As the official confirmation of Rafa’s departure from Liverpool comes through, it has in many ways just put the man out of his misery. For a long time now, longer than even the duration of this season, and the season before, his future (now his past) has been debated and fans and pundits alike have been using the same arguments over and over again why he should stay and why he should go. Now though all that can stop and we will get to see whether this decision is either the start of a fresh beginning with a new manager or just the continuation of what has been a nightmare year for all those concerned at the club.
So now where are we? Well we the anti-Rafa brigade have got what they’ve wanted (I use that term not meaning to offend), but it is hard to see how we can possibly benefit from this. It is all very well and good saying that the new manager should be given the money to make a job of it, but it simply isn’t going to happen. Also, saying that a manager who can win us things should be appointed but it takes a special sort of bloke who’d gladly take the opportunity to manage a team whose fans expect you to be a top-four team on a mid-table budget. The calls for Mourinho to be made manager (before he went to Real) did make me laugh. Even if the guy might have a grudging respect for our club, and even if by some weird twist of fate he abandons his ego and found a modicum of humility and in the process stopped being a jerk, he still would not have been given the money to do a job.
So who to appoint now? And please lets not get sentimental here. I’d love Kenny Dalglish to take control and drag us kicking and screaming back into the top-four and whilst it may not be beyond the man, times have changed, and its been a long time since he won us our last title. I’d also like Roy Hodgson. A thoroughly decent bloke and a manager whom nobody can muster up a bad word about, but a) Fulham would probably hold us to ransom, b)Fulham had a fairly average season and c)he seems a man of his word and will probably see out his contract. Martin O’Neill is another name we’re hearing being through around. I have nothing against the guy, he is quite like-able, as a pundit I think he is up there with the best that the UK has (not hard), but I get the feeling he has spent a lot of money (most of it that unlike Rafa he did not recoup) and he still has not done anything special with Aston Villa. They are still off the Top Four. I know it is hypocritical talking about such matters being a Liverpool fan, and yes Spurs and Manchester City with their chasm of money aren’t making things easier, but at least even Rafa occasionally had a plan B. I do believe that O’Neill’s success in the Premier League is a bit of a myth. That isn’t to say his success is not relative as he has improved Villa’s fortunes.
I’m sure speculation on who is going to take over is going to rumble on through the summer, and people far more important and better-dressed than me are going to give their opinions on who should and should not take over. I’m strangely ambivalent to it all. There was a time where I’d have liked Cesare Prandelli to take over but this was many months back when there was another peak in Rafa-exit talks, but Prandelli is due to take over as head-coach of Italy after the World Cup, so that is a no-go. Luciano Spalletti too, but he is at Zenit. Alas, whoever comes in must not be straddled with the task of winning us the Premier League, because that is a long, long way off. With Spurs and City and maybe Villa as well likely to barge us out of the way in the rush for the World Cup’s shining stars (financially) the race for 4th might be tougher than we made it look last season.
What should be remembered is that nothing has been solved by what has happened at the club today. Yes the club is bigger than Rafa and will move on from him, but it has lost a man who has battled off the pitch with the club’s best interests at heart against the owners looking for a quick buck, the media who wanted a quick story, and most unforgivably, the club’s own fans who wanted a quick trophy.
Well said. This could be the darkest hours for ne as a Liverpool fan. Like what you said, the club had just taken a huge gamble by sacking (yes, this is a sacking to me) Rafa without a replacement. How are we going to sign players? Perhaps the owners have no money to spend and sacking Rafa now will give them a perfect excuse for not signing anyone.
nice article…Rafa deserved one more year in my view because people are forgetting the goods he has done for the club, only concentrating on last season…rafa has served the club well, whereever you go, You’ll Never Walk Alone……
I’ve never known what to think about Rafa, and I am as yet undecided on whether or not this will prove to be a good move. I completely agree with you that any new manager, no matter who they are, will have a near impossible job, as it stands, with no money at their disposal.
Having said this, I for one am deeply offended by your blaming of the fans who are after ‘a quick trophy’. The club HAS been in decline since 2005, a fact that does not mean I blame Rafa, but just that we haven’t won anything major since then. I would also point out that while you claim not to use the term ‘Rafa Out Brigade’ offensively, but then finishing the article by describing them as ‘unforgiveable’.
Finally, I would point out that the fans, for the most part, have been staunch supporters of Rafa while he has been at the club, and your blaming of them – of us – is not only offensive, but also wrong.
I think something had to break at the club for any kind of progress, and while i would have preferred for the cowboys to go, i am glad that we won’t go into next season with nothing new to look forward to. I understand your anger and disappointment, but I think the ending to your piece was chosen only for drama, and is a classic piece of the unthinking journalism you rightly claim has contributed to the downfall of the club we love
YNWA
I’m ambivalent as well. The man deserved better, but it may have been time.
Would we have gotten to Istanbul without him? I wonder…
Tactically brilliant, while it appears his man management was poor. Handing him control of the academy was the right move – his changes may be part of his legacy, but I wonder if handing him the purse strings on transfers was the big mistake that needed correcting.
This is going to be good or really, really bad. We’ll know shortly after the WC is over when Stevie and Torres have announced their intentions. By then, they should have a new manager who either will or will not have money.
This is nothing that Roy Hodgson and £60m can’t fix. :)
Thanks, Rafa. You’re a red forever. YNWA
This is a very sad day for LFC, anyone who thinks this is a fresh start are sadly mistaken. At least Rafa had agreed a contract that implied sufficient funding will be in place. The next manager will be a Hicks/Gillett yes man with no room to argue. Rafa took on the yanks on our behalf as he could see where the so called investment would not follow.
I was also frustrated by last years performance, the tactics, the subs, the losses/draws at poor sides, but we should not forget Torres missed a significant part of the season & Gerrard missed Torres.
One bad season after the best premier league season this club has ever had, I remember Alonso being allowed 2 bad seasons by the fans, it seems You’ll Never Walk Alone has exceptions !!!!
Good luck Rafa for the future
Re: X,
When I said that the fans wanted a quick trophy I meant that they wanted success even if it was to the financial detriment of the club. And I will not accept that such fans do not exist. They do exist – be it for ignorance of facts and the way football works these days, or for the fact that they don’t care.
And I didn’t use that term to address the Rafa-out brigade. A lot of them want Rafa out for legitimate footballing reasons. I disagree with them, and a lot of them would rather they had stable finances than short-term success.
We have not been in decline since 2005 because our points tally was getting higher and higher under Rafa.If we were in decline since then we would have hit rock-bottom a long time ago. Hell, we finished 2nd two seasons ago – that isn’t decline. We all thought we’d push on after that, but we didn’t. If you wanted Rafa to go on the basis of last season that’s fine, that is a different argument, but please don’t say that we’ve been in decline since 2005 because we haven’t – we finished 5th in 2005 as well.
Add me to the list of offended. I believe he was let go purely based on his record last year and that is a legitimate enough reason for me.
Guillem Balague (who I hate to quote but I believe in this context has gotten it right) said that for Rafa’s methods to succeed he must constantly recycle new blood through the squad, even replacing key players with new ones eager to respond to him. It seems he didn’t do enough of that last summer and the result was that the team underachieved and some key players appeared unmotivated at times.
A manager who struggles to motivate his players must suffer the consequences.
There is plenty more, for instance; his squad was clearly unbalanced at the start of the season as it took nearly a month for Kyrgiakos to come in replacing Hyypia. Voronin was clearly an inadequate solution at forward. Lucas was a poor replacements for Alonso. Arbeloa provided enough cover defensively allowing to help the poor left backs of 2008-2009. With him replaced by Johnson, there were now two weak links in the back four.
I feel I only just scratched the surface and I don’t really want to go and recap that miserable season, suffice it to say that there are enough legitimate reasons professionally to fire Rafa. Let’s look forward to a better season now.
This is a very sad day for Liverpool football club and the departure of rafa wheather you loved him or disliked him was responsible for putting liverpool on the European and world map again with the champions league win in 2005 and athens in 2007 plus all the semi finals including this years europa league semi.
On the flip side to that, his league form over 6 years as well as his signings, decision making and playing players out of position which ended in a very poor season this year.
But if we did finnish 4th we would be going into next years champions league has one of the favorites to win the trophy with one of the best spine’s in world football in reina, carra with skrtel or agger, mascarano, gerrard, and torres matched only by real madrid, barcelona and chelsea and with a few additions in the left back, left midfield and upfront positions we would all be going into next season with confidence.
So with rafa gone and the sale of the club unlikely in the near future putting king kenny in charge with some ex players of kennys era as backroom staff for this coming season i think would allow liverpool to keep the players we have got like gerrard and torres but i do fear that mascarano will go if barcelona dont get fabregas and with not signing him on a long term contract.
We will then show teams like arsenal, spurs, man city, and aston villa that this was just a blip year.
Ive been liverpool mad since 1976 and during that time the best football we ever played was under kenny and with him being out of the game for a long time will not mean we cannot compete for the premiership.
I still believe that we can achieve great things on the pitch this coming season with the squad we have, minus the dead wood {we all know who they are} and a few additions from the sale of that dead wood, and just think this time next year our greedy owners will be gone and we will have some silverware in the cabinet, who knows maybe number 19.
YNWA.
Rafa stay Rafa go opinion, the yanks with purlow and now broughton doing the dirty work FACT. thanks for all your hard work, you will allways be welcome at Anfield and that is more than can be said for the rest of the board.
“The Board has now asked Managing Director Christian Purslow, with the assistance of Club Ambassador Kenny Dalglish, to begin a formal search to identify and assess potential candidates for the managerial position.”
This is the true reason why Purslow has been brought in, along with finding investment for the club. The timing of this is puzzling as well, why just before the World Cup? My theory is they are looking for a clean sweep in and out before Stevie G and Torres are back home. New manager, new investment. I do not know what to make of Purslow’s role. He has brought in new sponsorship, so I feel he will get the correct owners.
With King Kenny at his side, this gives me re-assurance. 1. He can help attract money along with Purslow. 2.He knows the Liverpool way, how to play and how we should play.
With the improvements Rafa brought to the club, I strongly believe the majority of the fans felt he was abit reluctant to let the team go out and play. Now some can argue we smashed lots of team 6-0, 4-0, Madrid, Inter in the Champs leg over two legs. However when it came to the majority of the top four games, overall going to Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, or the Emirates, it was also with a negative approach. Kenny will be able to find the manager who can get more out of the team.
We haven’t got bad players, we have a good squad, maybe a striker or two. According to reports Yossi is wanted by Chelsea and he doesn’t even play for us. Babel, frustrating, again should be better. Lets get someone with the man management skills to say “look here, you are a quality player, go out and play” Gerrard and Carra say in their books, Rafa wasn’t that type of manager. I can imagine Wenger, Fergie, O’Neill, Hodgson doing that every week.
I am sad to see Rafa go, however we need a man to bring back good football and to bring the best out of our players. I trust Kenny can do that.
Thanks for the memories Rafa – YNWA
Very good article. It is a very sad day for the club. Rafa’s record overall in the league is good, finishing 5th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, and then of course 7th last season. Unfortunately these days people do not have patience and he has gone because of one bad season. Remember Ferguson’s record with United in his first 6 years was 11th, 2nd, 11th, 13th, 6th, 2nd, before winning it in his 7th year. He was on the verge of the sack after 3 or 4 years, but they stuck with him and the rest is history. It’s a pity Liverpool didn’t have the same faith in Rafa.
Re Jack,
Like I said, if you feel he should have gone purely for last season, that is fine its your opinion.
But I will say that Rafa cannot recycle the squad if he hasn’t got the money to, and if they money he has can only afford what he believes to be second-rate players then why do it?
Plus he has said of his desire to sign more English players, which could have been even more expensive.
We’d all like to think that next season would be better but the same problems still lie at the club, its just that now there is nobody in charge of said problem. Will next season be better? Who knows?
Maithri,
I am confused as to how winning trophies contributes to financial detriment. Is winning trophies not a legitimate footballing reason? Ultimately, I don’t think there are any others.
I would also say that advancement and detriment of a football club is a hard thing to quantify, as you rightly point out we have improved our point tally over the course of the last few seasons, but in the light of that it must be seen as relative. That is to say, if we gain more points than the season before, but less than Chelsea, for example, that improvement becomes insignificant. Our performance in the Champions League is also indicative of how we have performed, and as we have not won that since 2005, there can be seen to be depreciation there.
I do not wish to go overboard on my assesment of Rafa’s reign, however, and I thank him profusely for bringing in Torres and Reina, but if we cannot cope without the former, that is a definite weakness.
Again, I must ask that you rescind your comment about the fans, as if there is anyone who may be absolved of guilt in this matter it is they.
YNWA
Winning trophies is never bad for the club – chasing trophies when your finances aren’t intact however, can be devastating. Leeds are a case in point, Pompey too for that matter.
If you are going to sack a manager who has not won a trophy in a situation where he has to generate most of what he spends, then I do think your expectations are a little high.
And of course the comment was not aimed at all the fans.
Regarding our progress under Rafa, it is indeed relative, but just because we finish behind whoever wins the title does not mean that progress cannot be counted. If we gain more points than last season that means that we won more games hence we are better than last season. And some of our points tallies have been higher than at any point of our history. That is to say that to win the title, you need more points than ever.
Leeds and Pompey didn’t fall apart because they were chasing trophies – that is the point of every football club. They fell apart because they were managed poorly. Your argument makes it sound as if keeping players with high wages such as Stevie and Nando is an error while our finances are in such a poor state, as this constitues chasing trophies at an expense, a point of view I think you would want to distance yourself from as much as possible.
Whether or not Liverpool are chasing trophies, as they are expected to, to the financial detriment of the club is another point entirely, however, and one which I think has very little to do with the firing of Benitez. I would also say that Benitez’s dismissal is more down to his loss of the dressing room, and stale approach, rather than his faliure to win trophies. If we had made fourth, and Stevie looked less uncomfortable, I believe Benitez would have another season at least in charge.
Finally, I do not see how we cannot be seen to be in decline, both financially, and therefore in footballing terms as well. I do not totally blame Rafa for this, although last season’s performance was, i think, largely down to his lack of man-managing and bad tactical descisions. Obviously, the blame should rest most with our truly awful board, who failed to give Rafa the backing he needed with which, I think, he may have become a great figure of our history. As it is, however, he will be remembered only for his brilliant first season.
The people in charge of Leeds and Pompey chased trophies above their means and that contributed to their financial decline. I don’t know the full details about our wage-structure but if the money we are shelling out for Gerrard and Torres is seen to be ‘withing our means’ then so be it. But in terms of transfers, more often than not Rafa tried to balance his spending, and I feel that people saw this as one of his shortcomings rather than a sign of a man who realized that his hands were tied in that department.
I don’t believe that Rafa has been a particularly good man-manager but that is not something that changed last season is it? I mean, his ‘bad’ man-managing skills must have been there when we were doing well, so I can only speculate as to what might have changed in the space of a season.
Also referring to Gerrard’s body language, might I be right in assuming you mean his reaction at Birmingham when Torres was substituted? If that is the case then I can understand his frustration but lets not forget that Torres’ injury was re-aggravated so Torres was bound to have suffered anyway.
Also, Gerrard had just as much of a stinker of a season as Rafa did, but that gets swept under the carpet too.
And we might be in decline financially, and that may yet prove to be our decline on the football pitch, but I’m arguing for the duration of Rafa’s reign we have moved forward as a team on the pitch. He has left us a better team than when he came here, and that is what I am getting at when I say that we have been progressing.