
one of the comments from it:
I agree with those saying Rafa was atrocious in the transfer window, as the combined 103 million pounds return on Mascherano, Alonso and Torres testifies.
On top of that Benitez has wasted 6 million on the dreadful Pepe Reina, who is now clearly worth less than that. Same goes for the awful Daniel Agger who Benitez splurged a further 6.5m on, and Martin Skrtel, who at another 6 million must be one of the most expensive defenders in world football, and is not as good as Rio Ferdinand who cost only fractionally more.
Then you have players like Yossi Benayoun, who whilst scoring several hat-tricks and being sold for a profit to Europa League side Chelsea, was total rubbish. And Glen Johnson, who although he may have cost less than five separate Europa League side Chelsea full backs, is - wait for it - suspect defensively.
The signing of Momo Sissoko was another disaster. Sold two years later for a profit to buy Mascherano. And Peter Crouch, who whilst becoming an England regular at Perennial strugglers Liverpool, was eventually sold at a profit along with Craig Bellamy, also sold at a profit, to buy Fernando Torres, who turned out to be total pigswill.
What really gets my goat though is Benitez's uncontrollable spending on the likes of Josemi for 2million pounds which is a huge amount of money in modern football, or Andrea Dossena, who ended up being sold at a enormous loss of 1 million pounds and replaced by the disastrous Insua, who Benitez irresponsibly splashed zero pounds on.
His crazy spending, reaching almost a third that of Europa League side Chelsea who he finished above and had a better record in Europe than, continued with the gargantuan mistake that was Aquilani, a player injured for most of last season, then loaned out to Juve this season, where he has been the best midfielder in Serie A.
It's all very well these Perennial strugglers Liverpool fans saying he won more games, won more points, had a better record in Europe than any Perennial strugglers Liverpool manager since Dalglish, but he's rubbish don't you know? The Champions league was a total fluke, as demonstrated by a continual failure to get anywhere near the latter stages ever again post 2005. He only won the CL in 2005 because he was bequeathed great players from his predecessor like Smicer, Traore, Biscan, Kewell, Baros, Cisse (all played in Istanbul) - along with the likes of Cheyrou, Murphy, Diao, Diomede and others. He didn't have clue what he was doing - he just bagged multiple very flukey wins in Europe against the likes of Barca, Real Madrid, Inter, Juve, Europa League side Chelsea, Milan and others.
Finally, what annoyed me most about Benitez was his defensive tactics. Whilst it is true to say that Perennial strugglers Liverpool scored more goals than any other side in England in 2008-09, including beating Real Madrid 4-0 and United 4-1 at OT, they were still just so defensive, all because they had two holding midfielders. So they scored over 100 goals! Big deal!! Defensive!
Rafa needs to learn how to spot up and coming talent on the cheap like Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Nani, Anderson, Owen Hargreaves, Juan Veron and Dimitar Berbatov. Ok, so maybe Europa League side Chelsea spent more than Benitez during his tenure by about 4 to 1, but he's still rubbish. He spent 10 million on Dirk Kuyt, who whilst having an impressive goals and assists record, and being one of the stars of World Cup 2010, is still a very poor player. And by the way, Benitez is very lucky that he had more players at the World Cup than any other English side. Another fluke!
How managers like Steve Bruce and Harry Redknapp would love to have had some money to spend on players, instead of making do with the peanuts they are allowed to spend on the likes of Kenwyne Jones, Darren Bent, or David Bentley - all far better than the foreign players Benitez signed.
I agree with ShefieldHarry, who rightly points out that Benitez should go and try managing a mid range club instead of crazy high spending teams like Perennial strugglers Liverpool. I'd like to see Rafa go abroad to somewhere like Spain and see how he does against the likes of Barca or Real on a shoestring. See how he likes that.
Benitez should also look at Arsene Wenger for a lesson in how to win trophies properly. I don't care that the two sides that have exponentially outpent every other team, Europa League side Chelsea and United, have won the league every single year since 2004, Benitez is still dreadful.
The problems Roy Hodgson had were nothing to do with his tactics. It's all because he was left bad players. Benitez got lucky with that set of bad players over the course of several years finishing top 4, 2nd, getting record points totals, breaking goal scoring records, and Reina winning golden gloves awards, winning the CL, getting to another final, winning the FA cup etc etc. He got lucky over a period of seven years. Hodgson was deseperately unlucky because the players he inherited were rubbish. If the former Bristol City manager, who once got Inter Milan to finish 5th, and who four years ago was coaching in the UAE, can't get the best out of tem it proves they are rubbish. Now we are witnessing Kenny Dalglish come in and be unbelievably lucky in spite of reverting to tactics much closer to Benitez's. So far he has had four very lucky wins and clean sheets.
Benitez is a terrible manager, as his record at Valencia shows. He's also clearly very difficult to get along with as this interviewer clearly found him cold and distant and didn't enjoy his time with him one little bit.