i guess the ONLY right man to manage LiverpoolFC now is non other than SAF.

Although no other person is better than him rite now, i guess the mass of Liv fans would disagree to this as there are so many hatters of SAF here.

It would be sweet if SAF can manage us for a change

y not take rijkaard

I have to admit that I'm one of those who wants Rafa back.

Chinese saying...''A good horse doesn't graze backwards.'

that is chinese said, but not applicable to Spanish man... muahahahahahaha

Chinese saying...''A good horse doesn't graze backwards.'

i read alot of RB bashing. saying he won the CL because he inherit 'young' gerard and got lucky he inherit a 'strong' Houllier team. for fak sake, Houllier failed to perform in CL with his own 'strong' squad. maybe you lot still not around or forgot how liverpool perform in Europe before RB. mediocre at best.. although the UEFA cup win was a sweet one. then RB steps in and he led us to CL final TWICE in 3 years.. and destroy Europe strong teams for a couple more years. we were a dominant force in Europe again. Like Houllier, he should be respect for what he have done. FFS...

SAF forever in Sir Bob Paisley shadow. He done great things no doubt but he lacks the class. Even NESV offer free flow whiskey 24/7 to him will never comes to liverpool.. he hates us like he hates being sober.

i read alot of RB bashing. saying he won the CL because he inherit 'young' gerard and got lucky he inherit a 'strong' Houllier team.  for fak sake, Houllier failed to perform in CL with his own 'strong' squad. maybe you lot still not around or forgot how liverpool perform in Europe before RB. mediocre at best.. although the UEFA cup win was a sweet one. then RB steps in and he led us to CL final TWICE in 3 years.. and destroy Europe strong teams for a couple more years. we were a dominant force in Europe again. Like Houllier, he should be respect for what he have done. FFS...

If reina, gerrard & torres left liverpool...will u guys still support liverpool?

Chinese saying...''A good horse doesn't graze backwards.'

"Clubs have virtually been destroyed by people making bad decisions. It's not because the owners haven't given money or supported the manager. It's just that they have brought in the wrong people."

Sometimes I wonder if the love for Rafa is confined to RAWK? I seldom lurk in other Liverpool forums so I do not know the sentiment of fans outside RAWK.

Benitez and Mourinho have a lot in common
1 hour ago

Gabriele Marcotti

Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho have a few things in common.  Both were mediocre footballers who were much more successful as managers. Both worked in England after winning both domestic and European silverware in their home countries, both went on to manage Inter Milan.  And both launched withering attacks at their respective clubs in the space of a few hours.

Benitez complained that he was not getting support from Inter, that the summer signings he was promised did not materialize and warned that, unless money was spent in January, the situation would not improve. And he demanded “total control”. By the time you read this, he will probably have parted ways with the club.

Mourinho, after a poor showing in a 1-0 win over Sevilla, unloaded on Real Madrid, warning that he was “tired” of defending the club on his own and asking for more support in terms of transfers.  This - in the eyes of the Spanish media - put him on a collision course with Jorge Valdano, the club’s general manager.

Both Benitez and Mourinho are fine managers, but maybe a reality check is in order, because, in some quarters, the “cult of the manager” has clearly gone too far.  Managers are employees of a football club.  They have a brief to fulfill when they’re hired.  They may not get everything they’re promised, but, heck, welcome to the real world: how many of us don’t get everything our employers promise us? How many times are we told, sorry, we wanted to give you a raise/a new company car/a secretary, but we can’t, because circumstances have changed?

In this case, both have reached absurd levels.  Benitez’s gripe is that Inter didn’t delivery any of his three summer transfer targets: Javier Mascherano, Dirk Kuyt and Lucas Leiva. (Gee, wonder what those three guys have in common?). We don’t know if he was actually promised these players because we weren’t privy to the conversations that took place. (Though surely you wouldn’t blame Mascherano for picking Barcelona over Inter, would you?) But if Benitez was promised a big summer spending spree (or even a small one) it would fly in the face of Inter’s reality.  Which is that of a club that made a loss of £131 million in 2009.  And while the new set of accounts should be better (because they’ll reflect the Champions’ League prize money and the proceeds of the Zlatan Ibrahimovic sale) there is no question that Inter will, once again, be in a sea of red ink.  Now, Inter may not be the most forward-thinking club, but they did spend heavily on their academy and the stated plan was to bring some of the youngsters in, do the best they could with the existing crop (which - minus Mario Balotelli - is the same crew that was good enough to win the Treble last year) and build for a more budget-conscious future. (Not coincidentally, some two-thirds of the current squad go out of contract this year or next).  Because, once Financial Fair Play kicks in (2012), Inter won’t be able to run massive year-on-year deficits.  How Benitez could have been unware of this is difficult to understand?
 
Mourinho is equally disconcerting. Or maybe the word is “illuminating” because the Special One seems to view football management as a constant war. When he compained about not getting support from “the club” in defending “the team” he was talking about two things: complaining about refereeing decisions (Mourinho often does, Valdano and Florentino Perez, the club president, rarely do, at least not in public) and fending off accusations that the side is “playing badly”. On the former front, whether attacking referees is an essential tool in the managerial toolbox, is up for debate, as is whether you need “the club” as a whole to go after them.  (Last time Mr. Ferguson complained about a refereeing decision, I don’t remember David Gill popping up to parrot everything he said.)  But the latter point is pretty obvious.  If your view of what constitutes “good football” is in line with Valdano’s definition (and it’s no mystery he’s an aesthete) then, no, Real Madrid are not particularly good.  And so, when asked if Mourinho’s Real Madrid plays good football, Valdano simply refuses to answer or talks about a “work in progress”.  What does Mourinho want? Is Valdano supposed to take a 35 year career in the game, one marked by certain specific footballing values (values which we can either share or not share, but which are undoubtedly genuine) and just chuck it out the window and through his teeth and say Real Madrid’s brand of football under Mourinho is wonderful and entertaining?
 
Mourinho has more of a point when he alludes to the fact that Real Madrid are undermanned at centerforward (they have just two: Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema).  Was that Valdano’s decision? Or was it his decision?  We don’t know. But Mourinho’s own history suggests that he is not shy about letting the club know when he thinks he needs another player (witness the summer of 2009, when he warned Inter they needed a creative attacking midfielder: the club duly delivered Wesley Sneijder and Mourinho went on to deliver the Treble).  Which rather suggest that he either was OK with just the two strikers or he’s a reformed man who no longer believes in going club with his transfer needs.  You be the judge.

These two guys are two of the best managers in the world.  Their recent behaviour doesn’t make them bad or stupid or irresponsbile.  They act this way because they believe they can get away with it.  In Benitez’s case, he was wrong, which is why he’ll soon be out of a job (but dont’ feel too sorry: he’s getting another huge payoff). In Mourinho’s case, he’s probably right: he will get away with it, as long as he keeps winning.

Blame clubs for treating managers like Messiahs.  Many years ago I sat down with Arsene Wenger and he made the point that, for all the work he did, much of Arsenal’s success was down to the players.  He pointed to a Premier League table and the three sides in the relegation zone.  “These three managers are at the bottom right now.  If they were in charge of Arsenal or Manchester United or Liverpool, how do you think they would do? How do you think they would be viewed?”

This isn’t to say that any muppet can manage a top club and be successful.  Rather there are many more good managers than there are top clubs.  The balance of power is, or should be, squarely with the clubs.  But we’ve got away from that.  And  the “cult of the manager” is such that we believe that the very best are worth so much more than their peers.  It parallels what happened a few years ago in the corporate world, when the “cult of the CEO” meant that chief executives were getting telephone number bonuses regardless of performance.

The Spoiler’s Worst Ever Liverpool XI


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The Spoiler’s Worst Ever Liverpool XI


source