FA Cup 5th Round *Spoilers*

You're so blinkered it's unreal BaZ.

Fergies first 4 years were taking a poor side and turning them into a phenomenal one. Benitez took over a pretty decent side and took them to the same level. (Your best players in the CL Final were the ones already there too IIRC).

Fergie and Wenger were in transition, they'd had their teams, built them around certain players then had those players retire or had to replace them. Benitez hasn't built up a team close to that or done anything with what he's had, then had to change everything, so no, he's not in transition.

But if you're happy with just another season, and another, and another and another and another, that's fine by me. Didn't take Mourinho (for example) long though did it, or Rijkaard, Capello or what looks to be Schuster in Spain and I'd hazard a guess, Klinsmann will likely do very well in the now highly competative German league. My point with this is managers who've all gone to big clubs and got the job done. Benitez isn't even close.
 
LOL if you want to compare Fergies first 4 seasons with Benitez's then fine:

Fergie took a side that finished 4th 2 seasons in a row and finished 11th, 2nd, 11th and 14th and won the FA cup in his last season.

Benitez took a side that finished 4th and 5th in its previous seasons and finished 5th, 3rd, 3rd plus this season. He also won a CL and FA cup as well as another CL final.

There's nothing blinkered about that, its fact. Ferguson went on after that and has proven to be very successful and imo Benitez deserves another season. If he doesn't improve then he deserves to go.

If only you were Utd's chairman, Fergie would have been gone by his 4th season :rolleyes:
NokkonWud said:
But if you're happy with just another season, and another, and another and another and another, that's fine by me. Didn't take Mourinho (for example) long though did it, or Rijkaard, Capello or what looks to be Schuster in Spain and I'd hazard a guess, Klinsmann will likely do very well in the now highly competative German league. My point with this is managers who've all gone to big clubs and got the job done. Benitez isn't even close.
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Had Benitez had £200m to spend then you can compare him with JM. As for Schuster, Capello and Rijkaard; if you don't know Benitez won the league in spain in his first season and again in his 3rd season despite being considerably out-spent by Barca and Real.
 
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BaZ87 said:
There's no defending our performances this season and especially yesterday, however talk of sacking Benitez before the end of the season is a joke.
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I wasn't suggesting he goes now, I dont believe in sacking during a season, I would be very surprised if he was in charge next season though, no matter who owns the club
 
BaZ87 said:
LOL if you want to compare Fergies first 4 seasons with Benitez's then fine:

Fergie took a side that finished 4th 2 seasons in a row and finished 11th, 2nd, 11th and 14th and won the FA cup in his last season.

Benitez took a side that finished 4th and 5th in its previous seasons and finished 5th, 3rd, 3rd plus this season. He also won a CL and FA cup as well as another CL final.

There's nothing blinkered about that, its fact. Ferguson went on after that and has proven to be very successful and imo Benitez deserves another season. If he doesn't improve then he deserves to go.

If only you were Utd's chairman, Fergie would have been gone by his 4th season :rolleyes:
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I'll say this slowly.

Man Utd. Were. A. Team. In. Trouble. When. Ferguson. Took. Over.
The. Game. Is. Different. These. Days.
 
NokkonWud said:
I'll say this slowly.

Man Utd. Were. A. Team. In. Trouble. When. Ferguson. Took. Over.
The. Game. Is. Different. These. Days.
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Yes and Liverpool were in great shape when Benitez took over and spent £m's more than Fergie and JM etc :rolleyes:

Tell me in what way Utd were in worse shape than Liverpool when Benitez took over and how the game has changed which meant Fergie won **** all to begin with?
 
BaZ87 said:
Yes and Liverpool were in great shape when Benitez took over and spent £m's more than Fergie and JM etc :rolleyes:

Tell me in what way Utd were in worse shape than Liverpool when Benitez took over and how the game has changed which meant Fergie won **** all to begin with?
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Man Utd were in a poor state in terms of drinking culture and players who couldnt be bothered working. Hence Fergie had to weed out those players and thats why McGrath and Whiteside etc left. Fergie probably wouldnt have been given the same amount of time to build a team if he was appointed today but the fact is that he was and he has justified it. He totally revamped the youth policy and put United on a solid foundation. The like of Giggs , Scholes etc would probably have slipped through the net had it not been for Ferguson. I dont see Rafa doing the same.

Like it or not Liverpool have players who should be performing WAAAAY better than they are right now. The team that started yesterday should have been capable of wiping the floor with Barnsley. Also when you only have two trophies left to play for the concept of resting players in one of the competitons is lost on me completely.
 
jamrag said:
Man Utd were in a poor state in terms of drinking culture and players who couldnt be bothered working. Hence Fergie had to weed out those players and thats why McGrath and Whiteside etc left. Fergie probably wouldnt have been given the same amount of time to build a team if he was appointed today but the fact is that he was and he has justified it. He totally revamped the youth policy and put United on a solid foundation. The like of Giggs , Scholes etc would probably have slipped through the net had it not been for Ferguson. I dont see Rafa doing the same.

Like it or not Liverpool have players who should be performing WAAAAY better than they are right now. The team that started yesterday should have been capable of wiping the floor with Barnsley. Also when you only have two trophies left to play for the concept of resting players in one of the competitons is lost on me completely.
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Regarding the drinking culture; that was a sign of the times. In comparison with when Benitez took over we were in just as bad a position; we had our best players wanting to leave (Gerrard and Owen) with the rest of the squad either in their last few seasons (Hyypia and Hamann), simply not good enough, under performing (Finnan) or played out of position (Carragher). Our entire squad needed rebuilding and too a degree Benitez has done that; he's brought in a top keeper, sorted out our back 4 (was good under Houllier but with Babbel, Hyypa and Henchoz all finished or close to being finished, it needed rebuilding), brought in top players to replace Hamann and Murphy and finally brought in Torres to replace Owen.

I agree that in general managers are given less time today however Benitez has won major trophies in his time so far where as Fergie hadn't. Regarding what Fergie done with Utd's youth policy: Benitez has completely revamped ours too and the success our our youth side shows that (back to back FA youth cups). Also our reserve side (like most top clubs now) is made up of youth players and is top of there league too.

We are under performing and im sure it was fair to say the same about the Utd team in Fergie's 4th season and if Benitez doesn't sort it out next season then he deserves to be sacked.
 
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Why do you keep comparing Benitez to the start of Fergie's reign which was over 20 years ago!?

Times have changed.
 
If Liverpool fans are happy with Rafa then more power to them - carry on. I personally wouldnt be happy with resting Torres and Gerrard - by far the two most potent threats in the team - for a game in one of the two remaining cup competitions available to win. Why not start them and take them off at half time when the game is won rather than bringing on Gerrard for the "rescue mission" at the end?

Rafa is IMO still treating the FA cup in the same way as the top spanish teams treat the spanish cup and its simply not the same. This illustrates his stubborn behaviour completely.

If he has done all you say he has Baz then why are you no better off than when he arrived?
 
Baz, what do you honestly expect Benitez to be able to achieve next season? We haven't got any closer to the league since he's been in charge and nothings going to change. Regardless of who we buy in the summer, regardless of how much the media hypes us up, as long as Rafa's in charge, were not going to win it.
 
BaZ87 said:
LOL if you want to compare Fergies first 4 seasons with Benitez's then fine:

Fergie took a side that finished 4th 2 seasons in a row and finished 11th, 2nd, 11th and 14th and won the FA cup in his last season.
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When Fergie took over, United were second from bottom.


you really cannot compare what Benitez has done at liverpool to what Fergie has done at United.

A fairer comparison would be what he has done compared to Houllier which is "not as well".
 
If Benitez goes on to emulate Fergies achievements then i will be the first to admit that i was wrong but to argue that he shouldnt be sacked cos Fergie wasnt makes no sense whatsoever.
 
Anders0n said:
Baz, what do you honestly expect Benitez to be able to achieve next season?
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Who knows but after what he's won for us he deserves another season to find out. We have the basis of a squad to be a lot closer and hopefully we should be able to bring in a couple of top players this summer rather than having to buy 5-6 players like we have up until last summer, which will hopefully make a difference.
jamrag said:
If he has done all you say he has Baz then why are you no better off than when he arrived?
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Sorry i forgot about the CL win under Houllier :rolleyes:

Ive not said we've progressed massively in the league. We have qualified for the CL every year which we didn't under Houllier.
 
I'm not comparing him to Houllier (who won a few cups if i remember) but do you really honestly believe that the Champions League win wasnt the exception rather than the rule? If it wasnt for that he would have been down the road a long time ago.
 
You wouldn't think there was an Arsenal vs ManUtd match yesterday, with the way you're all bloody arguing about Rafa again.
 
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