Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[DavidMarrio]

It does help that RDM was actually liked and supported by the fans and players whereas Rafa was getting protested against from the very first game and even when his name was getting linked to the job. I mean it doesn't surprise me the fact that Chelsea have a better away record.

Plus its only Feb...Rafa could win the FA Cup and/or Europa League (If he still has a job but even then its quite unlikely he would win both trophies)

It was always the wrong appointment because of the things Rafa said about Chelsea in the past and the fact that he was our manager and RDM was universally loved by Chelsea fans but at the same time who else was gonna take the job at that time? The guy has European and Prem experience and was available. I really can't see who would come next season for Chelsea and magically turn things around considering you have to put up with Abramovich and player power.

[GoN_]

He added: "They [the board and Abramovich] put me in the title of

'interim' manager. That was a massive mistake. Why did they need to do

that?"

Because you suck, Rafa... Because you suck.

It's about time.

[Hobo]

Oh yeah, Benitez sucks. He's only won La Liga (with a team not called Barcelona or Real Madrid), the Champions League (with a team containing DJIMI TRAORE), UEFA Cup and the FA Cup.

Awful manager.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

EWB book on who we think will be the next Chelsea manager. I'm going for someone who's been around for years as a safe and uninspiring choice, after all the exciting names refuse the job because seeing the turnover in the last decade. Maybe Fabio Capello.

[Gazz]

DAN PETRESCU!

[Matt]

Oh yeah, Benitez sucks. He's only won La Liga (with a team not called Barcelona or Real Madrid), the Champions League (with a team containing DJIMI TRAORE), UEFA Cup and the FA Cup.

Awful manager.

Those La Liga titles should probably be asterisked with the fact that the first was one with an incredibly low points tally and he'd inherited a side that had been in back to back CL finals, and the second was in a season where barcelona finished 6th and Madrid threw away the league by losing their last 5 games somehow. They also finished 5th in the season in between. Liverpool were hardly thoroughly convincing in their CL win (again with an inherited side) either. The FA Cup isn't really a huge achievement either.

He's not a bad manager but saying "he won La Liga with a team not called Barca or Real" is a bit misleading, Deportivo La Coruna finished 2nd in the 01-02 season.

[Adam]

Oh yeah, Benitez sucks. He's only won La Liga (with a team not called Barcelona or Real Madrid), the Champions League (with a team containing DJIMI TRAORE), UEFA Cup and the FA Cup.

Awful manager.

Those La Liga titles should probably be asterisked with the fact that the first was one with an incredibly low points tally and he'd inherited a side that had been in back to back CL finals, and the second was in a season where barcelona finished 6th and Madrid threw away the league by losing their last 5 games somehow. They also finished 5th in the season in between. Liverpool were hardly thoroughly convincing in their CL win (again with an inherited side) either. The FA Cup isn't really a huge achievement either.

He's not a bad manager but saying "he won La Liga with a team not called Barca or Real" is a bit misleading, Deportivo La Coruna finished 2nd in the 01-02 season.

So we should just chalk off any title won by a non-massive side because said sides had off-seasons? That's ridiculous. Barca and Real have always been the traditional big sides in Spain and him winning two La Liga titles with Valencia should be regarded as a fantastic achievement. He hasn't fluked all of these trophies, he is a very good manager with the right conditions and obviously Chelsea is not an example of that.

And call Liverpool an 'inherited side' all you like, but Benitez coached and managed that side the whole season and brought in several very influential players such as Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. It was certainly not an 'inherited' side two years later when a Benitez-managed Liverpool again went to the UCL Final with regular starters including Steve Finnan, Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch. In fact he assembled that entire squad bar Gerrard, Carragher. Hyypia and Riise.

I think your reasons for 'putting an asterisk' against his achievements does him a great disservice to be honest and his status as a joke figure in this country disappoints me.

EDIT: Reading that back I seem a lot more angry than I actually was writing it. I just like Rafa

[Matt]

Oh yeah, Benitez sucks. He's only won La Liga (with a team not called Barcelona or Real Madrid), the Champions League (with a team containing DJIMI TRAORE), UEFA Cup and the FA Cup.

Awful manager.

Those La Liga titles should probably be asterisked with the fact that the first was one with an incredibly low points tally and he'd inherited a side that had been in back to back CL finals, and the second was in a season where barcelona finished 6th and Madrid threw away the league by losing their last 5 games somehow. They also finished 5th in the season in between. Liverpool were hardly thoroughly convincing in their CL win (again with an inherited side) either. The FA Cup isn't really a huge achievement either.

He's not a bad manager but saying "he won La Liga with a team not called Barca or Real" is a bit misleading, Deportivo La Coruna finished 2nd in the 01-02 season.

So we should just chalk off any title won by a non-massive side because said sides had off-seasons? That's ridiculous. Barca and Real have always been the traditional big sides in Spain and him winning two La Liga titles with Valencia should be regarded as a fantastic achievement. He hasn't fluked all of these trophies, he is a very good manager with the right conditions and obviously Chelsea is not an example of that.

And call Liverpool an 'inherited side' all you like, but Benitez coached and managed that side the whole season and brought in several very influential players such as Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. It was certainly not an 'inherited' side two years later when a Benitez-managed Liverpool again went to the UCL Final with regular starters including Steve Finnan, Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch. In fact he assembled that entire squad bar Gerrard, Carragher. Hyypia and Riise.

I think your reasons for 'putting an asterisk' against his achievements does him a great disservice to be honest and his status as a joke figure in this country disappoints me.

EDIT: Reading that back I seem a lot more angry than I actually was writing it. I just like Rafa

He's undoubtedly had success but he's also been the man in the right place a lot of the time. He inherited a great Valencia side (on the back of his success at Tenerife) and took them to two league titles when the big two sides underperformed massively. It'd sort of be like Andy Murray winning all 4 majors in a year when Federer and Djokovic were injured. Great achievement, yes, but with the other 2 out of contention, you'd probably expect it.

Oh and David O'Leary got a side with Danny Mills, Lee Bowyer, Stephen McPhail and Alan Smith to the Champions League semi-finals, I don't think anyone's going to call him a great manager.

Nonetheless, yes that CL run was a good achievement... As were his other honours, I was just pointing out that it's not as simple as "he won La Liga with a side that wasn't Barca or Real".

[Crybaby Bunting]

The glorious thing about Rafa Benitez's rant is that he said he'll leave in the Summer and then went on to blame the board for all current troubles.

So he won't even last until the Summer, creating a scenario where he's proved wrong because of his own actions.

[stokeriño]

EWB book on who we think will be the next Chelsea manager. I'm going for someone who's been around for years as a safe and uninspiring choice, after all the exciting names refuse the job because seeing the turnover in the last decade. Maybe Fabio Capello.

Capello is a name that made the rounds the last few times the job came up (on the basis that a) he seemed the sort who would take it for the sake of the inevitable payout, and b) had the kind of pedigree many assume(d) that Roman likes). Don't see it happening now though. No doubt he's getting paid truckloads in Russia and can ride that job out until 2018.

[stokeriño]

I've actually now read a full transcript of his BBC interview (until now I had just read his own quotes). I'm amazed that he launched into this unprompted. Well, actually no. I'm not amazed because that's what Rafa does. Still, it's remarkable.

BBC: *nice question about the first half*

Rafa: *nice answer*

BBC: *nice question about team selection*

Rafa: *nice answer*

BBC: *nice question about the match tempo*

Rafa: *nice answer*

BBC: *nice question about the FA Cup*

Rafa: IMPLOSION

[Colly]

I just read it too, it goes from short answers to a six paragraph response to a completely irrelevant question. Amazing.

[stokeriño]

You would wonder why he chose an irrelevant question on the back of a comfortable 2-0 win as his time to lash out.

That is, until you realise that we could drop out of the Top Four this weekend and it becomes clear that he's simply getting his excuses in early.

[GoN_]

Oh yeah, Benitez sucks. He's only won La Liga (with a team not called Barcelona or Real Madrid), the Champions League (with a team containing DJIMI TRAORE), UEFA Cup and the FA Cup.

Awful manager.

Those La Liga titles should probably be asterisked with the fact that the first was one with an incredibly low points tally and he'd inherited a side that had been in back to back CL finals, and the second was in a season where barcelona finished 6th and Madrid threw away the league by losing their last 5 games somehow. They also finished 5th in the season in between. Liverpool were hardly thoroughly convincing in their CL win (again with an inherited side) either. The FA Cup isn't really a huge achievement either.

He's not a bad manager but saying "he won La Liga with a team not called Barca or Real" is a bit misleading, Deportivo La Coruna finished 2nd in the 01-02 season.

So we should just chalk off any title won by a non-massive side because said sides had off-seasons? That's ridiculous. Barca and Real have always been the traditional big sides in Spain and him winning two La Liga titles with Valencia should be regarded as a fantastic achievement. He hasn't fluked all of these trophies, he is a very good manager with the right conditions and obviously Chelsea is not an example of that.

And call Liverpool an 'inherited side' all you like, but Benitez coached and managed that side the whole season and brought in several very influential players such as Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia. It was certainly not an 'inherited' side two years later when a Benitez-managed Liverpool again went to the UCL Final with regular starters including Steve Finnan, Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch. In fact he assembled that entire squad bar Gerrard, Carragher. Hyypia and Riise.

I think your reasons for 'putting an asterisk' against his achievements does him a great disservice to be honest and his status as a joke figure in this country disappoints me.

EDIT: Reading that back I seem a lot more angry than I actually was writing it. I just like Rafa

Barcelona was very far from being the beast it is now... They were not the Messi, Xavi and Iniesta team, they were a team who had just lost some of the best of their time (Ronaldo and Figo) and had difficulty filling those spots. A team like Deportivo would back then fight for the title to the end (they were actually champions in 2000). He may have had some merit in those titles, but it was not a huge achievement for a team that had been in two champions league finals, in a league where the big teams where underperforming... It was not even the first time Valencia were Spanish champions...

The Champions League win with Liverpool, yes was a big achievement, but he has been piggybacking on that win for almost ten years.

He later had Peter Crouch and Pennant because he signed them, together with a lot of other not so good players. He spent a LOT of money in Liverpool, and the team kept getting worse. Yes he may not be the sole responsible (yes, he didn't want Robbie Keane, he was more into selling Xabi Alonso and getting Gareth Barry ) for that, but he clearly was responsible.

And then he goes to Inter, out of their champions league win... And he fails miserably. A team that was European Champion and that had won four (technically five), Serie A championships.

I won't even get into this run with Chelsea, because he clearly shouldn't even have accepted a job, when the club supporters clearly shown they didn't want him there before he had even signed.

I'm sorry if I'm not a fan of the man, but since that champions league win, I haven't seen that much of him that proves me, that he is in fact a top manager.

[Colly]

This whole 'asterisking' thing just feels like bollocks anyway, unless its a team later stripped of titles like in Italy recently. 'Yeah, he won the league, but the teams below him weren't as good for various reasons' is surely the basis for every league title win in the history of sport?

[GoN_]

It all goes to context, I'm not saying he didn't have any merits, just not that big of an achievement. La Liga was back then a pretty open league, and Valencia clearly had a really good team before he came into play.

And I clearly put more emphasis in "asterisking" that Inter league win. :/

[stokeriño]

I can't take away his prior achievements (knowing little-to-nothing about them in detail), and indeed I did not prejudge his ability when he arrived at Chelsea. All I know is that his tactics/substitutions/general approach to management have appeared very lacking during his time here. Even the most fundamental managerial tasks liking making switches in approach or personnel to try and turn a bad game around - he usually does something either completely redundant ("Losing 1-0 in the cup and with Demba Ba on the bench? Let's do a like-for-like right-back substitution in the last 10 minutes!"), far too late ("Go out there and get a good 30 seconds' work in, Nando"), or, often enough, does nothing at all.

I have not been convinced at all by the ability he's displayed since he came here and implosions/lashings out like this just make me pity him for being a useless cunt.

[Matt]

Yeah that probably wasn't fair. But "with a team that wasn't barca or real" should be asterisked. It's almost like saying someone won a title in the 80s with a team that wasn't man utd or man city... It's almost irrelevant because those teams weren't the same force they are now.

[therockbox]

Sorry, GoN, are you saying that winning two league titles in three years isn't much of an achievement?

[Nerf]

Guys, City's title win last year shouldn't count because United fucked up that one game.