Di Matteo Sacked

opr

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Benitez would be a very strange choice.
Abramovich wants his Chelsea team to play open attractive football similar to Barcelona .
Everyone bar Abramovich seems to know its impossible with the technically limited players at the club but he keeps sacking manager after manager .
You cant build a team that plays attractive and winning football overnight ,it takes years and years of planning .

Benitez is a defensive minded coach ,his teams have never been good footballing sides ,bar Valencia where he inherited an extremely talented side from Cuper.
He wont play the good football that Abramovich craves ,far from it .

Rafa is a tactical coach who is able to analyse sides to form how he thinks they should play based on the strengths of the team. At Liverpool without the money to buy the best attacking players he focused on making us defensively solid. He talked about how he used to go after wing backs because he didn't have the money to go after the best wingers. After that he setup the team to get the most out of our two best players at the time in Gerrard and Torres.

Overtime he was able to put together more pieces of the jigsaw to give the team more attacking freedom. That was seen in the season we destroyed Real Madrid 4-0. I lost count of the number of big CL games that we went in as huge underdogs and Rafa would end up getting a result. That is the sign of a really good manager in my eyes.

Even in the league he used to outwit the top managers on a regular basis. It was in beating the bad sides that Benitez had problems because he just didn't have the money to buy the extra artillery beyond Gerrard and Torres. In that 08/09 season when we should have won the league they only managed 20 games together due to injury and we just didn't have the squad depth behind them.

Rafa with the players and money he will have at Chelsea could be frightening.

Opr

Liam O

Rafa had plenty of money, to say he didn't is to paper over the cracks of his signings, which were largely poor.

Sgt Pepper 64

I'd like Fergie myself!

Pj!

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

I'd like Fergie myself!

Hank Scorpio

Rafa inherited the current CL holders at Inter and made a balls of it, that argument can't be dismissed imo

Sgt Pepper 64

nuxxx wrote: »

Rafa inherited the current CL holders at Inter and made a balls of it, that argument can't be dismissed imo

because Mourinho left him a bunch of old crocks, who he mananged to raise for one last epic push

what a day

opr wrote: »

Rafa is a tactical coach who is able to analyse sides to form how he thinks they should play based on the strengths of the team. At Liverpool without the money to buy the best attacking players he focused on making us defensively solid. He talked about how he used to go after wing backs because he didn't have the money to go after the best wingers. After that he setup the team to get the most out of our two best players at the time in Gerrard and Torres.

Overtime he was able to put together more pieces of the jigsaw to give the team more attacking freedom. That was seen in the season we destroyed Real Madrid 4-0. I lost count of the number of big CL games that we went in as huge underdogs and Rafa would end up getting a result. That is the sign of a really good manager in my eyes.

Even in the league he used to outwit the top managers on a regular basis. It was in beating the bad sides that Benitez had problems because he just didn't have the money to buy the extra artillery beyond Gerrard and Torres. In that 08/09 season when we should have won the league they only managed 20 games together due to injury and we just didn't have the squad depth behind them.

Rafa with the players and money he will have at Chelsea could be frightening.

Opr

Rafa spent £230m on 76 players at liverpool and you say he did not have the money?

Isnt Torres biggest ever purchase at over £20m plus Garcia

Rafa is a rubish manager IMO and ran Liverpool into the ground.

(im not having a go at Liverpool BTW, im just stating i think Rafa is a poor manager)

GavRedKing

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

I'd like Fergie myself!

While a hot piece of arse, I doubt she has what it takes to be a top class manager.

Sgt Pepper 64

what a day wrote: »

Rafa spent £230m on 76 players at liverpool and you say he did not have the money?

Isnt Torres biggest ever purchase at over £20m plus Garcia

Rafa is a rubish manager IMO and ran Liverpool into the ground.

(im not having a go at Liverpool BTW, im just stating i think Rafa is a poor manager)

And maybe he just got lucky once in the CL, like RDM did?

kitakyushu

nuxxx wrote: »

Rafa inherited the current CL holders at Inter and made a balls of it, that argument can't be dismissed imo

Inter were the CL holders in the same way Chelsea are the CL holders. They both did a great job to win it but it doesn't necessarily mean either team was in great shape.

SlickRic

Liam O wrote: »

Rafa had plenty of money, to say he didn't is to paper over the cracks of his signings, which were largely poor.

his signings being largely poor is a myth.

Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, Torres, Arbeloa, Alonso, Benayoun, Riera, Reina, Johnson are just some of the signings that were just fine thanks.

5starpool

what a day wrote: »

Rafa spent £230m on 76 players at liverpool and you say he did not have the money?

Isnt Torres biggest ever purchase at over £20m plus Garcia

Rafa is a rubish manager IMO and ran Liverpool into the ground.

(im not having a go at Liverpool BTW, im just stating i think Rafa is a poor manager)

And people think Liverpool fans talk a lot of crap about Rafa?

It's clueless posts like the one above that shows how little some people actually know about football.

bullvine

I don't think Rafa is a bad manager but he did buy Robbie Keane and Aquilani, and tried to get rid of Alonso for Gareth Barry.

What the hell was he thinking of!

Will I Amnt

SlickRic wrote: »

his signings being largely poor is a myth.

Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, Torres, Arbeloa, Alonso, Benayoun, Riera, Reina, Johnson are just some of the signings that were just fine thanks.

Really???

SlickRic

what a day wrote: »

Rafa spent £230m on 76 players at liverpool and you say he did not have the money?

Isnt Torres biggest ever purchase at over £20m plus Garcia

Rafa is a rubish manager IMO and ran Liverpool into the ground.

(im not having a go at Liverpool BTW, im just stating i think Rafa is a poor manager)

that's about £3m a player on average, hardly outlandish spending.

the emboldened statement is so stupid, that I don't even know why I've responded. you've clearly not got a bull's notion.

he's not blameless for his final season, but he wasn't solely responsible, and he didn't run us into the ground.

for the love of Christ.

and Sgt, i'd be more inclined to call Rafa's tenure a fluke if he wasn't a great success at Valencia, as well as going on to have a very good 4 years at Liverpool before his final ill-fated year at the club.

if any other manager had Rafa's record, there would not even be a second's thought in terms of whether he's a fluke. it would be labelled as an utterly retarded statement to make. but with Rafa, and Rafa alone, it seems to be perfectly viable.

the man divides opinion like nobody else. it's madness.

SlickRic

cambo2008 wrote: »

Really???

he was good the season he was at the club.

long term, no he wasn't the greatest signing in the world, but in that one season, he was extremely underrated IMO.

S28382

Give Neil Warnock the job he is a nut job and would suit the Chelsea nut house perfectly im a Chelsea fan and seeing the club being run in the kind of manner its being run in is really horrible. We have a youth system thats not being utilised all we do is buy buy buy and that is not good for the future of the club, RDM shouldnt of been sacked its a disgrace and if Rafa gets the job we will be worse off.

GavRedKing

If ya count up every managers flop players then no manager would be considered good or rated.

This notion that if you sign a flop makes you in turn a poor manager is madness.

I'd welcome Rafa with open arms. He'd be our best manager since Carlo who was our best manager since José.

bullvine

@slickric, your dead right that he divides like no other. Part of the problem is a lot of Liverpool fans have him held up so high its almost embarrassing for them. I know Liverpool fans who would take him right now as manager over anybody even Mourinho, that's just insane.

Hes a good manager, with a good CV, won a good few trophies, made some very good sgnings, some very bad ones but he did spend money. Anybody with a calculator can work that out.

Leiva

bullvine wrote: »

made some very good sgnings, some very bad ones but he did spend money. Anybody with a calculator can work that out.

show me any manager today that has not done the above

Hulk Hands

SlickRic wrote: »

your insistence that everything between 06-09 was a fluke is far more deulsional in all honesty.

it was a very good team, and Rafa did very well as Liverpool manager until the funding stopped - funding that had been promised by our then toxic owners. he should've done better in his final year, but that is pretty much his only fault, and even at that, it was while we were owned by a pair of gobshítes. that doesn't absolve Rafa of all blame for that final season, it's just a bit of perspective, and that final season doesn't make him a bad manager.



i honestly haven't heard for quite a while, something as ridiculous, as a 3/4-year time period being nothing more than a fluke.

seriously, think about how stupid that statement is.

Where are you getting that I said 06-09 was a fluke? I said the 08-09 season solely. You were a top 4 side from 06-09 and were good value for that with a good first 11, as shown by your cup performances. The overall squad wasnt near a title winning one. I never said anything about the CL winning team either despite what another poster said.

I said that the 09 season could be viewed as more of a fluke than anything else. This is for a number of reasons. Chelsea, a fixture in the top 2 for many years previous, imploded around Xmas time that year with the whole Scolari business. Arsenal were suffering from a post Henry hangover. Liverpool kind of became title challengers by default. You had a thin squad which had a very lucky year with injuries. Laughably, some fans try to blame the only injuries ye had that year (Gerrard, Torres) for failure to win the league. It just shows how reliant ye were on them.

The following year you finished 7th. Now I know outside influences can affect a team (Chelsea 09 dropped from 2nd to 3rd), but seriously, how can a team talented enough to win the title finish 7th the following year? I can understand losing a couple of places. But 5? So either 08/09 was a fluke or 09/10 was? Considering where ye have gone since I'm inclined to think the former. My view is that the thin squad was shown up, and such a squad could never be a consistent title challenger.

You also were never near breaking into the top 2 prior to 08, with the league being a 2 horse race for those years. Your title challenge coincided with a sole poor season from Chelsea, who won the league the following year. It's not like you broke the top 2 stranglehold. For me that season for Liverpool amounts to a year where everything went right and a massive effort went in from all the players. In the end, it wasn't enough by 5 points. Perhaps they were spent the following season?

It's also amazing how defensive Liverpool fans get about that side. Considering they wasted your best chance at a league for a long time, its funny how much they are loved. You'd nearly expect the opposite from anyone else

Duck Soup

Surely part of the problem is that Abramovich supplies the oxygen for the player power that undermines managers. Terry, Torres, Lampard all appear to have the owner's ear, which emboldens them in the dressing room and undercuts the ability of the manager to impose discipline and new methods.

AVB was originally brought in on a three year 'project' remember; as soon as a few of the star players whispered words to RA to the effect that the whole thing was a bag of bollox, it was suddenly a 6 month project.

Similarly, Guardiola's been 'assured' that there will be no pressure to win trophies for two years while the team transitions. I'd love to see Guardiola at the Bridge, but if I were him I'd be concerned about back channels of bítching and píssing to the owner and general interference. Rafa appears to be favourite almost solely because of the Torres connection.

Pep might look at Man City and consider them better able to get him the players he wants and more willing to give him the control - and stability - he needs to create the team and way of playing he wants to achieve.

GavRedKing

Leiva wrote: »

show me any manager today that has not done the above

Cant be done really, everyone makes mistakes but some are hounded out more so then others.

At the moment Chelsea's best option for manager it seems is Rafa or Harry, I know who I'd take everyday anyway.

bullvine

Leiva wrote: »

show me any manager today that has not done the above

I can't, I was trying to defend Rafa actually, considering the reaction to the rumours of people thinking hes rubbish when hes quite clearly not.

niallo27

bullvine wrote: »

@slickric, your dead right that he divides like no other. Part of the problem is a lot of Liverpool fans have him held up so high its almost embarrassing for them. I know Liverpool fans who would take him right now as manager over anybody even Mourinho, that's just insane.

Hes a good manager, with a good CV, won a good few trophies, made some very good sgnings, some very bad ones but he did spend money. Anybody with a calculator can work that out.

Yes but name any manager and I'll give you a list of ****e players they bought, Rafa had to take chances on a lot of players for less than 10 million which is always a high risk.

bullvine

Pep would be mad to go Chelsea, it could ruin his rep, City, United, Pool or Ars would all be a much better option for him.

SlickRic

bullvine wrote: »

@slickric, your dead right that he divides like no other. Part of the problem is a lot of Liverpool fans have him held up so high its almost embarrassing for them. I know Liverpool fans who would take him right now as manager over anybody even Mourinho, that's just insane.

this is indeed the crux of it.

part of it is rival fans recoiling against some Liverpool fans' hero-worship of the man who could do no wrong at all, absolutely. but that alone shouldn't really mean he's ridiculed as much as he seems to be, or that his achievements are held is such low regard.

part of it is also some rival fans resenting the fact that he did manage to win a Champions League with us when by rights that team really shouldn't have, and also that he actually did make us uber-competitive, to the point where we did actually have a proper chance of winning a league title in a race with a machine-like Manchester United.

i've seen rival fans dismiss even that 08/09 year as a year where United were never, ever in danger, and that it wasn't any sort of title race at all.

he's also a manager who easily rubs people up the wrong way. he's opinionated, but isn't as charismatic as Mourinho, or as crazily successful as he or Ferguson...so he didn't get away with it like they do.

there's lots of reasons he divides opinion, but his record is his record.

facts are FHACTS as they say

Leiva

bullvine wrote: »

Pep would be mad to go Chelsea, it could ruin his rep, City, United, Pool or Ars would all be a much better option for him.

the gist of you point is correct .

some managers may see the Chelsea job now as a career mincer .

GavRedKing

Nothing could damage Pep's repuation really.

People have said hes the best others said he needs to prove it elsewhere.

Arguably the Chelsea job is the hardest in football, the expectations are so insanely high that anything short of sweeping all before you in style similar to 1970's Brazil will result in a sacking.

On the other hand you have a talented squad with massive money to spend and world class training facilities in one of the best cities in the world but again, all the while your working under the Roman microscope which is double edged sword IMO.

Huge challenge and massive gamble for anyone brave or stupid enough to take it on.

SlickRic

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Considering they wasted your best chance at a league for a long time, its funny how much they are loved. You'd nearly expect the opposite from anyone else

that 08/09 team didn't waste anything.

you do know Utd needed a record points tally to win that league, right?

we didn't have the depth needed to just get over the line. Stevie and Torres only played together something like 20 times that season, and we couldn't cover for them adequately in too many of the lesser games.

MisterAnarchy

opr wrote: »

Rafa is a tactical coach who is able to analyse sides to form how he thinks they should play based on the strengths of the team. At Liverpool without the money to buy the best attacking players he focused on making us defensively solid. He talked about how he used to go after wing backs because he didn't have the money to go after the best wingers. After that he setup the team to get the most out of our two best players at the time in Gerrard and Torres.

Overtime he was able to put together more pieces of the jigsaw to give the team more attacking freedom. That was seen in the season we destroyed Real Madrid 4-0. I lost count of the number of big CL games that we went in as huge underdogs and Rafa would end up getting a result. That is the sign of a really good manager in my eyes.

Even in the league he used to outwit the top managers on a regular basis. It was in beating the bad sides that Benitez had problems because he just didn't have the money to buy the extra artillery beyond Gerrard and Torres. In that 08/09 season when we should have won the league they only managed 20 games together due to injury and we just didn't have the squad depth behind them.

Rafa with the players and money he will have at Chelsea could be frightening.

Opr

Benitez had plenty of money to spend at Liverpool ,he just didnt spend it wisely and bought alot of mediocre footballers.
His success at Valencia was based on the players already there ,Canizares,Ayala,Baraja,Aimar,Albelda and Vicente.
He left Valencia because they wouldnt allow him control of new signings and he said he hadnt enough money to spend on new players,does that sound familiar ??

Opinion seems to be very divided on him.
Alot of Liverpool supporters seem to think he is the best thing since the sliced pan while others think he was a bad manager who played awful unattractive football.

He would do well at a mid table club where its a results oriented business but I dont think he is suitable to a top level side where playing good football is paramount.
He has a poor record of buying players and I dont think that would be any different at Chelsea,he would buy more mediocre overpaid players.

Leiva

Torres is on his 6th manager since 2011 :eek:

SlickRic

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

He has a poor record of buying players

if this myth were put to bed, it would solve a lot of the problems too IMO.

eagle eye

SlickRic wrote: »

his signings being largely poor is a myth.

Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, Torres, Arbeloa, Alonso, Benayoun, Riera, Reina, Johnson are just some of the signings that were just fine thanks.

Morientes, Crouch, Babel, Dossena, Pennant and then of course Robbie Keane(but of course he didn't sign him because that would make Rafa look bad when it didn't work out) and lets not forget Aquilani.

He made loads of bad signings, I'm only picking out the expensive ones. And Riera was muck at Liverpool apart from a couple of games.

SlickRic

i didn't say he didn't make bad signings.

also, Crouch was fine. i wouldn't have called him a bad signing.

EdenHazard

LMAO to me this just shows football management up as overrated. The guy won 2 cups in a few months, including the biggest prize in club football. In anything else he would be considered a protigé! What he doesn't have is the glamour that Pep has which to me is what it seems more and more managers are about. Pep will not transform Chelsea into Barca 1.0.

niallo27

eagle eye wrote: »

Morientes, Crouch, Babel, Dossena, Pennant and then of course Robbie Keane(but of course he didn't sign him because that would make Rafa look bad when it didn't work out) and lets not forget Aquilani.

He made loads of bad signings, I'm only picking out the expensive ones. And Riera was muck at Liverpool apart from a couple of games.

6 or 7 million pound players are always going to be gambles if you are trying to win a league, Crouch wasn't a bad signing and Babel had his moments. Morientes was top goal scorer in the CL the previous year when he signed.

eagle eye

I stuck €20 on Steve Clarke at 50s to be the next Chelsea manager. I know its a longshot but just the fact that Abramovich knows him from his time at Chelsea, the senior players like him and he has gotten off to a brilliant start at West Brom make him a reasonable prospect for the job I think.

Sgt Pepper 64

eagle eye wrote: »

I stuck €20 on Steve Clarke at 50s to be the next Chelsea manager. I know its a longshot but just the fact that Abramovich knows him from his time at Chelsea, the senior players like him and he has gotten off to a brilliant start at West Brom make him a reasonable prospect for the job I think.

I think Stevies got more sense!

MisterAnarchy

SlickRic wrote: »

i didn't say he didn't make bad signings.

also, Crouch was fine. i wouldn't have called him a bad signing.

The man signed 76 players in 6 years at Liverpool,thats over 12 a year !
Thats a new team every season ,wtf was he playing at .
He famously said on leaving Valencia "I was hoping for a sofa [a defender] and they've brought me a lamp [Fabián Canobbio]" in reference to the positions he wanted to be strengthened.
He seemed to be a new sofa and lamp every season at Liverpool .

ThunbergsAreGo

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

He has a poor record of buying players and I dont think that would be any different at Chelsea,he would buy more mediocre overpaid players.

Please enlighten me?

Deise Vu

Leiva wrote: »

the gist of you point is correct .

some managers may see the Chelsea job now as a career mincer .

Another problem for Chelsea is the Financial Fair Play rules. It is bad enough having to pay exhorbitant transfer fees and players wages without having to pay off full contracts for a manager and all his assistants every year too. (And yes I am aware RDM wasn't on anything like a Mourinho or Scolari conract - there might be a good reason why Roman is shopping in the Managers Aldi these days).

noodler

Crouch was a very good signing.

Pyjamarama

eagle eye wrote: »

Morientes, Crouch, Babel, Dossena, Pennant and then of course Robbie Keane(but of course he didn't sign him because that would make Rafa look bad when it didn't work out) and lets not forget Aquilani.

He made loads of bad signings, I'm only picking out the expensive ones. And Riera was muck at Liverpool apart from a couple of games.

Crouch did well enough at Anfield.... None of those players bar Aquaman cost a fortune either... they didn't cost peanuts but i can easily find similar players for similar amounts that other top managers have bought. And probably more players bought for larger amounts that were busts. Of course a large part of that would be due to the fact Rafa didn't get the support they have.

The simple fact is that Rafa Benitez had a very limited budget in comparison to some of the other top clubs and did a very good job of keeping liverpool competitive. He's a top class manager and i don't see how people can doubt it.

For me i hope he doesn't go to stamford bridge. He'll do a great job there if he does tho.

CSF

Abramovich shouldn't be allowed run a football club. There should be stuff in the Fit and Proper Persons test to deal with this kind of ridiculousness.

Sgt Pepper 64

CSF wrote: »

Abramovich shouldn't be allowed run a football club. There should be stuff in the Fit and Proper Persons test to deal with this kind of ridiculousness.

Imagine how that would go.... "you dont want my filthy lucre?"

(Waves huge wad in the face of the FA!)

Leiva

CSF wrote: »

Abramovich shouldn't be allowed run a football club. There should be stuff in the Fit and Proper Persons test to deal with this kind of ridiculousness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBYF_wz2bYA

CSF

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

Imagine how that would go.... "you dont want my filthy lucre?"

(Waves huge wad in the face of the FA!)

As if the FA see any of it. The man has no place in football. Di Matteo has been absolutely shafted here.

niallo27

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

The man signed 76 players in 6 years at Liverpool,thats over 12 a year !
Thats a new team every season ,wtf was he playing at .
He famously said on leaving Valencia "I was hoping for a sofa [a defender] and they've brought me a lamp [Fabián Canobbio]" in reference to the positions he wanted to be strengthened.
He seemed to be a new sofa and lamp every season at Liverpool .

The 76 players thing included a lot of youth players that cost nothing or up to a 100 grand, every club signs a lot of these kind of players every year that might or not make it. I'm sure utd or city sign a half dozen of these players every year, they should not be used a reason to knock Rafa.

Dante

Any man that can guide a team to winning the Champions League with Djimi Traore not only in the squad but in the actual starting lineup should go down as one of the all time great managers.