Why only now?!? He's been fighting those incompetent arses since day one and those shysters have broken every promise - stadium, transfers and general investment. Squad wise when Rafa took over, we were behind Chelsea, Man United & Arsenal and we've never invested enough to really catch them up, I believe that Rafa had the squad overachieving. Then you add the new money at Man City, Sunderland being constantly big spenders as well. O'Neill's net spend at Villa in 3 years is only £5m less than Rafa's net over his entire tenure and Spurs have never been shy in the market either. And while money, big spending wise, isn't the be all & end all, in the Premier League, it does have a huge influence.
Why did Rafa want to stay on? Have you never heard the man state, on several occasions, that he considers Liverpool, both the club and the city, to be his true home, it's rare for a top manager to love a club & it's fans so much. That is who we had & what we lost. He hasn't sold his house
I agree that Rafa did build an affinity with the fans and his wife loved the city and all that.
In is quest to 'fight' the owners though, that is where his head turned and in the end he was too involved with the politics of the club to focus properly on his side IMO. Without doubt he had the perfect red herring in the end to excuse our perfromances and basically insinuated time and time again.
He never had it 'easy' here, well he had it much easier when first arrived and had more money to spend even though it never compared with Chelsea's spending. That though was the exact reason he was brought here from Valencia, because Moores, Parry and co looked for a manager who could rival the likes of Madrid & Barca - Man.U & Chelsea with less money. Two years later (or whatever) Moores sold out and things really began going down hill finacially. It's also worth remembering Roy's start at LFC is much harder than Rafa's as least Moores backed him where he could in the market when he could.
And going back to the 'red herring' the owners were blamed almost at every turn when Rafa's on field/transfer decisions hindered the team. Roy now doesn't get that pleasantry - it's more realistic now like it should have been last season and the seasons before where the manager is critised for his teams performances. This rarely happened, many Rafapologists would never hear a word against him when warranted.
Now, many call Roy a 'yes man' something again I think is wide of the mark, he's made his feelings known about the club's owners and knows we need knew owners. So just because Roy isn't carrying on airing the clubs dirty laundry in public every other interview he seems to be more concerned with his own job, just as Rafa should have been.
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