Ducky’s Note: Presenting, our latest in a long line of Scousers who’ve come and gone. Aravind is a Red in heart, mind, soul and blood (the last bit Chelshits can’t claim about themselves, ha!). As you can figure from below he know his football and the numbers around them, though we’re not gonna call him our ‘Staats goooroo’ as ESPNStar calls anyone who can do 2+2. Welcome, to the latest addition on BigFourZa!
Whenver I talk about this with a united fan and most probably with the ones who jumped in the wankfest recently, they inadvertently point out the same things. Ferguson has won 11, Rafa none. Alex has produced more native players, Rafa less. Alex is wise and articulate in his speeches, and Rafa just Rants and always plays players out of position.
Lets talk some FACTS. Alex Ferguson signed up for united in 1986, having won the Cup winner’s cup and Scottish league with Aberdeen (breaking the stronghold of the Old firm clubs). Did he start winning straight away ? Did he win a champions league at his first year? Hell no, he had to wait for five years for his first piece of silverware and that being the FA cup. His first league triumph came at his 7th year in charge. Now i don’t mean to undermine his achievements. But a little bit of retrospection, Ferguson when he took charge was in the same situation as Rafa is now. United were in a drought of their own of not having won the league for more than a decade. Having inherited a team that was far inferior to Daglish’s liverpool. His major rival was Daglish, and a younger one. Liverpool were on a roll and in their glory years, just as United are now. Then the unthinkable happened. Hillsborough. Daglish resigned unable to cope up with the aftermaths of the disaster. Ferguson was waiting for something like this(At this point i would like to clarify this.What i meant is that Daglish’s resigning and Hillsborough’s effect on the team morale had a role in causing a shift in league dominance and not that Ferguson is Satan’s twin brother in expecting a disaster as was misunderstood in my previous blog). And the rest is history.
Compare this with Rafa’s case. Similar to Ferguson, Rafa came to Liverpool with two la liga titles to his name with Valencia(Not barca or Real Madrid) and two UEFA cup victories. Won his Champions league in the first year, FA cup in the second. Well, Still the holy grail remains a dream. Beckenbauer called the CL victory a fluke and was mighty embarrased to learn that 2 years later Liverpool were at the top of UEFA rankings. That was the quality of the team Rafa had. Liverpool shouldn’t have won the cup with that team. But they did and thats solely the reason why Rafa is still in the Job. Thats the reason why Torres plays for liverpool. Thats why they say never write them off in Champions league even when 1-3 down in Anfield. Then came 2007 , the year Liverpool signed Torres, one everyone would agree is Rafa’s best signing . This was also the year Liverpool sold out to the yanks and made life difficult. One wouldn’t believe that at that time one of the yanks said “All Rafa has to do is name one Snoogy-doggy and we will sign him”. Yes, that’s exactly what they said. But now they are paying off their debts from club profits. This has got all odds stacked against Rafa. In my opinion, Last year was his best chance to win the league.And now that Alonso is gone, many believe he has taken Liverpool’s title chances away with him. Aquilani is in but could make a start as late as november. This is a gamble, given the injury record he has. I would have been far more happier had we signed Daniele De Rossi, but he comes with a 40m price tag (I had a bid on him at 52m and still he refused to part company with Roma). The Yanks are making a mess of the club and if not sorted out in the coming years, this could spell doom.
Some quick stats :
Ferguson took 231 games to reach his 100th victory.
Rafa needed just 184 games for his 100th.
Ferguson’s worst buys
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Veron
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Djemba x2
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Bellion
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Kleberson
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Poborsky
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Forlan
Rafa’s worst buys
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Robbie Keane
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Dossena
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Nunez
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Paletta
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Krompkamp
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Gonzalez
As can be seen, both the managers have made some mistakes in the transfer season. But Rafa always gets the stick in these matters. Media bullshit. When will people stop listening to pundits and start thinking for themselves. More to come on thse two(youth policy,playing out of position) as the season progresses.
Well, when Fergie took over in 1986, he didn’t have the kind of money that Rafa had (before the owners began fighting). He could not buy Torres for many a million, and have money for Mascherano made available.
The two situations are totally different, so it’s impossible to compare the two.
@ Ducky : When I saw something from the Liverpool section, I was expecting something about the first three matches.. It’s very obvious they have nothing much to write about – not even the “This is going to be our year”^18 nonsense..
@ Kedram . The timing could not get more worse 😦
Just a few points:
1. Firstly one of the most objective pieces I have read from a Scouser in a long time (relatively speaking)
2. Rafa is not a bad manager, there are worse, just ask the Spuds.
3. But, the problem with Rafa’s team building (apart from the ones i mentioned on ur blog) is the fact that he has not done anything spectacular to this Liverpool team. He has really not pulled of an inspired signing (please don’t call Torres an inspired signing) , the likes of Cantona, Keane , Viera or henry and he has not gone and made a star out of any player. For instance which Pool player has really improved or grown dramatically or improved under Rafa.
4. Rafa is a good tactician, but he can be a bit stubborn at times. He is probably much more suited for a coaching role in International football or in leagues like Italy and Spain, where managers are mostly Coaches, and the team building aspect is left to Footballing Directors or Club Presidents. Something similar to what Mourinho became at Chelsea. He will never, be able to build a team and groom players, like Wenger, Red Nose, Moyes and if in the future Liverpool dont have money to spend, I doubt Rafa is the man who can guide them to success
5. Lastly on an unrelated note…17 mil on Johnson was understandable, cause he’s british and does add an extra dimension to their squad. But 20 mil on Aquilani…r u kidding me…this is a guy who has never played a full season of football in the first team for Roma, till 3 yrs back he was never a regular, and for the last 3 yrs he has been constantly injured. And dont say that he is young, cause he’s only a year younger than De Rossi who’s got truckloads of match experience. And even if he’s not a permacrock, is there any proof that he has the stamina to last a season at full tilt, playing continously without a winter break and perform. Even if Rafa wanted a young playmaker there are several better options for a similar price who have atleast played more no of matches, of the top of my head i could name, Mesuit Ozil and Nuri Sahin, from the bundesliga, Javi Martinez, Esteban Granero from La Liga, not to mention Veloso and Moutinho from Sporting. I guess this is where Benitez shows his inability to scout players and find the right talent
http://transferleague.co.uk/
@ Kedarm…
Spot on mate.. The early days of SAF and Rafa can never be compared. Here are my reasons why…
1.
Fergie, during his early years did not have the same amount of money to spend as his rivals did. While Rafa on the other hand has been spending more or less the same as his rivals. Here are the stats to back it up.
2004-2008
Alex Ferguson :
IN (16) -140.10m
OUT (54) -45.50m
94.60m
Rafael Benitez :
IN (45) – 170.50m
OUT (67) – 84.28m
86.22m
And it doesn’t even include 2009 where SAF’s made a massive 60 mil profit…
So Rafa only has himself to blame if his signngs haven’t worked out…
2.
United were fighting for relegation when SAF took over. The club were struggling financially and without a league title for the better part of 2 decades.. The youth setup and the scouting system of the club was miserable and SAF had to rebuild the club from scratch and that too at a small budget…The club was less attractive to players as United had’nt won anything for a while….Add to it the fact that the english teams were less attractive for foreign players because of their ban in the european competitions due to liverpool’s fook up…
Rafa has never had any problems with funds until this year. As pool won the CL 2004, he hasn’t had any problems attracting players either. Its entirely his fault that his 20m signings do not perform and has to be sold back.
3.
Fergie’s was the sole reason for UNITED’s first league win. The team was entirely his own and he deserved every bit of credit for his team’s success.
Rafa on the other hand inherited a fairly decent squard which won the CL… Now we may look at it in two ways. Either that the team were good and deserved their CL trophy- in which case, it is entirely rafa’s fault that he is still unable to win the league. Or liverpool hit a hot streak in the competition- in which case, Rafa can’t claim all the credit cus it was Houllier’s team except for a couple of signings.
As for the FA cup win- Even pompey won it in 2008… need i say more…
4.
SAF is far superior in bringing up the youth through the ranks. By his 6th year at United, we saw the likes of Giggsy, Scholesy, Becks, Neville brothers and Butt. Thats 6 players who still play at the highest level today. Ever since then, there has been a steady inflow of academy players into United’s first team. One look at United’s youth now and we can see the likes of Evans brothers, da Silva twins, Macheda, Welbeck, Possebon, Tosic, Petrucci, Cathcart etc. I can safely say that United’s future looks promising.
Rafa on the other had has been useless with youth until not and he has ALREADY HAD 6 years. Only when he does start producing players through the academy can we even start talking about him in relation to SAF. His signings like Lucas and Babel have not set the world on fire tbh…
5.
Fergie doesn’t make many mistakes. In fact his biggest one was selling Jaap stam. And every time a big name has left the club- be it Cantona, Becks or Keane, his teams have always come back strongly and never suffered.
Rafa has been the butt of ridicule for the past 4 years and he has only himself to bame. His infamous rotation policy, fooked up mind games, playing players out of position, playing DEFENSIVE strikers(LOL), tactics like Zonal marking in set pieces have all contributed to people having a good laugh at his expense.
My argument is that Rafa has won fook all since building his own team.. This is his 7th year in charge and he has to deliver this year.
@ Aravind
The argements put forth by you for comparing SAF and Rafa is complete and utter Bollocks… You are comparing what SAF has achieved to what you ASSUME Rafa will achieve this year. This comparison is total madness. Until Rafa actually wins the league, you CANNOT compare SAF and Rafa. And even if rafa does win the league, he still has to win 10 more to catch up with SAF and be considered at the same level. So lets stop LIVING IN THE FUTURE and being delusional. Lets discuss about reality and and what the two managers have achieved. We could then safely say that SAF is in a class of his own and only Wenger can come close to his achievements.
@ Venky :
There you go. Was expecting you to be here first with ur blog sized comments…Friends this is Venkat for u, someone who hates Liverpool more than Rooney does…
@Harish:
Firstly one of the most objective pieces I have read from a Gooner in a long time 🙂 Agree with some of ur points. I think u have forgotten players like Alonso,Mascherano,Kuyt,Benayoun,Luis Garcia,Fabio Aurelio. Some of these names might look average. But their performances last year speak otherwise. Don’t want to get too ahead of myself about Aquilani, but if he is fit, mark my words we ll be there….
And glad that gunners made it to CL. I mean what fun without seeing them off in the Quarters 🙂
@ Venky : blind hate mate 😛 . I disagree with a lot of your points but more time for that later .
@Harish: Some of your points are valid but disagree with others. at #2) Winning the CL in your first year aint spectacular ? Probably Rafa’s mistake was that he won the Champs League in his first year. That upped the expectations to an unreasonable degree while ‘Pool were still a work in progress.
at #3) Gerrard has been a revelation since Rafa came.Which EPL midfielder other than Lampard scores 20 or more goals consistently ? How abt sticking up with Kuyt, Alonso (while he was out of form for 2 seasons before the last season – though I admit he erred in his treatment last season), the likes of lucas now, giving mascherano a big break developing the likes of Insua. Wenger is renowed for his youth policy and spotting talent and we all like watching the pretty game of Arsenal but he hasnt won anything in the recent years either and over a period of 10 years, I am sure Rafa will achieve the same as Wenger.
@5) In this ridiculously inflated market, Aquilani was a steal @ 20 million precisely because he was injured. He is hugely underrated because he has a medical history but give him the benefit of doubt and when fit and playing, he is one of Italy ‘s most technically accomplished players and certainly equal to Alonso if not more. On the other hand, I was initially a bit more apprehensive about the price tag of Johnson but he is coming good aint he ….Probably because he “knows” his price tag and thts spurring him on 😛
@ aravind:
someone who hates Liverpool more than Rooney does
My love for UNITED comes first… But every self-respecting mancunian hates liverpool and i am no different… footie wont be fun if you can’t have some fun at the expense of your rivals..
@ Ram,
Would love to hear what you’ve to say…
On another note.. Do you really think that rafa needed to buy a 18m full back… Is that the area that you are really short in… you could’ve made better use of that money in going for a striker or a midfielder… The likes of Sneijder or Van Der Vaart…. We’ll know the wisdom behind this move only at the end of the season.. I’d love to say ‘i told you so’ then…
Another of rafa’s shortcomings is his foresight IMO.. Consider his recent 2m purchase of a defender… Was it really needed… His 1st choice is always gonna be between Agger/ Skrtel/ Carra.. Its their injuries that forced Rafa to make a move… But a good manager would’ve planned ahead for these scenarios and have a squard players like O’Shea in case of United… It also speaks a lot about your academy if you can’t find a decent CB and have to go out and buy a 30 year old…
@ Venky,
Dear Manc
at your previous post
# 3) If u think the champs league squad which won the CL was fairly decent then ‘prolly u should inherit it and win the league title. The only reason why they won was they were inspired in that legendary final and in the knock out matches leading upto tht. Prolly Rafa made a mistake in winning it then . In any case, ‘Pool were not ready to challenge for the league around that time, let alone win it . In the last two years when we were to ready to challenge for the title, Fergie has been running shitless. We all remember the depths to which he went trying to counter Rafa (teaming up with Big Sam and the like )
#4) Today’s cut throat competition means you can hardly rely on developing your youth while people around you are up for your neck demanding instant success. Inspite of that , Rafa is doing his best trying to send players out on loan, giving them time in carling cup and some PL matches. The likes of Insua, Spearing, Ayala have hugely benefitted thus. Also look at Arsenal who have won nothing with their youth yet although the way they play their game is up with the best. And the likes of Giggs, Beckham, Scholes etc would have shone through any youth setup- let alone United’s. Now you have the benefit of hind sight saying these players were great successes. Prolly 2 decades down the line you would say the same to a lot of ‘Pool youth.
#5) Fergie doesnt make many mistakes NOW. Thats because he has more than 20 yrs of experience and if u still did you would be a fool. In the initial years of Fergie’s reign, he did make a lot of them and he could afford to but Rafa can’t afford to again because of the greater scrutiny nowadays and the instant demand for success. Hence every “mistake” that he makes is magnified to an unreasonable extent.
Finally this is Rafa’s “6th year” in charge and while he has to deliver, he has delivered something more than “fook” these five years. The CL victory is up there with the best.
@ Ram and Aravind
About the UCL victory, thats my point, he’s a brilliant tactician, but cannot build teams. Barring the blip that was last season, all his team’s best performances have been in cup competitions, last year was the only time they fared well in the league
The point about aquilani is tht he might be brilliant, but how do you know? And he is bought in to replace a man who played over 40 games last season at a high level of consistency, Aquilani has barely played 40 games over the last 3 seasons, and he has NEVER been a continous fixture in the Roma side. And he is supposed to be a immediate replacement, not necessarily for the long term
About all the players you mentioned, Firstly Alonso was a faboulous playmaker before he arrived, it was with him providing service to Nihat and Kovacevic that Sociedad almost became champions, and it was because his form deteriorated so much under Rafa that the last season seems a revelation.
Kuyt was a member of the Dutch national team before he arrived at Liverpool, and has done well but not made any great strides, and he was also one of the Eredivisie’s highest scorers, and today he is an effective yet unspectacular winger, not a spectacular transformation by any means.
Garcia was never exceptional at Anfield and has been average on his return to La Liga. and he was a fairly reknowned player before coming to Liverpool and rafa did nothing to make him better
Mascherano maybe, but again he has only been rough diamond polished but not unearthed jewel.
And Gerard was a great player even before his arrival, and was liverpool’s talisman then also.
Can you identify someone like an Henry, Keane, Viera, Pires, Ronaldo, or even a Flamini for that matter, players whose best was bought out by Rafa. Even granting you Mascherano, u have just one. And well, when you pay close to 17 million pounds for a player you better bring out the best in him
And to further substaniate my point – His career at Valencia – he inherited a super team including, Canizares, Baraja, Ayala, Albelda, Vicente, Jouquin at their peak and was able to tactically guide them to trophies, but when asked to build a team without money, he ran away to Liverpool
And as far as Arsenal not having won anything, thats true, but difference in Arsenal’s performance in 4 years and that of Liverpool is in no way whatsoever proportional to the difference in spending between the 2 teams. And perhaps thats where the true quality of the manager can be seen.
wont past long..too sleepy to …check the following link …read neutrally and objectively…though a bit old, the article is relevant to the present discussion ..
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/archivedirs/news/2009/mar/22/NG163701090322-0825.htm
@ Ram
wont past long..too sleepy to …check the following link …read neutrally and objectively…though a bit old, the article is relevant to the present discussion .. http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/archivedirs/news/2009/mar/22/NG163701090322-0825.htm
right Ram…Have to say that i agree with most of what Tomkins says eventhough he is biased as hell….But i do disagree with some of his arguments… I’ll post some excerpts from the article to express my views…
Perhaps Torres, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, Agger, Lucas, Babel and Skrtel weren’t all young players – aged 20-23 – when Rafa signed them after all, and all the teenage talent brought to the club, including Insua, Nemeth, Pacheco, Plessis and Ngog, is just a mirage?
I think Harish gives you the answers in his post for this…But i gotta ask… What have your youngsters achieved? have they actually helped the club win something or atleast played consistently in matches at the highest level? With the exception of Insua, the others are finding it pretty hard imo…
How many players in their 30s has Rafa brought to the club?Nor one as old as Henrik Larsson or Edwin van der Sar
Thats DUMB…Larsson was on loan for 6 months… And when did epople start worrying about the age of GK’s… Btw, VDS won us a CL and put in numerous performances.. Thats a good return for 3m imo….
Robbie Keane was the oldest major signing Benítez has made, and perhaps the fact that he turns 29 this summer was why he was shipped out so quickly
LOL… Talk about the author’s bias here.. Is it too embarassing to accept that Rafa made a mistake with Keane.. This, i must say is a pretty lame attempt at trying to justify a mistake.. Why not just own up to it…
Rafa has clearly had to deal in quantity to cover all positions, but Ferguson has had the luxury of looking solely at quality.
Quantity? Mauricio Pellegrino,Antonio Nunez,Josemi,Boudewijn Zenden, Antonio Barragan,Godwin Antwi,Jack Hobbs, Paul Anderson, Jan Kromkamp, Nabil El Zhar, David Martin, Gabriel Paletta, Mark Gonzalez, Francisco Manuel Dura, Andrei Voronin, Charles-Hubert Itandje, Sebastian Leto, Damien Plessis, victor Flora, Philipp Degen, Diego Cavalieri, Sotirios Kyrgiakos… These are the list of fringe players that Rafa has signed.. did he really need to sign all of them and Pay all their wage bill? Wouldn’t he have been better off buying 4 or 5 quality youngsters or experienced professionals?
I’m gonna give more stats to back up my argument that the Bulk of United’sSquard was brought since 04.. Here they are:
Rooney 27m
Vidic 7m
Evra 5m
Foster 1
JSPark 4
VDS 3m
Carrick 18m
Hargo 17m
Tevez 7m
Nani 14m
Anderson 15m
Da silva twins 5m
Berba 30m
Valencia 18m
Evans- academy
The players who were at United before 2004 are Rio, CR7, Giggs, Scholes, Neville. These are the only players from pre 04 era and out them only Rio, CR7 have been featuring prominently.. Giggsy and Scholesy are merely squard players not and Gazza is injured and rarely played in the past 2 years…My list shows(if you take CR7 outta the equation) that ONLY THREE of the regular starting 11are from the pre-04 era….
Here is the list of Rafa’s major signings…
Xabi 11m
Reina 6m
Agger 6m
Mascha 18m
Arbeloa 3m
Kuyt 9m
Torres 26m
Yossi 5m
Riera 8m
Aquaman 20m
Johnson 18m..
The players from the pre-04 era were Gerrard, Hyypia, Carra, Riise and Hamann… Out of these, Gerrard and Carra are still here but Risse left last year and Hyypia this year…. Now let us look at some of Rafa’s costly buys and failures:
Bellamy 6m
Morientes 7m
Cisse 14m
mark Gonzalez 5m
Pennant 7m
Babel 12m
Keane 20m
Dossena 7m
Crouch 7m
Cavalieri 4m
Selling Danny Murphy for just 2.5m
From the list i just produced, it is obvious that instead of constantly buying and selling the players, if Rafa had spent this money in a more careful manner, you’d be a real force to reckon with now.. But instead, You’ve seen 5 costly strikers come and go (excluding torres & Voronin)…. SAF on the other hand has struck with just 3 costly quality ones…
I know that i’ll hear about some small profits that rafa made in selling back SOME of these players.. But at what cost? You just sacrificed the quality of your first team in trying to make a profit.. UNITED instead make profit from its youngsters..Guiseppe Rossi wasbrought for a paltry 200000 but was sold for 6.5m… Campbell for 3.5m and Pique for 5m… SAF hasn’t made a single transfer blunder for the past 5 years…. Veron and Forlan were his costliest flops while Stam was his worst sale this decade…
At the end of the day, this argument comes down to the same thing. Comments like these by the author:He already had the players who emerged because of his youth system, which took almost seven years to bear fruit beyond one player (Giggs emerged in year five). Benítez would only be at that stage in 2011
Imply that by 2011, Rafa would produce the same quality of players and the success that SAF was able to… Well, If rafa does succeed in doing this, then we say that Rafa started being successful. But until then, IT IS JUST ASSUMPTION AND PREDICTION THAT RAFA WILL SUCCEED. What you are doing here comparing the established,proven record of SAF with the predictions of Rafa’s success. This is TOTAL MADNESS
@ Ram
In the last two years when we were to ready to challenge for the title, Fergie has been running shitless.
Good imagination… or should i say delusion….. I thought we were discussing fachts here..
We all remember the depths to which he went trying to counter Rafa (teaming up with Big Sam and the like )
You seem to forget Rafa’s Facht rant.. Read this again..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jan/09/rafael-benitez-alex-ferguson-outburst
Notice how many times he says ‘Facht’ and ‘Respect’… Lets concentrate on ‘Respect’…. A man who accuses his peers of being disrespectful cannot behave in the manner in which he did against blackburn… What did those gestures mean?
was he conducting an orchestra? Even when Big Sam wanted to have a word with him after the match regarding this, he didn’t turn up… Only then did Big Sam make this an issue… SAF merely reminded Rafa that he has to be clean before he starts accusing others of being dirty… Don’t forget that after your defeat to Spurs on the 1st day, rafa criticized that one refree was too young and the other needed to change his spectacles… That’s not showing a lotta respect, is it?
And the likes of Giggs, Beckham, Scholes etc would have shone through any youth setup- let alone United’s
Are you for Real? Thats like saying that if Maradona was born in England, then the English would have won the world cup in 86… Well guess what…. It was SAF who identified them and it was his new scouting network that found them and his new youth setup that brought them through united’s ranks…. That means that SAF can take complete credit for their success….
Prolly 2 decades down the line you would say the same to a lot of ‘Pool youth
Probably.. But lets not pretend to be clairvoyant.. Lets stick to the facts… Lets cut down on the imagination and the expectations and live in the present…
Finally this is Rafa’s “6th year”
My bad… I apologize…
he has delivered something more than “fook” these five years.
Yup.. He has delivered a lotta laughs for his rivals…
Hence every “mistake” that he makes is magnified to an unreasonable extent
True.. Today’s media magnifies the mistakes.. But it goes the same for every manager.. But we don’t see Moyes or Bruce making many.. But a person like Rafa who’s been managing teams since 1996 shouldn’t be making many expecially at a big club like liverpool….
Lets be honest here Ram… If Rafa had signed a quality striker last season instead of Keane, you’d have won the league.. It was that cutting edge that you missed last season when Gerrard or Torres got injured i.e against the likes of Stoke… Remember the whole Barrry saga last year… Rafa was so busy chasing him that he had to sign Keane at the last moment as a fall back option.. That consequently gave Keane less time to integrate with the team and hence his poor performance… Now you may point out the berba saga.. But we already had 3 strikers and weren’t overly dependent on Berba to fire immediately… But as a general rule, Fergie always signs players early and gives them the time to settle(like he did with hargo, anderson,nani)… Even this year, Rafa dragged out the Alonso saga till late.. Thats just not the way a good manager does his transfer business.. More on this in my later post…
just a thought mate.. The comparisons i think are unfair because
FACT1: fergie inherited a squad of alchoholics from atkinson and turned them around to world beaters.
Benitez’s first champions league win came with a largely inherited(underperforming but good) squad from gerrard houllier.(remember they had won a treble in 2001).
FACT2:veron and forlan couldn’t cut it @ united as they could not dethrone the existing first teamers.. look @ the careers they’ve had after united. forlan has won the european golden boot. It was a certain ruud van nistelrooy who kept him out of the united team. same with veron who could not compete with scholes and keane.
i have more but i don wanna continue filling this space.
When a person has such a long career as fergie has had, its impossible that he can’t make mistakes…
How strongly u recover from them is what matters..
But for a crazy 5 mins from milan rafa would have nothing to show for his 6 years @ anfield.
But great job tho looking and finding the facts and stats that makes benitez look as good as fergie .. But u ‘ve ignored(intentionally) a lot of other key ones.
guys welcome aswin,a software engineer by trade and a true red devil by blood.
BOYS. I am so very proud of you guys.
Holy Cow!!!!
phew…that is so much to read actually.a lot of valid points there.anyhow at the risk of sounding presumptuous i say why dont we follow the adage that “the team is bigger than an individual” and compare liverpool and united teams that we know ? The dippers wont/cant open their mouths then. and dude the voronin signing is example enough to substantiate claims that rafa is dumb. He showed he is a tad dumber by bringing him back to the club. Come on support liverpool but be reasonable man.
I am happy I found your site on orkut. Thanks for the sensible critique. Me and my roommate were just preparing to do some research about this. I am happy to see such reliable information being shared freely out there.
Regards,
Field from Oceanside city
Always our pleasure Anand. Keep watching this space for more.