Well, it's been a long hard season, of that there can be no doubt. A lot of speculation surrounding Rafa and the future of our Club. So many topics on the forum lately, all to do with money, or the lack of it. The Great Big Rafa Debate has just become a haven for the 'net-spend', 'sell to buy', 'sack Rafa', 'Rafa is the Messiah', 'bad luck' and 'injury' comments, ganging up on people and name calling in general. Correct me if i'm wrong, shouldn't the topic be just about his ability as a football manager?. There are those that see no fallibility in him, those that see nothing in him and those who can step back and assess him objectively. Well this topic is purely your chance to give your assessment on Rafael Benitez the football manager. Not Rafa the husband, not Rafa the father, not Rafa the great man either. I know we've had the End Of Season Assessment topic but i feel that that assessment was a culmination of various aspects that affected our season.
Here it goes then. On the back of an excellent season we went into the summer with renewed hope. I think that it's fair to say we were expecting to win the League after the ' 86 point season'. Then came a summer of turmoil. I think that Rafa knew what was coming with regards to Alonso, how Rafa manoeuvred was pivotal to our ambitions for the forthcoming season. What happened with Alonso?, we'll never know, but it's known that Rafa distanced himself from Xabi after the birth of Xabi's first child, when he chose to miss the Inter milan game. Was it the Barrygate scandal?. Or is it just Rafa's distant and cold demeanour?. More on this later. Back to the Alonso deal.
It was well known that we had Real Madrid at our mercy, they had so many pieces to the jigsaw, a list of superstars as long as Inspector Gadget's arm, yet they all meant nothing without a player who could bring them all together seamlessly. We could have had Wesley Sneijder, Klaas jan Huntelaar or Rafael Van der Vaart, either of 2 very good midfielders or a back up striker for Torres, even Negredo was mooted. Rafa chose to ignore this opportunity and instead settled for 'Il Principino', an already injured midfielder with an injury record akin to Darren Anderton! I'm not saying Aquilani is a mistake, i think he's going to become a great player for us. What i am saying is though, with only an initial payment of 5 million Euros, why didn't Rafa take a chance on one of the Madrid players as well?.
Then there's Glen Johnson. He's been a revelation in attack, but in defence?, please, he has been a liability at times. The only game that springs to mind when i try to remember a solid defensive performance from him is the win against United at home. £18 million pounds for a right back is over the odds, and i know that Portsmouth owed us money from the Crouch deal, but as soon as Chelsea stepped into the fray it became an E=Bay auction. We lost Arbeloa, i accept that, we had Degen, Darby and Kelly here though. I think that we needed to prioritise the left wing berth and the back up striker role, we didn't. In hindsight, the signings of Kyrgiakos and Rodriguez proved to be good buys, so i can't fault Rafa there. Kyrgiakos shored up the defence and brought much needed stability to the back four. Maxi gave us something we had been missing for most of the early part of the campaign, a winger that can actually control the ball and utilise it properly.
One thing that Rafa never fails to do, is to completely baffle fans with what can be quite outrageous team selections, tactical decisions and substitutions that defy belief. I won't go into minute detail, but his decisions to play full backs on the wings and in central midfield, central midfielders in defence, strikers on the wing, wingers up front etc. have had me seething at times this season. Our feeble exits from the Champions League, our meek surrender to a relegation threatened Championship side in the FA Cup, our defeat to the Arsenal reserves in the Carling Cup and our limp performance in the League just highlighted that Rafa got it wrong on many fronts this season. I'd like to say that the Torres substitution at Birmingham summed up Rafa for me this season. His inability to deviate from a tactical plan that clearly isn't working is a sign of a man that is becoming lost amid his relentless pursuit of what he perceives to be, total football. What i have seen this season is total sh*te and a spectacular collapse of a formation that was working so well the season before.
The system employs 2 central midfielders, one destroys and one creates. Well that's how it worked last season, it doesn't work this season because Lucas cannot create. I can honestly say that Lucas is one of the worst midfielders i have ever seen play for Liverpool, the fact that he has been one of the most consistent performers just proves how dire a season we have had. Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso and Hamaan would make it into the top 30 Liverpool midfielders of all time, would Lucas?. Rafa has persisted with Lucas all season, his refusal to try something different has been detrimental to say the least. His persistence with Insua when sides were blatantly exploiting the right wing was painful to watch. It was only the injury to Insua that forced his hand to try Agger there, and guess what?, it paid off. David NGog is not of the required ability to play the lone striker role, yet Rafa persisted with him while chance after chance was squandered. Dirk Kuyt, as much as i admire his hard working attitude and commitment, i'm sure i'm not the only fan here who thinks that we've seen the best of him, am i?.
Then we have Yossi Benayoun, one of the few creative players we have in the squad, yet Rafa preferred to play him out wide and use him as an impact substitute. Where Lucas failed this season, Yossi could have excelled, why didn't Rafa try something different, surely he could see that Lucas doesn't fit into the system, or could he?. Rafa is so blinkered in his view of how his side should play football, it's all well and good when you have the personnel to implement the tactics, and when you don't?, then most people would alter the tactics/formation slightly, not Rafa though. Everything has to be meticulous and pre-planned, no spontaneity whatsoever, no freedom, no license to thrill. Arbeloa recently commented on Rafa's footballing philosophy, he said that all players have to follow the tactics religously and must never deviate from the plan, he didn't criticise Rafa, he just passed comment.
This is where Rafa has fallen down this season. A team of robots, devoid of ideas, their natural instinct and creativity becoming suppressed due to the intense nature of Rafa's philosophy. Any freedom of thought is nullified, deviation from the plan will have serious repercussions. Is Rafa starting to lose the plot?. Ask yourself these questions. Would you have persevered with Lucas this season when he blatantly didn't fit into the system and offered us F**k all in attack?. Would you have ignored the possibility of dropping Lucas and trying Yossi in the middle, one of the few creative players at the Club?. When the Torres and Gerrard partnership was struck by injury, would you have dismissed the idea of dropping Gerrard back in the middle and playing Yossi or Pacheco in the hole?. Would you have kept picking Insua, week in week out, when you were constantly watching him get raped by no more than average wingers at best?. Would you have kept picking Kuyt all season, even after watching him miscontrol the ball, time and time again and break down counter attacks with his usual dilly-dally bollocks?. Would you have persevered with NGog, a young striker who was so obviously out of his depth in the lone striker role? Would you have kept one of our most promising young prospects ( Pacheco ) on the bench, game after game, while watching senior first team members produce dire display after dire display?. Would you?
I'm guessing the answers to most of those questions would have been no. I'm fully aware that we've had terrible injury woes this season, the point i'm trying to make is that Rafa had the chance to change tactics, change personnel, change formation, change games that were slipping away, he didn't. When things weren't working he didn't attempt to change things. When youngsters were chomping at the bit to prove their worth, Rafa ignored them, instead he chose to persist with players he knew had nothing more to offer. And to those that say they are to young to be exposed to the rigours of Premier League football, try telling that to Rooney, Milner, Walcott, Ramsey etc. To be honest i thought that Rafa would be forced to blood the youngsters this season, especially with the substandard performances we kept churning out, it wasn't to be.
And my final insight into Rafa the football manager, his man-management skills, or more to the point, lack of them. Much has been made of this problem this season, or is it a problem?, some people think not, i think it is. I keep coming back to Pako Ayesteran, 11 years as Rafa's confidant, the one man Rafa could trust with anything, but more importantly, the link between Rafa and his players. When Pako left, is it no coincidence that player stories started crawling out of the woodwork about how distant and aloof Rafa was with regards to communicating with his playing staff?. I'm not going to go into detail about what players they were, we all know who they are and were.
Let's say the squad consists of 25 players, each one of those players is different, and they will each respond differently to any given situation. Some players need an arm around their shoulder, some need constant encouragement, some need a firm hand and some need to feel wanted. That is life, and as a manager you have to deal with these situations, but that's the trouble, Pako used to deal with these issues, not Rafa. How Sammy Lee deals with players, i don't know. As for Pellegrino?, i don't really know what his purpose is, i really don't. I know it's a pain in the arse when grown men need to be consoled and mollycoddled, but that's life. If that is what it takes to get the best out of some players, then that is what you have to do. If they need a kick up the arse?, you kick them up the arse. If they need encouragement, you F***ing encourage them! You do whatever needs to be done to maximise that player's potential. And if, after professing that you have signed players that you feel have the right mentality to succeed and they fail to show this mentality, then you have to make changes.
There's an old saying that goes like this, "You can only F**k with the cock you've got". So Rafa, if funds are not forthcoming this summer, then you have to go back to the drawing board and reassess the squad, the formation, the tactics, the psychology, the philosophy and the mentality. Try something new, refresh your ideas, remove yourself from the commotion and look at new ways of adapting to your surroundings. Just try something different.
P.S. This post has taken me a good while to type and it's time for bed for me, work in the morning. So there may be a couple of spelling mistakes, and i may have missed a couple of points out or other stuff. I will edit the rest tomorrow if i can. YNWA.
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