He overplayed Torres and got him injured. He annoyed Gerrard who played a huge part in Benitez' demise. Reina is quality. Mascherano was as good as sold as the deal was done. Agger is a CB who is awful in the air, so overreated. Aurelio was released as he didn't want to offer him a new contract, Roy brought him back. Aquillani was £20m, 2/3's of the fee for Alonso and someone who never performed against English opposition in the Champions League. Kuyt is a player who makes up for a lack of quality in effort, so much so he was deployed as a wide right man from a Striker.
Of those youth players none of them have set the world alight, Kelly has played a couple of times (and done well in fairness), but those youth players are people he paid money for and saw no rewards.
I've seen him have one blinding game and said as much on Twitter, I've watched about 6 Liverpool games this season and Reina has been your best player. Lucas has done alright when everyone around him is shocking. Let's not forget this is the same Lucas who has been poor for years and decent for weeks.
He was manager at Fulham. Fulham! What do you want from them? He got them into Europe and then did well in Europe. At Blackburn it was the era at the end of Walkers millions where he didn't want to put the money in. Liverpool he inherited a bad squad, but I didn't think he was the right man in the first place, he should be doing better I agree.
He did well against a Barcelona team who also spend big (something that seems to be ignored). Rafa played those players into injuries (something he notoriously did to Torres and Gerrard in his Liverpool days), those players were never all out at the same time. Every club has injuries.
As for Maicon being "too old", he's 29 and was last year the best defender in Europe. You claim they're exhausted after a World Cup, but how many Inter players got far in that competition? Sneijder.
And one of those two trophies was a complete joke against nothing opposition. No one counts the World Club Cup as a proper trophy, so much so that Fifa started making the winners of it wear those stupid badges.
He is not World Class. He has taken over a team built by someone else and done well with them (in the cases of Valencia and Liverpool), in his time with them he's replaced the players with his own and they've not been the same. He won the Champions League with Houlliers squad and was so tactically inept in that time that he played Kewell over Hamann, only changing at half-time, which funnily enough was when Liverpool came back into it. Even Carragher was damning of it in his Autobiography.
This excuse for buying cheaper players is rubbish. Liverpool always needed wingers, but he'd spend a little here, a little there, always temporary fixes. Benitez DID have the money to buy big, look at his transfer record, he spent more money than either Man Utd or Chelsea in the same period.
Actually, I don't. I'm capable of looking into things by myself.
Diouf was a clown, Josemi was purchased by Benitez. What you lacked in individual ability was made up for in squad unity. There was almost no separation between the foreigners, Hamann was very 'in' with the English crowd, as were the likes of Smicer and Biscan. A team will get you much further than a team of individuals.
Sorry he didn't overplay the inter players, had been their about a month and the injuries began.
Yes Lucas in my opinion was utter balls prior to the 09/10 season when he was starting to come into his own with fantastic performances against mancs, benfica in the second leg, this year against chelsea he was motm by far. Sorry Lucas if superior to carrick, anderson, mikel, diaby. Perhaps no lampard,ballack,essien,mascherano,fabregas, could even mention Song this season although he has been good for weeks, lucas has been good for a lot more than weeks, sorry.
Youth wise, only youth i see setting the world alight are barca ones and perhaps Ramsey/Wilshire.
The results comparison im simply pointing out no coincidence, didn't expect him to have a 60% win percentage with us, but certainly not low 30s.
Yeah he did well against a Barcelona team that had to take what was it like a 12hour bus journey due to the weather to get to inter and put in a lazy performance. Got to the the nou camp and parked the 747 they arrived in infront of the net.
I would agree though that the second leg was completely unfair due to the disgraceful antics of Busquets.
Rafa had a lot of players out at the same time, the only person recognisable in the backline at one point was chivu or lucio and cesar has been out a lot too. Maicon is good, just not in an attacking side, no energy to get back after its all used getting forward and when he does get back seems to mentally tired to defend. I think back to the wall defending im sure he can be good.
As for winning the cups, yep your right, but he joined the club promised 3-4 new signings, was never getting them as massimo cba putting more money into the club after winning what he wanted.
Not going to respond about the teams he inherited, the liverpool one was not very good sorry, team unity can only do so much.
Carragher is a very very hypocritcal man, i wouldn't listen to a word of the ****e he spouts.
telling our fans to **** off against wigan was it?
told rafa '**** off its not my fault you signed ****e' when he asked him to play right back
Along with purslow got himself a nice new shiny contract, got rid of rafa and brought into cptn. face rubber.
Carragher also is you know, perceived as dying for liverpool. On .tv he even said once he becomes a squad player he will leave, hes ONLY a team player when hes in the team and playing the position he wants.
Yes Rafa got it wrong first half in istanbul, but we also had a penalty not given when Nesta blatently handballed it, and they went and put the ball in the net at the other end.
He mastered wins against Chelsea, Juve etc. in his first year of managing a club in england i'd say he didn't do too bad considering we were already in a downward spiral, bit like Roy inherited eh?
Rafa got it right in the end, brought on Didi(took his peno with a broken foot or something ridiculous aswell?), and clearly saw playing Gerrard playing centre mid was a bad idea hence moving him forward in second half and allowing Hamman to take the midfield role.
He also made other tactical decisions such as sticking gerrard on serginho when he came on and he was in Gerrards pocket the entire night.
Houllier would never have won that night, Houllier thought igor biscan could man mark drogba out of a game. Houllier wouldn't even have got that far infact lol.
