And yet he gets hammered for increasing the wage bill. That tends to happen if you go from a European also-ran to a major CL force.
The perception of Rafa (bring popcorn)
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And yet he gets hammered for increasing the wage bill. That tends to happen if you go from a European also-ran to a major CL force.
So why would the likes of Newcastle fans dismiss him as not good enough???? You'd think after 60 years without a trophy they'd take a manager, any manager that actually had a track record of winning trophies at the highest level.
The reason for this is that Rafa has pissed the media off, and therefore much of the stuff written about him is kind of to knock him back in his place. Luckily the likes of Newcastle fans swallow this and decide he's a cunt.
He's not the greatest manager ever, he's not the greatest tactician ever. But he isnt a cunt or a fucking waste of space. The answer as usual with these things is that the answer falls somewhere inbetween.
Who hammers him for increasing the wage bill?
no one has really criticised him raising the wage bill, it's what he raised the wage bill with, in his latter years.
No, they don't.
They criticise for wasting it on dross. If our wage bill was massive and we had half the players he "nearly" bought, we wouldn't have any reason to say he wasted millions
Yes they do. Frequently. I've seen it on here loads that the wage bill increased by too much. That's a different criticism from saying he bought bad players. Either the wage bill was acceptable for the return it gave or it wasn't. Who it went to is irrelevant.
But surely wage bill and quality go hand in hand? If the money spent on aqua went on someone better who made a noticable difference then no one would care that he spent it poorly. The wage bill should reflect league position and in the last 2 seasons it didn't.
Least that was always my beef
The wage bill became an issue when we dropped out of Champions league contention. They are not seperate issues and no one who has taken umbridge with the wage bill would give a shit if we had stayed in the top 4.
I dont think a single poster has critiscised Rafa for paying to much in wages and to suggest they have (in isolation from the larger issues) is pure folly sir!
Well sure. But I think it probably did reflect an appropriate increase in quality, generally. But last *two* seasons though? You mean inlcuding the one that was our best ever PL season?!
Ross is a fucking basket case.
Thats like saying Modo has taken Umbridge with Carragher.
Come on man.
He's Modo'ing you with such ease ...
But I came in here for an argument.
Looking back its not really surprising that we overspent is it.
Competing with United (cash rich and able to spend 20 to 30m per player) Chelsea (cash rich and able to spend big every window) City (laterly) Silly money.
The only team we should have been able to compete with was Arsenal.
Retrospectively we punched way above our weight with Rafa and Houllier. Now you see the true shakup of things it has to be said that we kept pace well for a while there. The issue came when those players who we overpaid for turned out to not be good enough. The grip we could keep on the coattails of those with PROPER money was so tentative that if we didnt keep pulling rabbits out of hats (alonso, pepe, mascherano, agger, arbeloa etc) we were always ALWAYS going to slip away. Much like Valencia, Villereal, Montpellier, Napoli etc will undoubtably or already have.
We paid a price but at least our managers were good enough to win us 8 or 9 trophies in that time period.
I think that perhaps the way we are doing things now is the right way. The only problem I have is that if we DONT have the stadium then the earning potential is capped and if that remains the case, we will struggle always to keep our best players and build a dynasty. Much like Dortmund are experiencing now. Yes they have the stadium but globally they have no footprint, meaning that ANY success they achieve will see their assets stripped quicker than a hiccup.
You either need cash money or the structure in place to earn big. We arent there yet.
Competing with United (cash rich and able to spend 20 to 30m per player) Chelsea (cash rich and able to spend big every window) City (laterly) Silly money.
The only team we should have been able to compete with was Arsenal.
Retrospectively we punched way above our weight with Rafa and Houllier. Now you see the true shakup of things it has to be said that we kept pace well for a while there. The issue came when those players who we overpaid for turned out to not be good enough. The grip we could keep on the coattails of those with PROPER money was so tentative that if we didnt keep pulling rabbits out of hats (alonso, pepe, mascherano, agger, arbeloa etc) we were always ALWAYS going to slip away. Much like Valencia, Villereal, Montpellier, Napoli etc will undoubtably or already have.
We paid a price but at least our managers were good enough to win us 8 or 9 trophies in that time period.
I think that perhaps the way we are doing things now is the right way. The only problem I have is that if we DONT have the stadium then the earning potential is capped and if that remains the case, we will struggle always to keep our best players and build a dynasty. Much like Dortmund are experiencing now. Yes they have the stadium but globally they have no footprint, meaning that ANY success they achieve will see their assets stripped quicker than a hiccup.
You either need cash money or the structure in place to earn big. We arent there yet.
Transfer wise yes. Robbie Keane ring any bells? If he spent that 18m on a player who he actually intended to play, or rather, someone less purple patch, we could have won that title. It was ours, but rafas transfer silliness let us down that year. Then, that summer, one our most important, we lost alonso and arbeloa and replaced them with overpriced & overpaid players.
He didnt sign Robbie Keane. Parry did. No one can tell me different. He was so NOT a Rafa signing and so NOT in keeping with what Rafa tried to do. And it was clear to all he didnt want him.
You could level at Rafa that if he had just played him week in week out we would have won the title but not that we shouldnt have signed the Bogger. That was deffo not on Rafa that one.
While Keane may have not been Rafa's signing - he played him and he started scoring goals (that peach against Arsenal stands out). The problem was that we sold him with NO replacement ... So we were overly reliant on one player for goals, and it cost us the title in my opinion. Not sure if that's Rafa's fault or not, but it was a terrible mistake on our part.
I know. Its common knowledge that hypothermia makes you thick. Keep taking them tops off you lovable Geordies.
Well that's nice and balanced.
I can't work out if that's serious or not. Does anyone believe that Keane wasn't Rafa's signing?
Buying and selling Keane without getting a replacement on the season we finished second is definitely transfer silliness. Wasting money is silliness.
Dropping from 2nd to nothing shows that surely?
Nah that was Hansern.
We all know the wage bill correlates with league position, so when it increases so should league position. However ours increased while we dropped in the league - managerial failure.
Any manager can win a cup, it's not a sign of anything. Luck plays too big a part in cups to say it tells us anything about managers.
I don't recall Benitez ever saying that he didn't want Keane. In fact, I thought he said at some point that he did want him at the time.
I prefer to look purely at inputs (spending plus inherited squad) against results. Or I could just completely focus, for example, on the fact that Torres had his worst and most injury-ravaged season for us in 2008/09 and therefore proclaim Rafa a mircale-worker. But would that be balanced?
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