****ing hell, this is boring. And the stupid effing site keeps rendering my capitals lower-case. At random, apparently.
As I said before, the micro management works with some and doesn't with others, think he was a bit daft maybe to go to Inter after Mourinho and Chelsea after the season they had with their own prodigal son. I also think the man-management is a big thing as at Inter and Chelsea they both had managers that would put the arm around the shoulder and Rafa is very cold in that regard. In terms of the managers, forgot about Wenger (duh) but O'Neil, I think the Spanish titles, UEFA cup, Champs league, and FA cup are a bit better than the scottish cup ones and Leicester league cups!
Lol: I do love that the "debate" is with United fans. Not a Chelsea fan in sight. Or are they all banned lol?
Oneill (7)? So you're classing Scottish trophies as equal to Spanish or European? Going by that logic Woy is the 2nd most successful manager in English football and puts Wenger in the shade.
I think he's not doing well at Chelsea because he had a higher starting point. He has taken over a team that has just won the CL and has won league titles recently. The squad is in a bit of transition but has had a few quid spent on it. With us we were finishing between 4th and 8th every year, were not really progressing under Houllier. I can't remember a single season under Rafa where we were not berating the stupid loss of points to lesser teams at anfield, he is doing the same now at Chelsea. I don't think he's doing a worse job there than he was with us, its just Chelsea are more used to recent success and are more demanding than we were. Id be ok with his results, silly loss at home is ok of you throw in thrashing people every now and again. He's not perfect, has his faults. Made some dodgy signings. I still would have liked to see him have the money we've spent recently, and I think he's the best manager we've had for ages.
The answers on this thread to the OP`s question are quite funny, a few have tried to show his merits, some agree Chelsea was never going to work anyway, a couple state it`s an obvious WUM and can only comply with WUM reponses and one poster states Rafa is a great manager due to his fundraising for Liverpool and handouts to Hillsborough trust. If it was mentioned on a Manc forum that Rafa was going back to Lfc it would be welcomed like an early christmas, with most Utd fans fondly remembering the vast amount of trophies we won during his tenure, and the one season you looked like, maybe Lfc could win the Prem, he had a breakdown. What fun we had.
I think Rafa could have done well under different circumstances... as it is the fans have killed their season by killing the morale of the squad and placing Rafa in his weakest environment. History has also shown Rafa has flopped at a number of teams too. He did good work at Liverpool, Valencia, and his job prior to that. Just like players managers need the right environment to be at there best. It's not hard to see looking at our recent history that Rafa is the best manager we've had in our post-league winning days. Of course we would want him back. At Liverpool he worked.
He has only been there 2 or 3 months. And people call Abramovich impatient and knee jerk. And that's not me defending Rafa, I agree he has been pretty poor so far but he's pretty much done the same as Di Matteo, without the luxury of bringing in £80m (or however much they spent) worth of talent in the summer and having to battle against not having a top class no.9.
Personally I think the micro management works in the short term but not in the long term. It's great to get the best out of players for a season or two, but over the long term it just grinds the team down. Probably why Rafa needed to replace so many important players so often, whereas SAF, Wenger and less micro focused managers can keep players at the top of their game for many years. You didn't ask which ones were better, you asked who'd won more! Besides which, you can only win the titles in the league you're in - there's only one Scottish champions every years just as there's only Spanish championship. And a Spanish manager is always more likely to win a Spanish title than a Scottish one! You could say the same thing about Benitez too - only one good league season, and didn't Houllier get you a 2nd place finish in 01/02? Btw, wasn't Rafa the first Liverpool manager to go four full seasons without a trophy since Shankly? I think that's the problem - his teams always trash the odd opponent but also always make silly losses at home. IIRC he lost loads of silly points in La Liga too - doesn't he have the record for the least points ever by a La Liga winner? I thought he beat his Valencia championship points total three times with Liverpool, and one of those times Liverpool only came fourth! He got away with it in a poor La Liga, but it's always cost him badly in the PL.
06, 07, 08, 09 were all above expectation in the league and 2 of those over 80pts which is punching 5 miles above our financial weight class. Massively overachieving. You're applying the standards of sides like United and Chelsea who all squad costs + wage bills that dwarfed Liverpool's. It's really about finances at the end of the day.
I don't want to get into this again, but the claims Liverpool were massively financially inferior to Utd have been disproved time and time again. Including by your own supporters: http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2010/11/exclusive-liverpool-vs-man-united-wage_07.html The only time our wage costs came in significantly above yours during Benitez' first five years in charge was 08 and 09, when our wage bill would have been bloated by the bonuses from the league wins and CL finals. Fact is Benitez was able to match Utd for spending for the majority of his time in charge, right up until the last season, although obviously Chelsea were streets ahead of both at the time. The difference is SAF bought a few quality signings with his money, whilst Benitez pissed far too much fees and wages on Morientes, Gonzalez, Crouch, Pennant, Benayoun, Babel, N'gog, Keane etc.
Actually no - my figures are the actual wages, whilst yours are the cost to the club, which includes pensions, taxes etc. Mine are also the wages for the club, rather than the holding company. As your source notes: "Bigger clubs usually employ a bigger commercial team". We've been expanding our commercial team for years now - the most recent figures give a wage cost of £40 million for our commercial staff, versus a total wage bill of £160 million, hence our holding company (Red Football) has much higher wage costs than the club spends on players. And I don't think our extra brand and marketing advisers were the reason we finished ahead of Liverpool every year Benitez managed you. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-uniteds-financial-figures-show-1435547
Reminds me of 606 this, every time Rafa got mentioned so did the old nett spend chestnut. Always. That wasn't actualy anything to do with my original point, and nor was his previous record in Spain as it is not relevant to what he is doing right now but, hey ho, that got lost a long time ago. The lower case thing, it only happens on swear words for some reason, no idea why.
Well, your original post did ask for excuses, and the net spend excuse is the oldest in the book. But like I said before, the answer to your original question is simple. When everything's going fine, players are motivating themselves, fans are happy, the board is supportive, Benitez will happily micromanage away, focus on clever little tactics to win big games, and accept that he's never going to get a consistent performance in the league. When the situation gets tough, he doesn't have lots of money to spend, and players are getting a bit demotivated or unhappy, that's when the wheels come off and he's left clutching at excuses and blaming everyone he can find. He was always likely to make a pigs ear of the Chelsea job for that reason.
