Rafael Benitez Fact And Fiction

Late Late Goal and Misery for Liverpool continues. The calls for sacking Rafa keep increasing every day, so here is something in defense of the man.

1.RAFA IN THE TRANSFER MARKET - read this topic to understand what he has done RAFA SIGNINGS

He has spent a net 90 million over the 6 years he has been in charge. That is peanuts compared to what Ferguson,Chelski,Spurs,Villa and Citeh have spent in the same time and he has managed to outperform most of them.Also note that he has consistently taken Liverpool to later stages of CL and hence generated a good amount of cash which he has not got back to spend!!!.

He has some signed some duds but then every manager has his share, but with Rafa it stands out because due to paucity in funds we cannot afford these. Just to set a context here - Nani(18m),Valencia(16m),Anderson(17m),Berbatov(30m),Carrick(18m), Veron(28m),Barthez(8m) not exactly world beaters are they
FACT: He is one of the best in transfer dealings.

2.SACK RAFA AND BRING IN A BETTER MANAGER :
First of all he seems to like the club and the fans.He DOES not need to be here - he can walk out of LFC any minute and will find a job at any club including ACMilan,Bayern,Juventus,Real Madrid etc all of whom are struggling a bit.
He has been here for some time and most of the players and backroom staff are his people. Sacking him is a shortcut to disaster. And who do we appoint after sacking him? there are hardly any other good manager out there and there is the small matter of about 15million payout to Rafa if he is sacked.
FACT : The club needs rafa more than the other way around.

3.RAFA's RECORD SO FAR:
The squad that he took over consisted of Traore,Biscan,Smicer,Didi on his last legs,an injured Baros,an overpaid Cisse,permanently crocked Kewell and the likes of Mellor,Pongolle etc. Over the years he has built a superb squad at very little cost and we have been arguably the best team in Europe over the last five years. Last year was one of the best title chases in a long time and heck we qualified for CL every single year under Rafa something we did not do regularly before.
Apart from all this we have won the CL in 2005,runners up in CL in 2007 and the FA Cup in 2006. A very agreeable record i would say.

FACT : Rafa has done very well in his time at LFC.

4.RAFA's TACTICS:
Yes some of his moves look foolish but plenty of Manure fans and goners have criticized Fergie and Wenger over some of their tactics. So nothing unique there. Apart from that, there can be no argument that he is one of the best tacticians around.
FACT : Rafa is one of the best tactical manager in the world.

5.LUCAS:
Playing Lucas is something that comes under derision from all corners. Even i poured plenty of scorn on that matter. But there is plenty of difference to the Lucas over the season. He is playing rather decently given the circumstances and is definitely one for the future. To get it into proper context,compare how important Fletcher is now to Manure and the amount of criticism that he had to undergo three/four years ago.
FACT : Lucas is a good prospect.

6.HE IS TOO DEFENSIVE:
nobody complained about all the 1-0 wins that Mourinho had. Besides we did not have a team that could play the all out offensive desired by us.

7.SQUAD COMPARISON:
Our total squad costs 158 million that is a distant fifth behind Citeh[249m],Chelski[230m],Manure[220m] and Spurs[208m]. The wage bill is also a distant sixth behind even arsenal. How do we expect the all so elusive squad depth then? Manure paid 12m for Tosic who is a reserve player for them. How do you compete against that with peanuts offered to him.

8.LUNATIC OWNERS:
Hicks and Gillet must be the worst thing that happened to the club. They have saddled the club with debts of their own takeover and generally behave like complete idiots.

Make no mistake i have some reservations with some of Benitez's methods like Kuyt on the wings,Yossi in the left wing,Babel not played enough but overall i think he is the best man for the job.

GROW UP FERGIE

First up what a feeling to beat ManU and their beach ball throwing,serial whining fans. The atmosphere evident was unbeliveable and the players lived up to it. But Fergie's interview left a lot to be desired. So a analysis of the performance of the ref

1.The yellow card to Evra - tripping a striker a metre from the goal line is a yellow card regardless of whether it is the first foul of the player or not.
2.Vidic - this guy does two cynical fouls on Torres in the first half, shoulder charges reina and goes unbooked.Then he fouls Torres and proceeds to cut the legs from under him. Is this not a yellow card offense? The rugby style foul on Kuyt was a straight red if not a yellow.
3.The Carrick penalty decision - some people claim getting the ball is not enough for not awarding the penalty.Laughable.It looked 50/50 at best and if this was a penalty then so was the shirt pull by Berbatov.
NOTE:Even the players did not claim any decision here. And with serial whiners in their team this shows the validity of the penalty claim.
4.The Lucas barge into giggs - this was a foul and was a freekick not a penalty.
5.Lucas deserved an yellow card for his fouls.
6.The second yellow to Mash was harsh as this was not a deliberate nor a dangerous tackle.
7.The yellow awarded to Carra for the Owen tackle was correct. He was not the last defender and since he did not give vidic a straight red for a similar offense twice, no reason to complain.
8.Five minutes of added time in a half with little to no stoppage and one goal is ridiculous.
9.Fergie kept bleating at the referee the whole match and again criticizes the ref in the interview, let us see what view the FA takes of this.
10.There were some more dodgy calls for both sides.

Having said all this i cannot understand why the ManU fans are complaining when
1.They did not utter a word when fletcher escaped after commiting a dozen fouls aganist arsenal. Lucas had six called against him.
2.They did not utter a word asking why fletcher was not booked nor a penalty given he brought arshavin down.
3.Question the ref every time you lose or draw,when several "favors" can be pointed to ManYoo in several matches.

And yes we are obsessed with ManYoo, the same way Madrid are obsessed with Barca,Celtic with Ranger,Newcastle with Sunderland and Arsenal with Spurs.
"Losing to Liverpool is the most pain you can have when you play for United. There was a big silence in the dressing room and we will need a few days to recover from this big disappointment for us, for the staff, for the fans." - Patrice Evra. Amen to That.

Aquilani

I feel sorry for the guy. The amount of hype/expectation/debate surrounding his debut is incredible. And he is going to be introduced into a team short in confidence and form. Great!
Meanwhile i hope Stevie does not need a surgery for his groin problems. God help us if he is not going to play for the next few matches which include fulham(a), citeh (h), the mersey side derby,Lyon(a),Arsenal(h) and Blackburn(a). Really tough set of fixtures and we can do without our best player injured.

Problems with Liverpool

So we have lost 3 out of 8 games in EPL and add one more Champions League defeat to it and we have lost to just about every half decent team we have played. A brief look at the reasons i think is behind this:

1.Defense unable to pass the ball - our defense never had the ability to pass the ball, we always needed someone from midfield to drop back and collect it. Till last season we had Xabi to do it. But Lucas does not fit the bill and Mash has been unfit and is only now coming back to top gear. What this does is invite needless pressure, the defense hold on to the ball far too long letting the opposition to press in up the pitch. This results most often in a hoof up the pitch and loss of possession. This has been the story in every single match we lost so far.

2.Defense in bad shape - I regret losing Sami. Carragher switched from RCB to LCB has looked lost in most of the matches.
Also the much talked about zonal defending is partly responsible. Most of the opposition teams simply seem to crowd out one of the posts and the players drilled to defend their zones are static when the ball is played in and hence are not much use defending.

3.Weak Midfield - I dont know where he got the idea that Kuyt is a winger or Lucas is world class midfielder. Lucas is an average player right now and has no real pace nor vision. Kuyt [a player i personally adore for his work rate and commitment] is not a winger in any sense. He can do a job now and then but he is not going to be effective in that position against the better teams. Also buying a player who you know is injured that too when your team has had a really poor summer is downright criminal.

4.The team formation - some of our formations are puzzling to say the least.Benayoun who should start in every match in my view, starts mostly on the left to accomadate Kuyt on the other wing. We mostly play with Stevie and Torres upfront and in all the matches we lost, both of them have been completely isolated and hence ineffective.

Better idea would be to play Stevie and Mash in the middle and Benayoun and Riera in the wings. Torres and Kuyt/Babel upfront. This formation would offer better space for Torres to exploit as well. And with Stevie in the middle, we will atleast create something. Watch the last twenty minutes or so in every match we lost, you will notice that Stevie drops in and we begin to look more solid from then on.

5. The owners - Gillet spoke up this week criticizing Benitez, just goes to highlight the situation at Anfield now. Stupid owners, silly manager.

Is the season over for us? I do accept that Liverpool have not looked good enough, but neither have the opposition. ManU, Chelski and Arsenal have stuttered and the chasing pack of Spurs and Villa dont look good enough either. Considering that Chelsea will lose out on a few players during the Cup of Nations and that City have only the league to play for , if they sort out their defense, City could become the team to beat this season and are the favorites for the title IMHO. ManU are not the force they were in the last two seasons and are sustained only by a sublime run of matches from Giggs. So on the whole - a bit optimistic and needless to say i will be happy that any team other than that old dog Fergie's win the title.

The Adebayor Controversy

There is a lot of noise raised about the Adebayor stamp and goal celebration.And i for one think he deserves a bit of slack.For two primary reasons

a.Adebayor was practically being kicked the entire match and the foul by persie on him before the stamp was pathetic too.It could have broken Ade's legs if he had connected.
b.And the disgusting arsenal fans.They called ManU fans class less for jeering Wenger,but here they were singing nasty things about Adebayor the whole match.What do you expect him to do.Obviously he gave it back to them.
c.He apologized for both events publicly,but the great Persie comes out and trashed Adebayor in public stating that he never had intention to hurt anyone.Dude watch a compilation of your fouls and you would know the truth.
d.The disgusting arsenal fans again - even if ade did provoke them wtf was the needto throw missiles at the stewards.Disgusting behavior.
e.What about the Persie celebration?he swears at the majority of the stadium and generally behaved just as bad and he was not even booed during the match and that does not even attract comment.

While you are at it watch this celebration too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUXKtf1rdaY

All in all give the guy a break or punish Persie/give Arsenal equal punishment.

ManU Nepotism

I am making this post to record all instances where ManU have been let off kindly by the referee.It will be updated throughout the season

1.ManU vs Arsenal
a.The most blantant penalty you will ever see by Fletcher not given.
b.Fletcher commits two fouls inside the box and is not even booked.
c.Same fletcher commits more than a dozen fouls and is not booked.

2.ManU vs Spurs
a.Vidic trip on Lennon just outside the box and the ref gives a corner.The foul
was worth atleast a Yellow and was a great position to score from.
b.Vidic elbowing Crouch.Foul called but player not booked.
c.Fletcher kicking huddlestone on the shin - not booked again.


Now before some readers of the blog start quoting stupid comments from Football365 request them to find some instance where other teams are so blatantly favored.

Having said that i have to concede that the way Rooney,Foster and Fletcher played in the last three matches is stunning.

3.ManU vs ManCity
a.Seven minutes of extra time - nobody knows where that came from.
read this http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/22/manchester-united-goals-stoppage-time
b.Neville an unused sub celebrates the same way as Ade did a week ago -
result apart from one line in a guardian post i dont even find it being
discussed.

More Updates

Life goes on though more fun with a bit more cooking,quizzing,Heroes season one and two and a lot of movies.One ill effect of internet is that i've given up on reading totally.Cant complain though,not when i have another 50GB of movies to watch and hundreds more to download.

The CAT season has officially began with the notification out already,i hope the CAT continues to like me and i do better this time around.

Leaving aside these serious issues some of the funny things i encountered in the last two months:
One of my flat mates has a colleague in China named Hi Yu.Now how does one compose a mail to this guy[or girl??] Hi Hi or Hi Yu or oh i give up.
And the other day we went to a sweet shop and noticed a sweet named Sunni Undallu now everyone who has been in Chennai would know that Sunni means the tiny piece of boneless muscle that all men hold dear and undallu means balls in telugu.Put together they indicate anything but a sweet dish.Apparently it is a delicacy in these parts.Ahem!!Got to be more careful.