Benitez Bashing

[richwilks]

I'm getting fed up reading about how Rafa has lost it in the newspapers, on forums, on the radio, on the TV, in fact everywhere seems to be making a massive meal about it at the moment.

 

One paper has labelled him a donut, a manager with no abillity and with no idea of how to win games. What s*** journalism, this was a guy who a month ago had taken Liverpool to the top of the league on a vastly smaller budget than the likes of the Mancs and Chelsea. A man who arrived at the club with the first team in an awful state and took a bunch of average players including Djimi Traore & Vladimir Smicer and turned them into European Champions.

 

Too many players are underperforming at the moment, that is down to the players to stop sulking and to pull themselves together. Those people who say that Rafa should be putting his arm around certain players are talking crap, there are too many players who need a rocket up their ass and Ryan Babel and Robbie Keane are top of that list.

 

The media were slating Keane for his inability to adapt to Liverpool's style and his lack of form 2 weeks ago. Now they are using him as a stick to beat Rafa with, labelling Rafa crazy for not giving him a fair crack. Let's be honest, when he's had his chances he hasn't taken them and that's the reason he isn't getting playing time at the moment.

 

Others are putting it down to Alex Ferguson winning the mind games. How does that work? Rafa pointed out that Ferguson get's special treatment and everyone agreed with him at the time from other managers, through to the media and fans. Ferguson replies by calling Benitez ridiculous, thats all. Is that the mind game which has caused Benitez to go crazy? No, he's won no mind games, we've just had a dip in form.

 

Lucas is getting pelters for the game against Wigan. This is by mindless critics and ignorant fans who are acting on one incident rather than his performance as a whole. He had a good game against Wigan and did well all over the pitch, one slip and the ignorant pick up on that.

 

The worst thing is reading the various Liverpool fan sites slating our manager. Calling his decision to leave Keane on the bench all the time baffling. Surely these Liverpool fans watched his performance against Everton. It was truely awful, he was annonymous. He has missed chance after chance this season and his attitude hasn't helped him one single bit.

 

Liverpool fans getting on the players & managers back at this crucial stage of the season when the team need support is the worst thing possible. You're supporters, support your team. If you aren't happy then this isn't the time to be making your thoughts known, now is the time to support, the summer is the time to act. Why people would want to act and get Rafa sacked is beyond me though, what do we want? Another manager to come in and for us to spend another 3 years rebuilding. I personally don't want that.

 

If you don't want to support the team now then the best thing you can do is f*** off and support the Mancs as your kind of support is not welcome at Anfield it belongs in Manchester, we're supposed to have the best fans in the world. Bulls***.

 

Rant over.

[Kahnee]

Using Keane as a stick to beat Rafa with is pointless - it won't hit the target

[DanielS]

Using Keane as a stick to beat Rafa with is pointless - it won't hit the target

 

:fingerwag: :shouldershrug: "Ah feck, is it me?"

[Buzz]

Using Keane as a stick to beat Rafa with is pointless - it won't hit the target

I think you'll find it's meant hypothetically, its more a telling off with finger wagging.

 

But i was talking to a lad in the office who said that the press turn around on some things like this has been quite hillarious. Some of the same papers/journolists saying/having ago from one angle on us, like the Keane situation, then turned it right around after the recent Rafa rants. He reckons it's the old ManU media influence thing kicking off again and is sick of it. He is a Chelsea fan, not a Liverpool fan.

[matlfc]

Good point about Lucas. Thought he had a game as well.

[beejay]

The lad has a point. Every pub conversation now turns into an inquest about Keane not playing, Gerrard being subbed, Rafa's cracked up, blah blah with even semi-intelligent people repeating all the b******s spewed out from talksh*te & the daily manc.

 

The only way to shut the f******s up is to win a few games so they can start on clubs who deserve to have the p*ss taken out of them like Newcastle & Spurs

[Montse]

Totally agree Rich, just watching Sky Soccer Specials and Keane is on the bench, its a standing 'joke' about Keane 'Liverpool are making a sub, so and so is coming off, is Keane on? NO its so and so! How does Keane look? Is he upset blah blah Whats Rafa thinking of blah blah'

 

Rafa hasnt helped himself admittedly but the media and so called pundits are really sticking the boot in at any available oppo

 

And it also winds me up that they keep calling him Robbie Keane when all other players are surname only - buts thats another rant for another day!

[JRC]

If Keane was an expensive foreign import, Rafa would be getting hammered for playing him as much as he has done.

 

Everyone points out that he was 'dropped' after scoring twice..apart from the obvious retort that the TEAM won the subsequent game 5-1, the match was less than 48 hours later, and plenty of others were rested - Alonso and Riera were also in good form and didn't play; it was an understandable and effective piece of rotation. It's not like he didn't get a chance to play again soon -the Preston game was only the next weekend after Bolton. Alonso, Riera - impressive, effective, productive; Robbie woeful. Next game? Well, not playing the formation, and in the main the players, that did so well in the previous league game could be construed as tinkering, so I don't know why it's such an affront that Keane didn't play; OK, we stank, but at least he got to start in the biggest game of the month! Everton at Anfield,the perfect chance for a Reds fan to...not even turn up.

 

Now Rafa is getting stick for not bringing him on for Torres at Wigan, instead bringing on a 'midfielder'. Torres was gone, that was clear, but moving Babel up meant we kept the identical shape in a game we were, at the time, cruising. Robbie couldn't be expected to play the lone, tall, strong, pacy striker, at least Babel has the attributes (and there is little to choose in poverty of performance between Babel and Keane recently), so we would have had to have shifted around the team to accomodate him - maybe moving Gerrard from his position. Yet that option - tinkering - is presented as the rational one whereas moving Babel in there is dismissed as 'ridiculous'.

 

I like Keane, want him to stay and flourish, and think he has a lot to offer. But he has been getting the chances, and simply has not done anywhere near enough to justify the clamour and attention that has surrounded his not being selected.

[Hassony]

Last season it was about zonal marking + Torres not starting, this season its about Keane and the timing of the subtitution (rafa's has been doing that since he joined the club, It has only became an issue this season once Gray started going on and on about it!)

[Flasher]

He's cracking up, he's cracking up, he's cracking

 

richwilks is cracking up

[beejay]

I dread to think what Sky's build-up to Sunday's game will be like. They will be loving this, Monkey face will be desperate to put the knife in, thank f*** I'm at the game.

 

Before that Newcastle match I had to endure Sky's coverage & in spite of us sitting on top of the league their whole pre-match debate was about Keane not starting & what was Benitez doing, rotation blah blah. Even after a 5-1 slaughter Keys was saying "you would have fancied Robbie Keane to put away some of the chances Liverpool missed".

[Spike]

Whilst Rafa has to shoulder some of the blame, we were fine until the 'our most important game in 19 years' mockers.

[Kahnee]

Whilst Rafa has to shoulder some of the blame, we were fine until the 'our most important game in 19 years' mockers.

 

Is the right answer

 

Next year can we just shoot people who start down this road?

[Chili Palmer]

Is the right answer

 

Next year can we just shoot people who start down this road?

 

 

they don't even have to start down that road, we should just shoot people...

[beejay]

they don't even have to start down that road, we should just shoot people...

 

If we beat Chelsea, how long before the "It's on" thread starts?

[Swipe]

They did the same last year when Crouch wasn't playing.

 

People like Richard Keys went from speaking about PC like he was fairly average, to wondering aloud what "Crouchie" had done to Rafa and why he was being ignored.

 

I left a comment on The Times website yesterday (didn't get published funnily enough!) after Cascarino had a go at Rafa, specifically about the Keane bit.

 

So many of these pundits ignore just how poor Keane has looked, not to mention his questionable attitude.

 

Rafa should be questioned on many things this season, but some will take any opportunity to have a dig.

[richwilks]

He's cracking up, he's cracking up, he's cracking

 

richwilks is cracking up

 

It's the mind games. I've lost.

[Conchis]

I like to think that Rafa knows his stuff and using all of this to distract attention from 'the media' away from the players, and any underperforming, onto himself.

 

They're all full of 'Rafa's lost it' and the like but it keeps the column space away from what it would be otherwise regarding the team.

 

It could be he has lost it, but I for one trust the man who has got us to two Champions League finals and given us a realistic title challenge for the first time in years.

[Chili Palmer]

Rafa should be questioned on many things this season, but some will take any opportunity to have a dig.

 

 

I had to laugh at Collymore having a right go yesterday at one of the reasons Rafa isn't as good as Mr Ferguson is that he can't spot and sign a player like Vidic.

 

He's half right I suppose.

[richwilks]

I had to laugh at Collymore having a right go yesterday at one of the reasons Rafa isn't as good as Mr Ferguson is that he can't spot and sign a player like Vidic.

 

He's half right I suppose.

 

 

Great observation from Stan there.

 

Didn't we try to sign him and fail? And then sign Skrtel who's pretty bloody similar.

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

Whilst Rafa has to shoulder some of the blame, we were fine until the 'our most important game in 19 years' mockers.

exactly

 

As I sais at the time - 'most important game...' threads are this year's 'it's on' threads

[Kahnee]

exactly

 

As I sais at the time - 'most important game...' threads are this year's 'it's on' threads

 

So we're agreed that shooting is the way to go then?

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. I still like burnings

[Kahnee]

I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. I still like burnings

 

Bad for the environment though - all those carbon emissions

[Gerry]

Great observation from Stan there.

 

Didn't we try to sign him and fail? And then sign Skrtel who's pretty bloody similar.

 

Wasn't Agger our fall-back option instead of Vidic?