Rafa v Ferguson and his cabal

[Couldbe]

Kudos to him for standing up to Ferguson and his lackeys..

 

Rafa's Rant, January 2009

 

Benitez "To hear someone talking when he has problems with referees every single week, and now complaining about the fixtures and complaining about everything, I think that is not fair. You can see every single week how they put [referees] under pressure, we know this. We have seen it before. We have seen players sent off at Old Trafford and we do not see our opponents sent off. It is part of the game. But to complain and to always have an advantage is not fair."

 

Ferguson "I think he's an angry man – he's disturbed for some reason or another. The things he said are not facts."

 

Ferguson/Allardyce Tag Team, April 2009

 

Ferguson "You cannot forgive contempt, which is what he [benitez] showed Sam Allardyce last weekend. When Liverpool scored their second goal he signaled as if the game was finished. I do not think Sam deserved that…In my experience no Liverpool manager has ever done that. It was beyond the pale."

 

Allardyce "The game is hard enough as it is without a fellow manager doing what seemed to be an undermining gesture. I then waited to have a word with him after the game in his room but as usual, and unfortunately, he didn't turn up."

 

Allardyce and Benitez Part 2, February 2010

 

Benitez "It is the perfect model for all the kids and I'm sure all parents will enjoy this model and encourage their kids to be the same. The style of football I think Barcelona are thinking of copying."

 

Allardyce "He's got personal with it for many, many years now. That's why I don't like him and the feeling is probably mutual. I don't get personal with him; I get into him and under his skin, yes, but that's all part of the game."

 

When Valencia won the Penalty, March 2010

 

Benitez "We know about the influence of Sir Alex in everything I've seen three replays and the last one was suspicious. See the replay for yourself and how he fell to the ground."

 

Ferguson "I thought the penalty kick was a red card. There was no way Carragher could have got across to stop Valencia from shooting, absolutely no way. He is too quick for Carragher to get across. It was a penalty but the law of the game is that if you stop a player from a goalscoring opportunity it's a red card, but not today it wasn't."

 

Benitez "Just on Friday he [Ferguson] said something [about the referee]? Which Friday? This Friday or every Friday? Or every Friday of every year? When you have different opinions you have to express those different opinions. As you know, he [Ferguson] has his own opinion about everything."

 

Bruce, Benitez and Kenwyne Jones, March 2010

 

Bruce "Kenwyne Jones going on loan – I am sorry, but it was just a non-starter. But it kept going and going and going. Obviously, Rafa Benitez must have been getting the information from somewhere. I would have thought, out of decency, maybe he would have done the honourable thing and rung me if there was an interest."

 

Article 2 - best bits

 

Pity poor Roberto Martinez as he prepared to pick up the phone to call Alex Ferguson at the end of October. A few days previous, Spanish newspaper AS had quoted the Wigan manager talking about the Scot in a less than positive light. "At the moment, they have charged him for saying the referee was not good enough in terms of his fitness," said Martinez in reference to the Alan Wiley incident, "but the reality is that they have almost begged his forgiveness for fining him. They would have hammered anyone else. He has a lot of control in this country. He has his group of loyalists among other coaches – Steve Bruce, a former player of his, and Sam Allardyce, who thinks he will be his successor at Old Trafford, among others. On the other hand, there is only Benitez and they get at him from all sides."

 

As soon as the interview was reprinted in the British press, Martinez embarked on an about-turn not dissimilar to Gordon Brown's last week during the election campaign. The Spaniard took the defence that he had been misquoted during the interview and immediately began ringing the managers mentioned, including Benitez, to apologise. But how his stomach must have churned as he began to dial Ferguson's number. The poor chap.

 

What is most interesting in Martinez's back-tracking – the reporter at AS and the newspaper still stand by the story – is the first step he took in attempting to sort the entire mess out. Before issuing any public apology, or making any of those phone calls, Martinez contacted the League Managers Association (LMA), the managers' union close to Ferguson's heart. It was a sure sign that the Wigan manager was petrified of crossing the United manager, not to mention Allardyce and Bruce; at the age of just 36, Martinez clearly feared for his future managerial prospects now that he had got on the wrong side of English football's most feared cabal. Although he denied the words attributed to him in interview, his reaction once they were printed suggested that they weren't actually in conflict with his real beliefs.

 

Since his rant in January 2009, the Liverpool manager has been clearly targeted by Ferguson and his gang. You could say that he started it with his out-of-context and highly bizarre public attack on his United counterpart but since the afternoon of "facts", Benitez has been set upon by a swarm of bees intent on revenge because somebody has had the temerity to attack their queen.

 

Ferguson and Allardyce, in clear tandem, collared him for a harmless looking gesture that they interpreted as an insult to the Blackburn manager; Bruce had a pop this season over Liverpool's rumoured interest in Kenwyne Jones while just two months ago, Allardyce had another cut off Benitez and admitted that he just didn't like him. How Fergie must have laughed to himself as all this went on but there have been other, less visible, snubs.

 

At San Carlo's Italian restaurant in Manchester, about two weeks before Christmas, a select group of Premier League managers from the north-west met for dinner. Ferguson, needless to say, was present – you'd imagine two Premier League managers in the region aren't allowed to have so much as a coffee without his presence – as was David Moyes, Stoke City assistant manager Peter Reid, Allardyce and a little surprisingly, Martinez. Benitez, needless to say, wasn't invited to this breaking of bread but the presence of the Wigan manager was interesting. His apology was obviously accepted by the group but you could read into it another way too. In Martinez's disputed interview, he effectively marked himself out as a potential comrade of Benitez's, a rare ally. At Christmas, the other side of the argument put a brotherly arm around him and told him he didn't need to cross to the other side.

 

British football management, like British football itself, is full of idiosyncrasies. Take the traditional post-match handshake. When Arsene Wenger snubbed Mark Hughes at Eastlands back in August the Frenchman claimed it was no big deal. But it was because after 14 years in English football, Wenger knew precisely how sacred the handshake is. He knew how his snub of Hughes would be viewed by the media and in ignoring the then City manager, he created the precise impression of annoyance that he set out to achieve. But managers shaking hands after a game is very British. When asked about the Wenger-Hughes snub a few days after it happened, Carlo Ancelotti was bemused. The left eyebrow arched upwards in a manner that suggested everyone in English football must be mad. Watch today and you'll see. The only time he shakes hands with an opposing manager at full-time is if they manage to get between him and the tunnel before he disappears down it.

 

That is one little custom that Benitez has gotten used to but he hasn't helped his standing among Ferguson's cabal by not paying due homage to two other peculiarities of British management culture. The post-match drink in the office of the home manager is another age-old tradition, one that Jose Mourinho learned about pretty quickly. Benitez has complied on occasion but an incident with Allardyce last season shows a clear clash of cultures.

 

It was the afternoon when the Blackburn manager felt that the Spaniard had disrespected him with a hand gesture but that ambiguous movement of the arms alone wasn't the full reason for Allardyce's annoyance. After the game, when he popped up to Benitez's office to iron the matter out over a drink, the Liverpool manager wasn't there. "If he can't come into his own room and have a drink with his fellow manager, why would I want to pick up the phone and speak to him?" said Allardyce when asked whether a chat might solve their differences. "It's in the past now and I'll move on, but I just want to make everybody aware of what I consider to be a lack of respect for me, the Blackburn players and the football club as a whole."

 

The other eccentricity of the English management scene that Benitez has practically ignored during his five years at Anfield, is the time-honoured courtesy of ringing a manager to enquire about one of his players before declaring an interest in buying him. Benitez has, in the cases of Gareth Barry and Robbie Keane, had to issue groveling apologies in the past for not doing so and in March, Bruce had a cut off him for unsettling one of his strikers. "I would have thought, out of decency, maybe he would have done the honourable thing and rung me if there was an interest," said a clearly upset Sunderland manager.

 

This afternoon, however, Benitez the outsider has a chance to strike back. There has been a lot of conjecture this week about Liverpool's will to win against Chelsea and hand United their 19th title on a plate, as there has about Bruce's desire for his current side to beat the club he once captained. But little has been spoken of Benitez's desire to win the Premier League for Ferguson, a man he must surely despise. Having listened to the words of Liverpool players like Ian Rush and John Barnes, who played for the Reds against Blackburn on an afternoon similarly weighted with conflicting emotions, it's clear that anybody wearing a red jersey this afternoon will go about their job in as professional a manner as possible. And asked on Friday about his will to win, Benitez signalled a strong intent to pick up three points. But a crucial point in all of this is who Benitez actually picks to take the field today.

 

That's why, by taking the focus off the peculiarities of British football and concentrating on their continental equivalents instead, there's another way of looking at all of this. In Italy, for example, if a team with nothing to play for – and Liverpool really only have a minuscule chance of claiming fourth spot – faces a team going for the title or attempting to avoid relegation, it is seen as bad manners for the side with nothing to gain to go and actually attempt to win. In Spain, there is a different tradition. Towards the end of each season, people begin to talk of the maletin, a suitcase which makes an appearance at clubs with nothing to play for in their final games, so that they might try a little harder. The maletin is traditionally supposed to be stuffed with cigars, wines, fine foods and at times, cash, all provided for by interested third parties, not necessarily from clubs with something to lose.

 

"Suitcases are like Osama Bin Laden," said former Getafe player Mario Cotelo. "No one has ever seen them, but they exist." Crucially, nobody really sees anything wrong with them considering that the teams are being paid to win, not lose.

 

If Liverpool were a Spanish side, they'd have received their maletin by now but in the absence of that tradition, Benitez will have to think metaphorically instead. When it comes to beating Chelsea and handing the title to United, have the club, or indeed the manager or his cronies, ever put anything in his suitcase for him to enjoy? Have they, during Benitez's time at Anfield, ever helped Liverpool out in any way?

 

Truth is, the suitcase is bare. Today could well be Rafa's revenge.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Couldbe

[Swipe]

[John am Rhein]

Benitez deserves his revenge and Ferguson deserves an excruciatingly painful drawn out death

[Gomez]

some hatchet jobs today in the media because we failed to hand man u the title on a plate.

 

No comment about a clearly knackered team, that was as full strength as it could be being forced to play with two makeshift full-backs and suffering two injuries during the game. And we still only got beat 2-0 (man u themselves were beaten 2-1 at home to chelsea)

 

I personally would have had no problem with Rafa playing the kids, as he probably will this weekend, no matter what recourse that would have led too.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Gomez

[Nebraska Red]

some hatchet jobs today in the media because we failed to hand man u the title on a plate.

 

No comment about a clearly knackered team, that was as full strength as it could be being forced to play with two makeshift full-backs and suffering two injuries during the game. And we still only got beat 2-0 (man u themselves were beaten 2-1 at home to chelsea)

 

I personally would have had no problem with Rafa playing the kids, as he probably will this weekend, no matter what recourse that would have led too.

 

 

Slurgie should have a word with himself.

 

If he'd had any sense, he'd have rescheduled our game for Monday given we played on Thursday.

 

now if only a manager could complain about not getting help when domestic fixtures come close to important European games.

 

i presume we are being praised to the heavens in the London papers.