunners. Players like Hleb and Adebayor turned into top-class propositions after two unspectacular seasons in England, and what’s to say young players as gifted and promising as Ryan Babel and Lucas can't make similar improvements?
 
No-one can doubt that the league has become an albatross, a millstone, for Liverpool, and had done so long before Benitez arrived. Quite how any manager can lift that burden is anyone's guess. It won't be easy, that's for sure.
 
Perhaps Benitez's best hope lies with the outstanding youngsters he is procuring, and how, as at Arsenal, they improve the side once they've matured. Should the next generation come through at Anfield and show their undoubted class in the next few years, players like Torres, Agger, Reina, Mascherano, Alonso, Skrtel, Babel, Lucas and Gerrard should still be around to make the squad stronger than ever. And even Carragher and Finnan have a few years left ahead of them.
 
But for the time being the Reds remain a revered and feared Champions League team and, after the European failures and humiliations of the '90s, and the across-the-board mediocrity, I for one am happy for the team to be considered top-class in such an important context.

[zarababe]

good reads today Rafa is ... awesome !


Redknapp - pass the ball back -sideways anywhere but upfront

[account deleted by request]

icLiverpool - Rafa Benitez plans legal action against News of the World

RAFA BENITEZ is ready to take legal action against the News of the World.

The Liverpool manager was left seething after the Sunday tabloid newspaper ran a back page article at the weekend claiming that he blamed the club's owners for the team's failure to challenge for the Premier League title this season.

The News of the World claimed it as an exclusive even though Benitez insists he did not speak to either the newspaper or the journalist who wrote the article in question, Rob Beasley.

Benitez believes the story was taken from an interview he did with Spanish newspaper El Mundo in which journalist Inma Lidon asked him if he blamed Tom Hicks and George Gillett for upsetting Liverpool's season.

The question, when translated into English, read: "The owners were lacking faith in your work a couple of months ago when the team was six points behind the leaders with a game in hand.

"Has this issue influenced the progress of the team?"

To which Benitez - according to a translation in the hands of his solicitor, Richard Green, of leading Liverpool law firm Hill Dickinson – replied: “As a coach you could say yes.

"It would be the perfect excuse, but I don't want to use it.

"What is clear is that at that time we were in a good position and the team was at the point of winning many of the matches that we have drawn and that is what brought us down."

But when the News of the World ran the story the following day the headline accompanying it said: "It's Your Fault: Rafa In New Blast At Owners".

Benitez was so outraged by the story - and by the fact the News of the World claimed he had spoken exclusively to them - that he launched a blistering verbal attack on it in a pre-match interview before Sunday's game with Chelsea.

He said: "It is no surprise. Everybody in Liverpool knows that there are two newspapers that you cannot trust. This is one of them.

"He (Beasley) talks of it being an exclusive, but the journalist is lying. I was talking with the Spanish press - he was manipulating everything."

When asked about his relationship with the club's owners, the Reds boss added: "I have contact with them, especially with Mr Hicks, because he (Beasley) was talking about Mr Hicks and I think he is lying.

"Well, clearly he is lying because I did not talk with him."

Having studied the article, Green was today sending a “letter before claim” to both the News of the World and Beasley, informing them of the criteria for the claim.

The ECHO understands the claim is based on the potential of:

(a) Mr Benitez having been libelled by the article.

(b) False attribution - ie, that it used quotes that Mr Benitez did not say or that were taken so far out of context that they distorted the whole article.


ripped from Rawk

[Lee2k6]

He said: "It is no surprise. Everybody in Liverpool knows that there are two newspapers that you cannot trust. This is one of them.

  class quote from Rafa, no guesses to who the second newspaper was 

[jonnymac1979]

Leon's answer when I asked why the thread was deleted:-

I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for a deleted thread, and you curse the MOD's. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That deleting that thread, while tragic, probably saved arguements. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves arguements. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a mouse, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

   

Fantastic!!!!   

[stmichael]

icLiverpool - Rafa Benitez plans legal action against News of the World

RAFA BENITEZ is ready to take legal action against the News of the World.

The Liverpool manager was left seething after the Sunday tabloid newspaper ran a back page article at the weekend claiming that he blamed the club's owners for the team's failure to challenge for the Premier League title this season.

The News of the World claimed it as an exclusive even though Benitez insists he did not speak to either the newspaper or the journalist who wrote the article in question, Rob Beasley.

Benitez believes the story was taken from an interview he did with Spanish newspaper El Mundo in which journalist Inma Lidon asked him if he blamed Tom Hicks and George Gillett for upsetting Liverpool's season.

The question, when translated into English, read: "The owners were lacking faith in your work a couple of months ago when the team was six points behind the leaders with a game in hand.

"Has this issue influenced the progress of the team?"

To which Benitez - according to a translation in the hands of his solicitor, Richard Green, of leading Liverpool law firm Hill Dickinson – replied: “As a coach you could say yes.

"It would be the perfect excuse, but I don't want to use it.

"What is clear is that at that time we were in a good position and the team was at the point of winning many of the matches that we have drawn and that is what brought us down."

But when the News of the World ran the story the following day the headline accompanying it said: "It's Your Fault: Rafa In New Blast At Owners".

Benitez was so outraged by the story - and by the fact the News of the World claimed he had spoken exclusively to them - that he launched a blistering verbal attack on it in a pre-match interview before Sunday's game with Chelsea.

He said: "It is no surprise. Everybody in Liverpool knows that there are two newspapers that you cannot trust. This is one of them.

"He (Beasley) talks of it being an exclusive, but the journalist is lying. I was talking with the Spanish press - he was manipulating everything."

When asked about his relationship with the club's owners, the Reds boss added: "I have contact with them, especially with Mr Hicks, because he (Beasley) was talking about Mr Hicks and I think he is lying.

"Well, clearly he is lying because I did not talk with him."

Having studied the article, Green was today sending a “letter before claim” to both the News of the World and Beasley, informing them of the criteria for the claim.

The ECHO understands the claim is based on the potential of:

(a) Mr Benitez having been libelled by the article.

(b) False attribution - ie, that it used quotes that Mr Benitez did not say or that were taken so far out of context that they distorted the whole article.


ripped from Rawk

i take it he'll be rotating his solicitors then?

[account deleted by request]

i take it he'll be rotating his solicitors then

Changing his briefs

[LFC2007]

[Sabre]

What a great read Saint, Sabre will be purring listening to that 

So far I've read Saint's briefing. Will hear the interview later and I'll add something new if Saint left something.

I don't usually hear to De la Morena, he's a cúnt. Quite surprised Rafa talked to him, he was the one who said when Rafa joined Valencia: "Rafa who?"