Yep. I'm not condoning anything. I'm just pointing out that many thought Keane was the dog's bollocks before he arrived.
The perception of Rafa (bring popcorn)
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I'm looking at when rafa turned us from near champions to failures in 4 transfer windows. It was a level of ineptitude that surprised many. It's my main issue with him. He created a great squad, and then proceeded to dismantle it. I'm not a fan of that. I'm focused on his failures with it because it took us 3 years and 3 managers to even get close to fixing the mess.
You're Willing to focus mainly on his positives (as there are many), and it's understandable; but for me, in the mid term he messed us up. Long term? Depends if the youth set up pays long term dividends.
Your feel the exact same way as me peter.
Both feel like we're banging our heads against a brick wall
I was happy with Keane, but not for the alleged price. To sell him with no replacement (leaving us with n'gog) was criminal
I smoke a lot of weed so i'm not entirely sure, but didn't Rafa say in an interview that he wanted Jovetic & Barry at the time but went for keane after losing out on them.
Then again, I could have been high and just imagined it...but it seemed so real!
Well I just don't accept that that's what happened. Keane was bad, Aquilani very bad. Keane we got £12m back on quickly, so IMO the long term effects of that were limited. It's just ridiculous to say that £20m or so wasted (bad as that is) caused us to go from one of the best sides in Europe to where we've been since 2009. We got £20m over the odds for Torres, for a start, maybe more. I strongly believe that Rafa's contribution was a net positive over those 6 years, therefore it follows any decline from 2004 to 2013 (which isn't actually that clear given the improvement in City, Spurs, and Everton. Remove them and we'd be 4th on 58 pts with a game to play. Where were we in 2004? 4th with 60 points.....) was not due to him. The blame lies with H&G, and the poor signings of Hodgson and Dalglish. I know Benitez also made bad signings but surely they're already 'priced in' as deductions from what I think was a positive net contribution.
I'd have Rafa back in a heartbeat. Rodgers has been ok but Rafa is a winner. There I said it.
Accurate re: Aquilani, but when we sold Keane, he was actually on a good run and had scored (going by my pathetic memory) something like 4-5 goals in 10 games or something like that ... Bad or not, we should have never sold him without a replacement. It cost us the title.
Considering your post to me last week about your issues with Rafa, I'm surprised you're essentially ridding him of any of the resposibility of our decline ... which started during the last two years of his reign.
Keane was shit man. So he'd scored the odd goal, he wasn't exactly bang in form, tbh he was hardly even playing. It's pure speculation to say selling him cost us the title. But anyway, I was referring to the *long-term* effects, as I made very clear.
People always say last TWO years!!!! How can that be when the first of them was our best in nearly TWENTY years?!?!?!?
It makes it easier to justify the irrational bullshit?
Like it's easier to talk about Rafa fucking up that 2nd CL final, or "ruining our best chance at a title in years", than it is to consider the work he did to get us there in the first place.
No you didn't!
He wasn't great - but he was ok overall. I was wrong about goals - he scored 3 in two games (Arsenal & WBA), and was then sold in January. Obviously it's speculation -- but we were lacking a striker, and he would have been that.
I always say 'TWO years' because that's where the root of the decline began (the idea of replacing Xabi with Barry, Keane, Dossena etc) -
No, Mamma Mia's right. You say 2 years because justifying continuing strong criticism of a manager for 1 bad year in 6 looks fucking stupid.
Or that would make him silly to sell our other striker...
We would have won the league had we kept Keane
I bet if Rafa said the same thing - about the mistakes almost everyone agrees cost us (be it transfer, etc) - you'd still call it irrational bullshit ...
As for the '2nd final' - people (rightly) say he should have started with the player Milan players openly admitted to being scared shitless of playing against ... Valid etc ...
It's about balance ... Peter swings people to extremes (even though he's open about Rafa's issues).
Thanks for telling me what I think. Mamma Mia is a super fan and unlike so many fans, isn't fucking stupid ... I'm not a super fan and probably fucking stupid, I'm sorry.
You've misunderstood me.
You've developed a weird way of communicating in the last year.
it's this subject - it drives me up the wall. middle of the road - he was good, he was bad - he gave us great moments, he gave us shite moments -
Of course, I didn't literally mean that that's what you were definitely doing/thinking, just trying to give you a bit of credit.
Cheers
You see, this is what I mean by ignoring the details and looking at the overall picture. Maybe some of the decisions in that final were very bad, maybe not, I'm sure you could argue it either way. My perspective is that it was an achievement to get that team to the final in the first place, and basically an extraordinary achievement to do it twice in 3 years. Same for the title challenge in 2009. Everything balances out. Was the end result satisfactory from the resources available? That's how I look at stuff.
I obviously enjoyed the ride to the finals, the cup finals, the 4-4 with Chelsea (which I thought we'd win) etc etc ... Believe you me, I'm probably one of the fewpeople who still watch the 2005 run on DVD every few weeks ... It brings back so many happy moments ... But that shouldn't mean I can't focus on the things that deprived Rafa from being a 'good manager' to being a 'great' or 'legendary' one even. He was closer than we realize.
Given whats come since its daft to say Rafa didnt do a great job.
I didnt like him, but im not stupid enough to STILL say now he didnt do a good job at least until the last year.
Yes imo he cost us the league with bizarre decisions, but not for him we wouldnt have been there in the first place and it was his bringing in Torres, Mascherano, Alonso etc that had us in two European finals.
Its such a shame he got those two big signings wrong. If we had replaced Xabi with someone fit and strong and lets be honest suitable and signed someone to compliment Torres rather than Keane we really probably would have won the league. Rafa would have been a big part of that, sadly he was a big part of us not doing it.
Thinking back now (much like with Houllier) I prefer to remember the good than the bad.
He won us the European cup. HE did that.
He won us an FA cup. And for a brief time there he had us among the elite. He had us feared across Europe. He had us * * this close to winning the fucking league.
Now I can forgive all the other stuff. Ive moved on.
I didnt like him, but im not stupid enough to STILL say now he didnt do a good job at least until the last year.
Yes imo he cost us the league with bizarre decisions, but not for him we wouldnt have been there in the first place and it was his bringing in Torres, Mascherano, Alonso etc that had us in two European finals.
Its such a shame he got those two big signings wrong. If we had replaced Xabi with someone fit and strong and lets be honest suitable and signed someone to compliment Torres rather than Keane we really probably would have won the league. Rafa would have been a big part of that, sadly he was a big part of us not doing it.
Thinking back now (much like with Houllier) I prefer to remember the good than the bad.
He won us the European cup. HE did that.
He won us an FA cup. And for a brief time there he had us among the elite. He had us feared across Europe. He had us * * this close to winning the fucking league.
Now I can forgive all the other stuff. Ive moved on.
Yes you did!
I agree with this
It doesn't show.
Yah I'm cool with this ...
Well with regards to the final we lost, you could argue that makes it all the more frustrating, the fact that we did well to get there, only to fuck it up over personal gripes with unwanted players.
I don't think anyone's ever really denied he did well to get us there, or that he's a great tactician in Europe, but the decisions within the final itself were symptomatic of his downfall.
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