in his press conference after the Roma game he did say 'we beat juventus in the super cup although it was in the context of how the season would be viewed, just saying that's all
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd expect. It wouldn't be like Rafa, or indeed any manager but the most conceited, to take all the credit for themselves. Football is about the collective and each player working for his teammates and the supporters to produce the best result for all, and so when I see people saying ''Rafa beat Juventus again, well in Rafa'' etc. as if somehow it was his force of conscience directing the minds of the players that resulted in the goals that won the game (a sort of omnipotent God-like quality, in other words), I think how strange and how un-Liverpool like it is.
A proven Premier League goal scorer season after season, the transfer made a lot of sense but unfortunately didn't work out.
Aquilani, a player who showed a lot ability in Italy and even when he played for us on the odd occassion he displayed his quality and was linking up really well with Gerrard and Torres. He was haunted by injuries which led to his career massively going down hill but I think people underestimate just how well the Aquilani deal could have worked out had it not been for injuries.
Dossena, yeah that was bit of a shi**er.
But yeah I agree, I doubt he would have signed them if he had another option but lets not forget, the 3 main players Rafa wanted were Aguero, Jovetic and Dani Alves but he wasn't given the backing to get them. He could have gotten us Falcao for peanuts before he went to Porto but again wasn't backed. In terms of transfers, you can't say that Rafa didn't want to aim big. If you compare his targets to the targets we have now, there is no comparison that we were after far better players when Rafa was in charge. We were after youngsters that were already making a name for themselves, Alonso, Torres, Masch and others that signed along with Aguero, Alves, Falcao etc all being young but first team standard. There were very few Aspas, Alberto, Borini, Salah type signings/targets.
Given the proper backing I have no doubts we'd have gone on to win the league under Rafa. Also lets not forget he wanted Suarez too as well as bringing Sterling to the club along with Suso.
Overall I think Rafa did pretty well in terms of signings. Though fortunate to have Gerrard at his best, to reach the point we did in 08/09 where we had arguably the best goalie in the league, two/three of the best CBs in the league (one signed by him), the best midfield in the league, and the best out-and-out striker in the league, and arguably the whole of Europe, as well as some good/reliable players around them, was testament to his ability to put together a group of top class players in the face of very stiff competition. Of those we missed out on, there were a few like Alves and Simao who I seem to recall we were very strongly interested in/ on the verge of signing only for the deals fell through at the last moment. Here I think Rick Parry deserves a mention. Then there are lots of others who we were linked with in the press and who went on to be superstars, but who we never seem to have been in advanced negotiations with. Falcao and Aguero would seem to fall into that category. In those cases it's hard to know the exact truth. But if we must include them then I suppose we had better include Andy Carroll as well.
Nevertheless, at crucial moments I think we made some awful signings who, had they gone the other way, could have significantly changed our fortunes. I cited Keane, Aquilani and Dossena as in my opinion if we had got them even half right, things might not have ended the way they did. Think in 08/09 if instead of signing someone for 20 million quid who we then hardly ever picked to play, we signed a proper player to complement Torres. Someone like Andrei Arshavin, perhaps. Rafael Van der Vaart even. Not great players but ones who we could probably have afforded and who would have done 10000x more than Robbie Keane.
When we were attempting to break down stubborn defences -- the Stokes and Hulls of the league -- our game changing options consisted mainly of Robbie Keane, who was so bad we ended up selling mid-way through the season, Ryan Babel, and Yossi Benayoun. So, I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not as big a mistake but still a big one was the replacing of Riise with Andrea Dossena; one of the worst left backs in the club's history. To follow it up the next summer by replacing one of the best midfielders in the club's history with an injured 18 million pound player who wasn't cut out for Premier League football, when we might have had Wesley Sneijder for 14 million quid, was to compound our earlier mistakes and significantly contribute to our subsequent downward spiral. Two of the biggest reasons we performed so badly in 09/10 were the failure to replace Alonso and the absence of a replacement when Torres was injured and not playing well. Another was the loss of Hyypia, who I wonder whether we might have made more of an effort to keep given that he played a further two seasons at a high level in Germany.
These mistakes in turn were compounded by the fact that the owners didn't give Rafa enough of an opportunity to improve at the crucial moment, and enough of an opportunity to rectify the mistakes he made e.g. by signing a replacement with the Keane money.
