épieur

My reading skills suck. I thought I was looking at a non-updated away table and figured they'd have a another 3 now.

You are right. Aston Villa had had one point less than us away from home. We're only the second worst away team in the league.

Put Reina in midfield. Xabi's replacement as playmaker has been here all along.

I don't know if it's been mentioned already but I am pretty sure that by beating us at Anfield, wolves now have a better away record than us in the league. That means we are now the worst away team in the prem.

Benitez is not in Mourinho's league either. That's not a diss on either of their achievements. But they just don't compare. Ferguson, much as I hate to say it, is the only manager around today who does.

old habits die hard.

Huth is a good player and would improve the squad. Hodgson is right when he says we need players who will visibly improve the first XI and Huth probably won't do that.

04-06 easily. Hard to say much about his final season there. It is a joke that players like Shevchenko were forced upon him and he obviously didn't have full control of the team anymore. A victim of Roman taking the FM analogy up a notch.

Mourinho's Chelsea was a far more impressive outfit than Ancelotti's. Ancelotti is a good manager but not in Mourinho's league.

kenyon. the glazers are doing a fine job of draining united as well. I echo the sentiment though. It would make for a nice change to have capable men of integrity at the top of our club again.

I rather doubt Commoli's role is restricted to 'advising' rafa on transfers. The way I understand the usual role for such a director to work, in relation to the head coach, is that Commoli will be identifying all potential transfer targets. The head coach may make his own recommendations here and there, but they will only make it to the shortlist if they fit the criteria the director of football himself sets for a suitable target. That shortlist will come under discussion with the head coach where he will have his say on players he simply does not want and players that hold strong appeal to him. The director of football takes this into account, alongside the head coach's assessment of deficiencies in the squad and the budget he himself is given from the CEO and handles the actual purchases for there. Where the initial planning is with the head coach on close consultation, this stage of the process is likely in closer collaboration with the CEO, to ensure a coherent wage structure and expenditure policy. But make no mistake that the director of football is in charge in these matters. Of course, you need a good mutual understanding and collaboration between the head coach and sporting director. Which is also why it's necessary to appoint a head coach who shares a similar footballing philosophy to the director of football. The scenario you want from all this is that the head coach is satisfied he is getting the players he needs and desires without compromising the longterm transfer strategy and squad composition that the director of football is charting. Sometimes he may even put his foot down and tell the head coach to find a place in the team for this particular (maybe senior, more likely youth) player as he will be the genuine article, sometimes the head coach may insist that there is one particular player he simply must have, even if the director of football isn't too keen on the idea. The amount of leverage will come down to the mutual respect and goodwill they have established in producing results for each other. Head coaches/managers come and go in modern football, but with a director of football, you don't have to rebuild the team every time a new manager comes in, like we've done on the past two occasions. There's a continuity in player investment and footballing philosophy. Frankly, if you want longterm planning in these areas you absolutely must have a footballing director or, as is increasingly rare, a truly gifted manager in for the long haul. Only Wenger and Ferguson are proven as such today. Of course every head coach will make his own imprint on the footballing philosophy and the players signed, but they will adhere to the broader lines set out by the director of football.

No need to issue ultimatums in the press. There are different ways of getting what you want, often it involves not always getting what you want, and playing hardball six months into the job before the glue is set at is, as is now evident, dicing with your longterm goals. I am sure he did at times. The picture that has emerged over the past 18 months though is that he hasn't made use of it when he maybe should have.

You have to ask yourself what was really accomplished by him taking them on. Raising the attention of the fans. I'll say that, and that was a good thing. Everything else though... G&H were ultimately felled by Broughton. Whether Rafa had been playing nice or not would not have impacted this. It might have impacted his internal standing within the club though. The fact is, he left Valencia because he was dissatisfied with not having his way (fair enough really), he took on Parry and won due to the same, he took on G&H, then Purslow, hell he took on pretty much the entire infrastructure of the club to get his way. Won some, lost some. Didn't take long in his new job to take on Moratti and lose. My point is Rafa seems, increasingly so, to be taking on everything and everyone. Lots of it may have been for good reason, but the pattern in all of it is just not a positive one. I truly hope not. Bailing out of his responsibilities to the club and its fans that he signed on with like that would be very unprofessional.

and less than six months later he was sacked for making a public 'get me my players or sack me' ultimatum to Moratti.

It is not just G&H though.

I am not saying he is a 'control freak'. But I am saying he doesn't seem to do well with diplomacy or compromise. Sure it reflects a winning mentality, but you also have to put yourself in a position where that mentality can be utilised. If you don't know when to bend and when to play hardball, you end up the way it happened here: Sacked twice in six months. Rafa really needs to learn how to pick his battles. As I see it, it is not at all unlikely that this has also affected his general performance over the past 18 months, busying himself with projects and fights that take focus away from his primary concerns. I commend him for his ambition and vision, but it needs coupling with restraint and prioritisation and he's shown himself lacking in these latter qualities in recent times.

Whether it is Comoli or not, I think it does look like our longterm future, footballing philosophy and transfer strategy will be shaped by a director of football. In what way should he step forward? Imo, it is for the best he keeps quiet. The direct responsibility for footballing affairs on a day to day basis falls to the manager, so obviously he should be stealing the limelight. Particularly in the British footballing climate, which seems inherently distrustful of such a setup and comes with a press ready to leap at any comment or perceived moment that might be construed as conflict between manager and director of football.

This is not only wrong, but also an insulting alehouse generalisation of those who happen to disagree.

That's not really true though. He fell out with the Valencia board due to lacking control, he commented himself on how much he enjoyed greater control at Liverpool. And any way you look at it, his confrontational approach to Moratti was obviously that of someone who wanted control of how things were done and wasn't up for negotiating or compromising with his employers. I don't see how this amounts to character assassination. It's character assessment. It worked for us for a time to have such a set-up, it obviously did not work out for rafa at valencia and inter (probably did him no favours in the end for us either). And it's doubtful it would work in the current setup.

Is the factual truth of it. But it wouldn't be unfair if Xavi won it.

So in a nutshell, "Sadly, because I am so darned good, the fans thought I could also work miracles. LMA manager of the year I may be, but I am not quite divine. Heh, silly scousers. But I doubt even god could have worked with the mess mess I am left with. I've done brilliant so far, only somehow the results mysteriously don't reflect it, but maybe next year they will. Or maybe not. This doesn't change anything though. I am still brilliant and will need more time to work us out of this terrible mess I am left with."

To be honest, I think it is a real possibility that he has become worse. If you look at what he he was doing the first couple of years, there was a tactical boldness that seems to have evaporated in favour of a more rigid 4-2-3-1 approach he eventually settled on. Goals were coming from all over the team, he invested trust in his squad all over and there was more method to the kind of players signed. I think he's allowed himself to be stressed out over the job too much, has taken far too much upon himself, picks too many battles he shouldn't. From where I am sitting, it certainly looks like he's lost the mental reserves to maintain proper critical evaluation of his own performance and progress as a manager and make the necessary adjustments. Like he said himself now, he needs a break to review what's been happening these past 18 months. Blame G&H, Purslow and Moratti, but regardless of circumstances, when a manager has 18 months of failure like he has had, you can't escape the fact that his own performance has deteriorated. I don't think he has lost his talent as a manager. And he doesn't have 35 years of experience is not so old that he is too set in his ways to change and not come back as a better manager. But I do think he has lost some of his ability as a manager. Imo he's lost his sense of proper perspective to do the best job he can (he practically begged to be sacked with that challenge to Moratti, ffs. It was a stupid move any way you look at it) and would benefit a great deal from taking some time off from the stresses of management, get it ouf of his system and reflect on it enough to also want to do things differently when he returns.

good. These things shouldn't be allowed to fester, nor is there any reason to visit the ignominy of publically announcing 'we don't want you back' on Rafa after all he's done.

I don't know if people realise how many people they have in their employ whom they can just ask 'how was this benitez as a manager' having worked there with him. In fact, plenty of people have probably volunteered their opinions in casual conversation. It's a football club and I am sure people talk about the football that's been played. There are people like Kenny Dalglish, whom they will surely know by now, a legend in the game whom they can turn to advise from, among others. Yet it is Purslow that all and sundry turn to for their footballing expertise? Scratch that, it is he who has whispered in their ear whenever their doings do not seem to support a benitez return and/or appears supportive of Hodgson. As much as I disagree with Hodgson still being here, I think we should consider the possibility that they are being advised by knowledgeable people on footballing matters.

In this case you can. You just find a manager who is not Rafa.