Liverpool FC Forum

by **Owzat** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:06 am

Your mate might consider adding to his stats on win ratios, the one I've just posted about how Liverpool's best of 86 points would have compared with the league winners of the past two decades.

Only twice in the past decade would 86 points have won the league title, compared to EIGHT times in the previous decade and the two it wouldn't have beaten were 42 game seasons. The bottom line is win ratios mean diddly on their own, they need to be compared with win ratios of the era. The quoted stat that Rafa has one of the best win ratios of a Liverpool manager ever sounds nice to those who take it at face value, but other managers with lesser win ratios won multiple league titles to go with other trophies. They didn't have multiple subs to bring on use 25 players in 15 games. Fair enough comparing Houllier and Benitez if anyone, but back when Houllier was manager (and Evans) was when we could have won the league with the points as low as they've been for some time

LIVERPOOL v CHAMPIONS

08/09 : Liverpool 86-90 Man Utd (-4)
07/08 : Liverpool 76-87 Man Utd (-11)
06/07 : Liverpool 68-89 Man Utd (-21)
05/06 : Liverpool 82-91 Chelsea (-9)
04/05 : Liverpool 58-95 Chelsea (-27)

03/04 : Liverpool 60-90 Arsenal (-30)
02/03 : Liverpool 64-83 Man Utd (-19)
01/02 : Liverpool 80-87 Arsenal (-7)
00/01 : Liverpool 69-80 Man Utd (-11)
99/00 : Liverpool 67-91 Man Utd (-24)
98/99 : Liverpool 54-79 Man Utd (-25)

97/98 : Liverpool 65-78 Arsenal (-13)
96/97 : Liverpool 68-75 Man Utd (-7)
95/96 : Liverpool 71-82 Man Utd (-11)
94/95 : Liverpool 74-89 Blackburn (-15) - 42 game season

93/94 : Liverpool 60-92 Man Utd (-32) - 42 game season
92/93 : Liverpool 59-84 Man Utd (-25) - 42 game season

Rafa has the highest win ratio since King Kenny, Kenny won three league titles and finished runners-up three times in six seasons, Rafa has managed to finish runner-up once.

HIGHEST LFC MANAGER WIN RATIOS (LEAGUE, TOP FLIGHT ONLY)

1. 60.71% Kenny Dalglish (titles x3, runners-up x3)
2. 56.10% Rafa Benitez (titles x0, runners-up x1)
3. 56.08% Bob Paisley (titles x6, runners-up x2)
4. 52.38% Joe Fagan (titles x1, runners-up x1)
5. 51.59% Bill Shankly (titles x3, runners-up x2)
6. 51.18% David Ashworth (titles x2, runners-up x0)
7. 49.12% Gerard Houllier (titles x0, runners-up x1)
8. 48.26% Roy Evans (titles x0, runners-up x0)

Tom Watson, George Kay and Matt McQueen had lower win ratios but won the league. Statistically Rafa might be right up there, but only because the stats are incomparable across eras. Maybe managing is tougher these days, but the bottom line is we will never know if truly great LFC managers of the past could win the league, unless of course we tried King Kenny.

by **lakes10** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:57 am

its a good pice but he needs to state that its in his own view more, the bit about it costing Liverpool too much money to sack him will not stand up as there is no info to back that up and the fact that a company can sack anyone for free in the UK if they are found to be no good at there job also falls short of his point that its going to cost us.

it might also be good to go into why other fans think he should go, this will give the two side to his view, this often works well when being marked.

by **kazza** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:02 pm

by **stmichael** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:27 pm

To answer your question Bav, it's a tricky one which basically has two sides to it. The thing is, as proved on here, once you've made your mind up on the matter you aint gonna budge.

Those who are Pro Rafa are supposedly making up excuses to defend him, but they have been backed up by plenty of facts as well if you look closely enough. So have the Anti Rafa brigade if you like.

As far as I'm concerned the man is our manger and deserves the respect that comes with that position, and while we may be trophy less since 06, the man is building this club up for a long run at the top again, ala Shankly & Paisley under circumstances that can be described as "constraining" at best. Infact other mangers may well have walked away by now. This is why we take exception when you get idiots on here who come out and describe Rafa as "a disease" at this club.

Should we be winning trophies every year? Well we should definitely be challenging but it's not our "God given right" to do so just because we are Liverpool FC. I want to win every match we play and win every competition we are in, but that is just not how things go unfortunately. It tells you about where we are now when Man City have endless millions to spend and the like of Spurs and even Sunderland are outspending us in the transfer market.

I've always admitted that Rafa has flaws and he drives me up the wall sometimes with some of his decisions. However even with these flaws, you have to see that with all the things going against him he is doing a decent job. Certainly nobody else could do better under the current circumstances imo.

Both sides have valid arguments, but to dismiss the facts, and the people who support Rafa and call it "blind faith" are simply wrong. It just gets on my nerves hearing some of the so called "supporters" who support this club these days. There was a guy sat behind me at Blackburn on Saturday who basically spent 90 minutes slagging the team off and then booed at the end. Is that really what our fans have come to?

by **yolz** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:49 pm

It's a decent piece imo, except that the stats portion (the comparison between Houllier and Rafa) might be better off deleted
It comes off a little too much tailored to sensationalize
The win ratio might be similar, but the successes of the club has been completely ignored
You can always tailor numbers to fit any scenario, and any "stats" for a critical writing piece should be balanced,
not tailored to raise a few eyebrows

by **Richj** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:02 pm

If the owners had sold to someone who had money like Man City I would of liked to know who Rafa would of brought if money was not a problem.

Liverpool FC Forum

Rafa - Work assignment for a mate, please read

Who is online