Liverpool FC Forum

s@int wrote:I have been wrestling with whether Rafa should go or be given more time for over a year now. Every time I thought that I had made my mind up, something would happen that made me re-evaluate my thoughts, a good cup run, a great win over one of our rivals or another heart breaking performance and I would go back to the drawing board.

My reasons for finally deciding that IMO Rafa should NOT be offered another contract :-

1/ The football we play is neither attractive or more importantly proving to be successful. We struggle to break down teams poor teams and struggle to impose ourselves in games. After 5 years and £200million I think we deserve better.

2/ I think the off field bickering has been a disgrace, we are sadly watching our rivals "knock us off our fkn perch," while arguments rage over contracts and and who should have done what and when. Pathetic!

3/ The whole Keane business sickened me. It seemed it was more important to win the argument with Parry and prove a point, than to win games and maybe a title. To sell Keane and leave us without an adequate replacement shows (to me anyway ) where his priorities lie.

4/ I think he is letting his problems with Parry affect and cloud his judgement on football matters, and that cannot be allowed to continue. Players need to know they are in the team on merit not because a point is being made.

5/ I think we have seen quite a few players driven out of the club because of his poor man management skills and lack of insight. Too many player seem to be first rotated out of form never to recover, their confidence shattered, gradually eased further and further from the first team before eventually being transferred.

6/ The disgraceful carry on with the academy, not only has there been considerable damage done to the developement of our youth players, but also to the recruitment of young players in the future. It really doesn't really matter who is right or who is wrong if the very thing they are fighting over gets broken in the process.   

7/ Too many gambles on team selections and formations. Sometimes they work (or at least we get away with it) and sometimes they don't and we pay the price in dropped points. I think we should be trying to get a settled formation, put our best team out as often as possible and saying to the opposition "beat that", rather than worrying about what the opposition are going to do.

8/ Transfers - too many and not good enough ......... end of.

If I cast my eye back to the cups he has won with a hard eye and not the usual emotional one it also leads one to question his judgement. The CL FINAL - Everyone expected Hamann to play, and it was a terrible tactical decision to leave him out of the starting line up. Yes we eventually won on penalties, but we all know deep in our hearts that it was a one off and that miracles don't happen week in week out. The FA Cup final - again Hamann left out, and only the genius of Gerrard saved us that day. Again we won on penalties but this time not against the cream of Europe but a West Ham side that we should have played off the park. The CL(2) - I don't think anyone should be surprised we struggled to score with Kuyt as our main striker, maybe if we had brought Crouch on earlier or kept Mascherano on we may have forced penalties again. We didn't ..... and we didn't. 

I suppose it all really boils down to the fact that I have finally realised that if we couldn't win the league this season when we had every chance, we probably never will under Rafa. A good cup side, a top 4 side, but not a title winning side.

bigmick wrote:Anyone who finds it all a bit doom and gloomy should try RAWK. I've been having a bit of a read on there and the mood is very definately still pro Rafa from what I can see. People only really do it one sentence, and usually along the lines of "Ban this c... and close the thread", but there's no doubt the overwhelming majority on there still are supportive.

My guess is that the majority on here would be too. Often after a poor result the "pro's" go to ground and it's easy to run away with the idea that the whole forum is negative. It isn't, I'm convinced of that and even a fall away from here wouldn't be enough to convince many people that it's time to change the manager, and that's fair enough.

peewee wrote:the club comes before any individual, I believe rafa has got too big for his boots,he thinks he is untouchable hence his washing of dirty linen in public, his perseverance with things that don't work, his contract refusal.

The fans sadly have given him this idea that he untouchable, those fans who see no wrong in him and those fans who think singing his name is the right thing to do as he fecks up once again giving him the belief he is gods gift.

I feel people are choosing him over the owners rather than just choosing him based on success, people need someone to choose over the owners. If we had better owners would rafa still get the plaudits from blinded fans? I doubt it, its as though by siding with beintez people are choosing the lesser of two evils to side with in an argument that shouldn't even be happening, people even blame the owners for rafas failings on the pitch.

His constant refusals to sign a new contract show me he is on his way out, lets thank our lucky stars he didn't sign it as it would be expensive when we feck him off, personally though i feel he is already lined up elsewhere and he will walk meaning he wouldn't get paid out on his contract anyway.

He has been given time and he has been given money and all its got us is struggling to come second in a two horse race. He is tactically naive, he has no man management skills, he uses the fans to gain leverage with the owners (whenever he fecks up of he is trying to get something he trots out the same old bollox about loving the club, the city, the fans etc).

Time to go, if any of my staff made the same mistakes over and over for 5 years they would be gone, in fact they wouldn't even get to 5 years by not learning from their mistakes.

knee jerk? no, red back, I have been saying this for two years

I think you hit the nail on the head here peewee monster.

This aura of invinciility started when he won the CL back in 2005 and has disturbingly continued since then! Since 2005 he has only been able to win one more trophy, but the rose tinted brigade has kept blindly defending the indefensible.

Its a real shame that in between all of this (to make matters worse!) we have had tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum run us into the ground. As a desperate plight the "im a better supporter than you" brigade have blamed all problems on the owners when its clear as day that Benitez is ALSO to blame for us not being able to challenge.

I'm amazed and saddened at the same time that we were able to stay first for quite a while. Imagine were we would be right now if we actually had proper owners and a capable manager.

bigmick wrote:There has already been far too many threads like this one, started by people who's ego was so big they thought that their opinion deserved it's own thread. We don't need another one,