I do use stats quite often to backup my opinion, but to rely on them solely to form your opinion would be foolhardy. As has been shown already in this thread you can use stats to show what a good job Benitez is doing but you can also use them to show what a bad job he's doing if you want to. When I look beyond the stats and look at the bigger picture I genuinely do see Rafa doing a good job here and can't understand the short-sightedness of those wanting to get rid of him.
When I look at Rafa's time here I see that he is in the process of building something, and to date it's going very well IMO. Year on year we are seeing an extra couple of pieces added to the puzzle, and we're not that far away now. If you compare the team to a car engine, you can have the best engine in the world but it only takes the spark plugs to be missing & it won't work. I feel we now have the right players in most positions and are only that extra couple of signings away from the winning formula. Before Rafa arrived how many of our players could you say would have been wanted by the other top clubs? I'd say only Gerrard & possibly Riise, even Carra wasn't half the player he is now before Rafa arrived. When you look at the squad now we have Gerrard, Carragher, Torres, Mascherano, Alonso, Reina & possibly a few others depending on your opinion who would be wanted by a host of top clubs were we to sell. It says a hell of a lot that one of our players deemed not good enough by most was offloaded to a club of the standing of Juventus.
Every manager makes mistakes, you can't be expected to get it right every time and when working on the budget that Rafa has you're not always going to be able to buy your first choice and have to gamble on someone you're not 100% about. Yes there have been some poor signings but this is to be expected when shopping in the bargain basement, if we had signed an expensive flop I would have a different opinion but to date Rafa hasn't done that. He has picked up some good players along the way, the likes of Arbeloa, Agger, Benayoun, Aurelio & Skrtel all cost relatively little by todays standards but have definitely added to the squad. The most impressive thing for me though is the way Rafa has dealt with the signings that haven't worked out. He isn't to proud to admit he made a mistake, and rather than trying to justify his signings by persevering with them he ships players out quickly when it becomes apparent they weren't the right option. You'd expect if a player didn't turn out as good as you'd thought that you would make a loss on them, but Rafa has actually managed to make a small profit on the players bought and subsequently sold by himself when it didn't work out. In his four years Rafa has bought and then sold 13 players, these players cost a combined total of £29.6m but were actually sold for £31.8m. Firstly that's only an average price of just over £2m per player, hardly costly mistakes, but to actually make a profit on the players deemed surplus to requirements is some achievement IMO and says a lot for the quality of our players.
Another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is Rick Parry's incompetence when dealing with transfers. We all know we have missed out on a few players due to not being quick enough off the mark, were it not for this lack of urgency we could well have had Alves, Vidic & Simao at the club as Rafa had wished. We have already seen what happens when Rafa gets his first choices, you just have to look at the likes of Torres & Mascherano, we could be reflecting on this season very differently if he hadn't been held back by pubes head in the past & got who he wanted. I know it's all well and good talking about what might have been & we can't say for certain it would have worked out, but the fact remains that Rafa wasn't able to get the players he really wanted in these instances due to circumstances out of his hands and it would be unfair to make an assessment of his progress without taking this factor into account.
Then there is Rafa's youth policy. Anyone who watches the reserves will tell you there are exciting times ahead, we have a lot of very promising players coming through the ranks at the moment. We've stormed to the reserve league title this season, and have recent back to back FA Youth Cup triumphs. Rafa has been very cautious with introducing youth into the first team (if it were down to me I would give them more of a chance in the Carling Cup) but when he has they generally haven't looked out of their depth. He has said himself that with seven subs on the bench from next season we will see our youngsters get more of a chance, and I'm confident that given the chance the likes of Nemeth, Insua, Plessis, Leto, San Jose & Pacheco will shine, as well as other youngsters currently on loan, most notably Paul Anderson who has had a brilliant season at Swansea. Rafa has spent roughly £20m on youth during his time at the club, I really don't think it's unrealistic to say we could well end up with £80m worth of talent from that investment.
All in all I don't think some people realise how much work there was to be done when Rafa arrived here, Utd and Arsenal were light years ahead of us and Chelsea were rapidly on the rise with their bottomless pit of money. Anyone who suggests we are no better off than when Rafa arrived is way off the mark IMO, as I said before you have to look at the bigger picture & see how many pieces have been put into place over four years and that there aren't that many to go. I also think that due to the emphasis being placed on our league status the Champions League has managed to become grossly devalued by sections of our own support. It's no mickey mouse cup and our form has been sensational in the competition since Rafa came here, two finals and a semi in four years sees us established as a major player with an increased global reputation, which makes it easier to attract top players.
I am firmly of the opinion that Rafa has done a great job here, for all the reasons outlined above, and no-one but Rafa himself (by screwing up in disasterous fashion) will be able to convince me otherwise. The press he has recieved has been totally unjustified, every week the media are looking for a new stick to beat him with, but unfortunately some of our own fans have bought into it. The stats definitely do not tell the full story, as I said before they can be used to backup either school of thought, but if you look closely at the squad we have and the players required to complete it then it's clear to me that we are progressing nicely & don't have very far to go.
Logged
