Woy Hodgson Versus Rafael Benitez

Noah and the Bale wrote:During Rafa's entire reign, he signed three truly successful, top class, long term(ish) players - Alonso, Reina, Torres.

Noah and the Bale wrote:During Rafa's entire reign, he signed three truly successful, top class, long term(ish) players - Alonso, Reina, Torres.

Question - how many signings in total did Rafa make whilst at the club? I can remember Riera, Gonzalez, Pennant, Josemi, Antonio Nunez, Morientes, Kromkamp, Bellamy, Keane, Babel, Dossena, Voronin, Pellegrino, plus a million and one youngsters like Du Plessis, and the Krisztian Nemeth. Anymore that anyone else can think of, would be interested to write up a list, because I'm pretty sure Rafa was one of the worst managers EVER in terms of quality player hit ratio

Noah and the Bale wrote:During Rafa's entire reign, he signed three truly successful, top class, long term(ish) players - Alonso, Reina, Torres.

Question - how many signings in total did Rafa make whilst at the club? I can remember Riera, Gonzalez, Pennant, Josemi, Antonio Nunez, Morientes, Kromkamp, Bellamy, Keane, Babel, Dossena, Voronin, Pellegrino, plus a million and one youngsters like Du Plessis, and the Krisztian Nemeth. Anymore that anyone else can think of, would be interested to write up a list, because I'm pretty sure Rafa was one of the worst managers EVER in terms of quality player hit ratio

Ballast wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1221975/Rafa-Benitezs-229m-spending-spree-The-76-players-signed-Liverpool-managers-reign.html

Six wrote:

Noah and the Bale wrote:During Rafa's entire reign, he signed three truly successful, top class, long term(ish) players - Alonso, Reina, Torres.

Question - how many signings in total did Rafa make whilst at the club? I can remember Riera, Gonzalez, Pennant, Josemi, Antonio Nunez, Morientes, Kromkamp, Bellamy, Keane, Babel, Dossena, Voronin, Pellegrino, plus a million and one youngsters like Du Plessis, and the Krisztian Nemeth. Anymore that anyone else can think of, would be interested to write up a list, because I'm pretty sure Rafa was one of the worst managers EVER in terms of quality player hit ratio

Who cares, he took us from UEFA Cup level to no.1 rated in the CL. And in a stronger league than Houllier had to deal with.

I don't get the obsession with Rafa, threads like this are just fucking tedious now.

S4P wrote:

Ballast wrote:

Pierre Littbarski wrote:You are absolutely right about those players but we often hear in England how Benitez won CL with Houllier's team but you never hear about Mourinho winning with Ranieri's team.

Imagine inheriting a team with consecutive 2nd place finishes and a CL semi place - then being given the sort of money where you can buy Paulo Ferreira for £12m!

Mourinho signed Carvalho, Essien and Drogba, and that is what made the key difference between a very good Ranieri side and an outstanding Mourinho side. It wasn't Ranieri's squad in the same way as the 2005 CL winning Liverpool squad was Houllier's.

A couple of players called Arjen Robben and Petr Cech also arrived in the summer of 2004.

Ferreira was (incredibly) regarded as one of the best right-backs in the world at the time, having played there consistently for the Champions League winners and the Euro 2004 runners-up.

The team Benitez inherited certainly wasn't Champions League winning quality, but it had finished 2nd, 5th and 4th in its 3 previous seasons.

Imagine having the sort of money where you can buy Aquilani for £20m (to put his feet up on the bench for most of the season), Ryan Babel for £12m, Robbie Keane for £19m and Glen Johnson for £17m.

Luis wrote:Mind you Saints has ventured onto football again so I'm not surprised