Liverpool FC Forum

[Lando_Griffin]

Having posted an answers-only poll a while ago on the topic of whether or not we want Rafa sacked, it would appear that only 1/4 of the members on here actually DO want to see the gaffer fired.

Obviously the poll is still running and is subject to change, but the basic point of my posting this accompanying thread is to underline the fact that most fans still have faith in the boss, despite the media frenzy that surrounds us at the moment.
The important word for me there is "fans", as it doesn't matter what Pat Dolan, Chris Bascombe, etc think - it's us fans who count.

I would like to think that the American owners are a little more intelligent than to be swayed by the inane ramblings of a bunch of bored UK hacks, picking at the bones for the smallest shred of a story. I'd also like to think that, being privy to our shows of support, the Americans are also fully aware of the fans' affection and backing of the boss at this trying time. Not a game goes by where the Rafa song is omitted from the rapport. When other teams struggle to half-fill their stadiums for European ties, a 2000-strong march by the fans in support of Rafa says it all.

I think now, more than ever before, we need to consolidate our club, and stand firmly behind the manager. It's no secret I am one of his biggest fans - it's not a crime, after all. I think a lot of people on here would do well to remember that Rafa is my Shankly - the first truly great boss I have seen at Liverpool in my lifetime.
I have no doubt that some Liverpool fans were just as disheartened when the great Scot swept in in 1959. He and his revolutionary methods would have faced similar (if not media-intensified) opposition.

But the thing is - the people in charge gave their backing to him.

Now, what I am proposing, see, is that we, and the owners, do the Spaniard the same courtesy.

[account deleted by request]

Leaving aside for a moment the fantastic signing of Torres and that we eventually qualified for the CL knockout stage, what do you see as Rafa's achievements this season mate ?

[metalhead]

s@int, I think its too early to ask the question about his achievment this season. I guess we will wait and see until May. The funny thing about football that anything can happen, i.e we may end up winning the double (the F.A cup and the Champions League)

I was one of the voters who do not want to see Rafa sacked, because of what he can do to the club. I know that some of his signings have been average in the course of his managerial career with us, but I'm optimistic to say that he can get it right with the players when he gets the right funds he needs. Many may argue that he did spend alot of money in the past 4 years, and I agree with them, he did spend a lot of money on players that turned out to be average or just not good enough. However, the prices he payed on those players never broke Cisse's transfer record and the money he got was by selling the "deadwood".

Also, Benitez is a quality coach, this nonesense about him being a poor motivator is plain (or plane,sorry for my spelling) wrong. Champions League final against AC Milan and many other games that we went down 1-0 or 2-0 and ending up winning shows that he has great motivational skills. Lets not exaggerate here, but he isn't a tactical genius, he does make mistakes, but he isn't a poor tactical coach either, he is a very good tactical coach in my book. His rotation is what brings him down a bit (overrotation), before people said benitez's mistake was dropping Torres and Gerrard, ok he fixed it and those 2 players started in every game, well to me it hasn't changed much, because our squad is still not good enough. Also, many comments I read on here is that we should deploy Torres as a lone striker, well Benitez did that but didn't work and many slagged him off for putting Torres alone up front, so whats the deal with that?

My main concern about Rafa is the player he gets, he relies on getting quantity rather than quality, thats a problem. I hope he starts looking for quality, I'd tell him to splash the cash on a quality player that costs 25m rather than getting 3 or 4 good players with the same budget. Last but not least, I may be wrong, I never felt Houllier close to the fans than Benitez is.

He is a good coach and trying his best for Liverpool football club, I hope and pray to God that he will bring us #19 back to anfield.

[Sabre]

Leaving aside for a moment the fantastic signing of Torres and that we eventually qualified for the CL knockout stage, what do you see as Rafa's achievements this season mate ?

But we are talking about sacking him or not, not about this season is dissapointing or not.

I think I read you somewhere else that you wouldn't advocate for forgiving a really dissapointing season (12 pts off, no finals).

That surprises me a bit. I mean I find your position quite neutral, you give some credit to Rafa, you also say the bad side of his tenure. You can't be really tagged as proRafa or antiRafa.

But why wouldn't you advocate for forgiving a very bad season to the manager? I think for each great manager we talk about in any country you could find a disasterous season.

[account deleted by request]

Leaving aside for a moment the fantastic signing of Torres and that we eventually qualified for the CL knockout stage, what do you see as Rafa's achievements this season mate ?

But we are talking about sacking him or not, not about this season is dissapointing or not.

I think I read you somewhere else that you wouldn't advocate for forgiving a really dissapointing season (12 pts off, no finals).

That surprises me a bit. I mean I find your position quite neutral, you give some credit to Rafa, you also say the bad side of his tenure. You can't be really tagged as proRafa or antiRafa.

But why wouldn't you advocate for forgiving a very bad season to the manager? I think for each great manager we talk about in any country you could find a disasterous season.

There is no room for sentiment Sabre, Rafa has shown no real signs that he can mount a Title challenge yet after 4 years, if he can't get us to a final I think it will be a desperately poor season, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY A POOR SEASON WITHOUT ANY REAL EXCUSES.

This is Rafa's team now, if they fail to perform, the buck stops with him. Lando may argue and say its down to the players, but I disagree, Rafa bought them, trained them picked them, motivated and moulded them into a team.

If they fail, and a season without a title challenge or a cup final IS FAILURE for a club like Liverpool, he has to take the responsibility.

I wanted to see progress this season, so far even with the striker of our dreams we have made no progress. We haven't shown we can beat the best, and we can't seem to break down the rest. Odd glimpses of what we could become, only add to the hurt, as we than fall back into the seemingly regular pattern of poor results again.

My loyalty is to the club first, before manager or players. Managers and players come and go, the club remains. Rafa leaves I will still support Liverpool, Gerrard goes , I will still support Liverpool, two clowns buy the club, I will still support Liverpool.

He really needs to start showing he has or can come to terms with the prem, a cup final means he deserves another chance, failure means we should give someone else that chance. A season without cups ok, a season without a title challenge fair enough , a season with little or no progress as well no chance.

I like Rafa, but I love Liverpool football club.

[Sabre]

I agree there's not room for sentiment. But does a bad season indicate that we're in the wrong path? That's what I want to be certain of.

I mean, I agree there's not room for sentiment IF the facts indicate that with this path you'll never win the premiership. If that's the case, sáck Rafa.

But if we apply the same rule to Wenger, that is,  a season very far from the premier title, and uninspring season in the cups, he'd be sácked by now. But they didn't sack him.

My point is whether IF finally this is a really dissapointing season that would be the proof we don't have the right man for the job. I don't think so. But I agree the notion that the club is first and there's not room for sentiment. I just want to be sure that we don't make a huge mistake, because I love this club aswell.

[account deleted by request]

Rafa has had 4 years, spent a considerable amount of money and we have still never mounted a title challenge. I am not judging him just on this season but on the progress we have made since his arrival. We were a good cup side when he came, we are a good cup side now, we have made slight progress in the league. Fourth place when he came, 3rd place while Arsenal were rebuilt and now we are back to fourth.

People use the excuse that other teams have spent much more than we have, but we have spent much more than every team below us and we are much nearer to them than THE TOP THREE.

If Rafa had mounted a title challenge in a previous year and this was "just a bad season" I would be much more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The fact that we have never looked like mounting a challenge only adds to my doubts.

Maybe Rafa has taken us as far as he can, he needs to show us all that he can take us to the next level or step aside. I think 4 seasons is enough to make a judgement call and I will make mine at the end of the season.

I have no doubt if he stays we will win the odd cup here and there, most seasons, my doubts are that we won't be any nearer the title.

[Kharhaz]

Rafa must be the most frustrating manager we have had ever ! You look at what he has achieved, the champs league with mediocre players, a second appearance in a champs league final, an fa cup win, an appearance in the league cup final, a charity shield win, a super cup win. From that you know he will win us trophies. The beginning of this season, best start we have had in a long time and yet it hasnt worked out. 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. Should rafa be sacked? no, in my opinion but there is no doubt his method of managing a team is very different to a lot of others, sometimes in a good way but many in a bad way. The burnley result in the cup. Many people blame traore but that lineup showed little to no respect for the clubs in the lower league, even against luton, a weakened team in which we are fortunate to get a second chance. How many other managers have there own web game formed (fantasy rafa). He is that unpredictable in that nobody can guess what team he is going to pick. There are times when it pays off and rafa looks a genius but many times he has been made to look foolish. The fact that rafa brought us a 5th big ears will make me look on rafa as one of the best but he appears to have no clue on the english game and the attitudes of lesser teams. If he faces a team where they are playing for a point he has no idea how to unlock them and therein lies the doubt for many people who knock rafa and those who support him.

[lakes10]

Well I set my stool out even before he come here, I Did not think he was the right man for the job and I still don’t.

For me Liverpool FC is about being the best team in England and that means winning the Premier League.
He has spent a lot of money but has still not made great steps in the Premier League.

When asked what is more important to or club Bill Shankly said the League is "our bread and butter".

Rafa  was not brought to here to win European Cups, he was brought here to win the Premier League.

And going by his mind set towards the League he should be sack as he is not doing what was asked of him.

Rafa is a great European manager but not a great Premier League manager.

[66-1112520797]

I actually think thats a nice post Lando.

Fairplay.

BTW I voted NO. I dont want him sacked, although I do critisise him alot, there is a difference between him getting the sack.

But he MUST improve us immensley, and its now become a lot clearer the cirxumstances he's had to work under this season havent helped him atall, infact the opposite.

But Rafa stop rotating !

[Owzat]

I started thinking about a pros and cons list regards Rafa's tenure, I think maybe summarising by contributing factor might be better

League - best finish third, we are struggling at the moment and have not really progressed in the last season and a half. We're not looking likely challengers this season and that doesn't bode well for next season

Cups/Europe - very nice to win a cup and the Champions League with a second final for good measure, however this isn't what Rafa came here to do and so it is fantastic BUT I do worry it is a distraction from the league. Will we give the league 100% or will Rafa always have Europe on his mind when there's a fixture coming up.

Transfers - there have been some good transfers like Torres, Alonso, Agger and Reina, and some less convincing signings like Bellamy, Sissoko and Crouch. The worrying thing for me is you can nearly make a complete team of very poor players that Rafa signed and have left already - Carson, Josemi, Pellegrino, Paletta, Kromkamp, Nunez, Zenden, Luis Garcia, Bellamy, Morientes. There are some decent players in there, but I doubt anyone here would want that as our first XI

Style and tactics - all too often lacking and easily countered. The zonal marking system is questionable, it seems Rafa doesn't know whether to stick or twist with who partners Torres and I wish he'd try something completely different like Babel up front or stick to best XI and the same approach every game. I don't think we'll get many votes for our style, Torres and Gerrard are the stand out performers in terms of goals and winning games.

The future - the team could improve under Rafa, it could get worse. If people are blaming the owner's for pressure on Rafa leading to poor form can they also conclude he doesn't handle pressure well? I am worried that this team cannot beat Wigan or brum at home, Rafa hasn't even picked up a league point away to Chelsea, Man Utd or Arsenal and we're still way off the pace in the league - we've never been even close. The team still looks lacking in class, even though the components seem enough the whole doesn't add up to anything like the sum of the parts. We've got three strikers trying to hit a cow's ar se with a banjo and failing miserably, a defence that looks good on paper and yet is not keeping many clean sheets and a run of results (7 games unbeaten) which sounds good, but in reality isn't good enough to be title contenders

I'm voting "undecided", ask again at the end of the season if he survives. While I've been criticial of the team and manager, I have refrained from going all out anti-Rafa as I am hoping he will prove me wrong - but when is he going to?!?! Four seasons without a serious title challenge and nothing much to make me think it won't be five. Rafa needs to string results together and do something to prove next season is THE season. Maybe a win at one of the big three or a run of ten wins in a row might convince me, at the moment we're meandering along aimlessly as an almost specialist champions league regular but not much more and the Champions League is perhaps distracting us all, including Rafa, from the task in hand. I almost wish we'd gone out and Rafa was forced to focus on the league, but then we'd consider that a disaster.

[bigmick]

Well whilst accepting that all bets visa vis the manager's position are off at he moment, were it not for the shenanigens behind the scenes I would have been advocating a change of manager at the end of the season given things as they are. To some extent, 'Do you want the manager sacked" is a bit of a loaded question, in the sense that I don't think any Liverpool fan "wants" to sack a  manager, it's not the clubs way. I do though want to win the Premiership sometime before I pop my clogs, and I'm afraid I have come to the conclusion that we won't win it with Rafa, as he is unwilling to move away from "Rafa style" either in his selection or recruitment philosphies.

We could of course wait for a few more seasons. We could sign better players and continue to improve the squad (which IMHO Rafa has managed to do in every season he has been here) and we could throw more money at it (which once again we have progressively done from year to year). At the end of it all though, I can't help thinking that we will end up saying "feck me it doesn't seem to matter how good the squad is, we just can't quite crack it with this "Rafa style" thing". And the simple fact (well it's a fact in my opinion anyway  ) is that you will never ever win the Premier League whilst changing the formations, the positions and the personel from game to game in the same way that Rafa has done whilst he has been at Liverpool. What I annoyingly refer to as "Rafa style" is doomed to fail in the English Premiership, forever.

Given all of that, I hope that Rafa stays if only for the simple reason that he gets under the skin of the new owners. More power to his elbow, and feck them in the ear the cheeky c...s taking the p!ss out of the club and the fans the way they have. Of course if Rafa was to change his ways a bit, modify his approach to the Premiership then I would be the first one jumping on the "let's keep him" bandwagon. It would take a commitment to try and build one excellent team rather than two decent ones, and an undertraking to have a good go at finding a settled line up, developing some momentum and then doing everything possible to not upset that momentum once you've got it. It would also need a realisation that against the vast majority of the Premiership, you really need to be setting your stall out Home and Away to go all out for the three points from the first whistle. If he were to do things I'd be his biggest fan, because allied to his shrewdness in the transfer market and tactical brilliance he'd win us the league. Trouble is I just can't see it.

[Bad Bob]

It would take a commitment to try and build one excellent team rather than two decent ones, and an undertraking to have a good go at finding a settled line up, developing some momentum and then doing everything possible to not upset that momentum once you've got it. It would also need a realisation that against the vast majority of the Premiership, you really need to be setting your stall out Home and Away to go all out for the three points from the first whistle. If he were to do things I'd be his biggest fan, because allied to his shrewdness in the transfer market and tactical brilliance he'd win us the league. Trouble is I just can't see it.

As you know, Mick, part of me agrees with the notion that Rafa has a methodology that he believes in and won't swerve from it in any great degree, win, lose or draw (I think I may have even argued that point somewhat vehemently a month and a half back or so ).

On the other hand, I find it instructive to see what he does when he truly has top class options at his disposal.  Unless it's an early round or a pretty lopsided domestic cup tie, Gerrard, Reina and Carragher play every game.  You can probably put Agger in that list pretty comfortably when fit and Torres is certainly a regular starter now, after the much-discussed early season experiment in resting him.  Given that they're both quality, Alonso and Mascherano tend to swop starts a bit more but even they are pretty nailed on to play regularly when fit.

Given all this, I can't help but think that Rafa might be a little less included to chop and change so much if he had a few more players of similar quality and dependability.  If, say, the Yanks were to f.uck off and DIC come in (here's hoping) with the intent of keeping Rafa and giving him a sizeable war chest to spend, might we see a few more players of the Torres level brought in to address a few problem areas?  If we did get that level of player in, I wonder if we might see a drastic reduction in rotation Rafa-style?

[account deleted by request]

Well whilst accepting that all bets visa vis the manager's position are off at he moment, were it not for the shenanigens behind the scenes I would have been advocating a change of manager at the end of the season given things as they are. To some extent, 'Do you want the manager sacked" is a bit of a loaded question, in the sense that I don't think any Liverpool fan "wants" to sack a  manager, it's not the clubs way. I do though want to win the Premiership sometime before I pop my clogs, and I'm afraid I have come to the conclusion that we won't win it with Rafa, as he is unwilling to move away from "Rafa style" either in his selection or recruitment philosphies.

We could of course wait for a few more seasons. We could sign better players and continue to improve the squad (which IMHO Rafa has managed to do in every season he has been here) and we could throw more money at it (which once again we have progressively done from year to year). At the end of it all though, I can't help thinking that we will end up saying "feck me it doesn't seem to matter how good the squad is, we just can't quite crack it with this "Rafa style" thing". And the simple fact (well it's a fact in my opinion anyway  ) is that you will never ever win the Premier League whilst changing the formations, the positions and the personel from game to game in the same way that Rafa has done whilst he has been at Liverpool. What I annoyingly refer to as "Rafa style" is doomed to fail in the English Premiership, forever.

Given all of that, I hope that Rafa stays if only for the simple reason that he gets under the skin of the new owners. More power to his elbow, and feck them in the ear the cheeky c...s taking the p!ss out of the club and the fans the way they have. Of course if Rafa was to change his ways a bit, modify his approach to the Premiership then I would be the first one jumping on the "let's keep him" bandwagon. It would take a commitment to try and build one excellent team rather than two decent ones, and an undertraking to have a good go at finding a settled line up, developing some momentum and then doing everything possible to not upset that momentum once you've got it. It would also need a realisation that against the vast majority of the Premiership, you really need to be setting your stall out Home and Away to go all out for the three points from the first whistle. If he were to do things I'd be his biggest fan, because allied to his shrewdness in the transfer market and tactical brilliance he'd win us the league. Trouble is I just can't see it.

While I would agree that he has improved the team every season Mick, I think you have to take into account the disasterous summer of 2006/7. He brought in a lot of players with arguably none of the required standard or quality to really improve us. This is something I think we are still paying for.

The problem is when you are chasing to catch up, and your rivals have just as much if not more money than you, you can't afford to have such a bad transfer window as we did.

Kuyt, Pennant, Bellamy, Gonzales, Palletta, even Aurelio who to be fair looks like he could be good but for all his injuries.

People argue and say that he soon gets rid of his mistakes, but they still cost the club a season or so of progress.

Our rivals can all afford to make mistakes and maintain their progress, we can't as we are striving to narrow the gap between us.

He did infact try to make up for his poor summer with a couple of inspired signings in the winter window, Arbeloa and Mascherano, but we are still paying a high price for his choice of Kuyt, Palletta and Gonzales.

Still no genuine left winger apart from Kewell.
Only now have we managed to bring in a CB to replace Palletta
We are still stuck with Kuyt, who epitomises the saying couldn't score in a brothel with a £20 note wrapped around it.

Pennant is a backup player and is nowhere near the level we should be looking for. Too happy just to throw the ball into the box whether anyone is there or not. Loads of crosses with very few being converted, or with little chance of being.

I realise he hasn't been given the money to go out and get his first choice signings, but this scattergun approach of buying lots of cheapish players in the vain hope that one will turn into the next superstar just hasn't worked.

This is not a dig at Rafa, but maybe an explanation of just how difficult it is to narrow the gap to our rivals. They are not standing still waiting of us catching up, they are sprinting and when we don't match their pace we fall back even further.

Admittedly he hasn't helped with some strange formations etc like you have mentioned, but I think the bottom line is we need more better quality players.

[dawson99]

I don't in any way think i want to see Rafa sacked...but.

How have we improved IN THE LEAGUE since he took over? Its january and we are yet again more or less out of it. Actually if we lose tomorrow we could be what, 7th?

I know we have had 2 champs league finals, winning one, and won a load of other cups, but the league is what every liverpool fan wants, and in the last 3 years or so we are no nearer to winning it. yes we need players, but Rafa is the one who has been bringing them in.

You could say that we need more money, but he has spent a fair bit already, with no real success.

I dopnt wanna see Rafa go, but I don;t know how much longer he is gonna get to get it right in the league.