Benitez .... prick

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

As an aside, have a look out on the CL highlights for the second half tackle on Celtic's (and one-time Wanderers target) Scott Brown tonight. Shocker!

Nasty sly bastard of a challenge, that. Can Uefa extend his statutory ban, as long as the ref includes it in his report?

[hisroyalgingerness]

Babel's second goal was an absolute joke, as was Stevie G's deflected shot.

As for the other six, Besiktas's defence make Cid seem like Paolo Maldini.

not a patch on the side we played

[bobo the clown]

Back to Benitez being a prick ... it appears he's in trouble at Liverpool and that he'd condescend to being England manager as a contrast !!

Well, contrast this ..... "Fck-off you fat Spanish prick".

========================
It seems the huge spend he did in the summer is being viewed by Hicks & Gillette as having had limited success. In my view that's more down to his rotation policy and him having the motivational prowess & personal charisma of a flatulent gopher, rather than having bad players.

At a press conference yesterday

Benitez used the answer "I am focused on training and coaching my team" a number of times in response to a series of questions on various issues.

So, he wants more money, for more players ... shipping out those who've failed ... most of whom he brought in ... however the owners are not impressed ...

Benitez is thought to have already started making plans for the January transfer window, but the club's American owners have issued a statement suggesting that they are not thinking that far ahead at the moment.

"There are some very important games coming up in the next couple of weeks and all of us need to focus on winning those games and getting the best out of the players we already had at the club," said the statement.

"We will leave any talk of buying or selling players until we come across to Liverpool in December and sit down with the manager then."

"not thinking that far ahead" .... followed by him getting into a sulk ... then making a barely disguised plea to other employers to come looking for him.

That spells HOUSE FOR SALE somewhere posh on the Wirral in my book.

Prick.

[Zulus Thousand of em]

Having crossed the two wealthy Yank owners I would suggest that the fat Spanish waiter is now, officially, toast. Tee hee!

[warthog]

Having crossed the two wealthy Yank owners I would suggest that the fat Spanish waiter is now, officially, toast. Tee hee!

Oh, yes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 108721.stm

[CrazyHorse]

Having crossed the two wealthy Yank owners I would suggest that the fat Spanish waiter is now, officially, toast. Tee hee!

Oh, yes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 108721.stm

Love it.

[Bruce Rioja]

Having crossed the two wealthy Yank owners I would suggest that the fat Spanish waiter is now, officially, toast. Tee hee!

Apparently he's been bleating on about them not understanding the nature of the transfer window. Maybe not, Max, but I'm sure that two wealthy businesmen do understand the spunking of £40m in return for nothing. Time to gooooo, time to gooooo, time to goo-o-o-o-oooo!

[warthog]

Fatty gone?

http://www.lfconline.com/news/loadnews. ... &id=364504

Hmmm...

[Mar]

Benitez has spent enough already anyway. Heck the signing of Crouch and Bellamy seem like complete wastes now. I wouldn't be surprised if he was told to sell up before he buys up. Can't have people in the back ground doing handfuls of games while he rotates the squad.

[Batman]

Just had the same thing sent to me via text from two Anfield STHs

fingers crossed!

[Worthy4England]

Perfect opportunity for Allardyce to move back nearer home then....

[warthog]

Perfect opportunity for Allardyce to move back nearer home then....

And he wouldn't even have to change Liverpool's style of play.

[blurred]

Benitez has spent enough already anyway. Heck the signing of Crouch and Bellamy seem like complete wastes now. I wouldn't be surprised if he was told to sell up before he buys up. Can't have people in the back ground doing handfuls of games while he rotates the squad.

Would that be Crouch the most prolific English striker in the last two years, or Bellamy a player that he made a profit on in 12 months despite not really succeeding (although playing vital parts in games like Barcelona away)? Absolute garbage. He'll probably still make money on Crouch when he goes, too. Everyone seems to love him cos he scores for England.

[blurred]

Apparently he's been bleating on about them not understanding the nature of the transfer window. Maybe not, Max, but I'm sure that two wealthy businesmen do understand the spunking of £40m in return for nothing. Time to gooooo, time to gooooo, time to goo-o-o-o-oooo!

In return for nothing? Apart from an unbeaten start to the Premiership and still well within our grasp of qualifying for the latter stages of the Champions League, along with progressing tidily into the quarter finals of the Carling Cup? Barring the poor result at home to Marseille there's not a great deal to complain about. I suppose Man United are going to sack Ferguson because they're not top and in the same position as Liverpool? It's an absolute load of bollocks.

[CrazyHorse]

Apparently he's been bleating on about them not understanding the nature of the transfer window. Maybe not, Max, but I'm sure that two wealthy businesmen do understand the spunking of £40m in return for nothing. Time to gooooo, time to gooooo, time to goo-o-o-o-oooo!

In return for nothing? Apart from an unbeaten start to the Premiership and still well within our grasp of qualifying for the latter stages of the Champions League, along with progressing tidily into the quarter finals of the Carling Cup? Barring the poor result at home to Marseille there's not a great deal to complain about. I suppose Man United are going to sack Ferguson because they're not top and in the same position as Liverpool? It's an absolute load of bollocks.

You'd have had all those things had Benitez NOT spent a single penny. Therefore as Bruce says it is £40mil in return for nothing.

[blurred]

You'd have had all those things had Benitez NOT spent a single penny. Therefore as Bruce says it is £40mil in return for nothing.

I don't think we would - we're having our best Premiership start for goodness knows how many years, certainly the best one we've had under Rafa. We'll never know what we'd've had if we hadn't brought in the players we have. In the simple sense of 'take away the goals that the new players have scored' that leaves us:

Not beating Toulouse 1-0 away (Voronin)
Losing at home to Chelsea 1-0 (Torres)
Not scoring any away to Reading in the Carling Cup (Benayoun, Torres x3)
Drawing away at Wigan instead of winning (Benayoun)
Losing 2-0 at home to Spurs (Voronin, Torres)
Not winning the penalty against the Blueshite (Lucas)
Not getting the first goal against Fulham, and thus possibly drawing 0-0 (Torres)

There's plenty of contributions from the new guys, there, not including games where they've scored or contributed assists that we've won comfortably (Besiktas, Derby, Sunderland, etc) and Torres is fast looking like an excellent player (ran Newcastle ragged on Saturday, even though I appreciate that that's pretty easy). The fact remains that we had to replace players who were leaving, and that's been done with better players in my opinion. We didn't get the centre back we needed in the summer, but apart from that I'm pretty satisfied with Rafa's dealings. And it's easy to say he's spunked £40m, but he recouped a great deal of that, and his summer spending this year wasn't a great deal greater than any of Liverpool's spending in the last few years.

[Bruce Rioja]

Apparently he's been bleating on about them not understanding the nature of the transfer window. Maybe not, Max, but I'm sure that two wealthy businesmen do understand the spunking of £40m in return for nothing. Time to gooooo, time to gooooo, time to goo-o-o-o-oooo!

In return for nothing? Apart from an unbeaten start to the Premiership and still well within our grasp of qualifying for the latter stages of the Champions League, along with progressing tidily into the quarter finals of the Carling Cup? Barring the poor result at home to Marseille there's not a great deal to complain about. I suppose Man United are going to sack Ferguson because they're not top and in the same position as Liverpool? It's an absolute load of bollocks.

You'd have had all those things had Benitez NOT spent a single penny. Therefore as Bruce says it is £40mil in return for nothing.

Exactly my point, Hoss. Glad to see that someone could see it.

[BWFC_Insane]

You'd have had all those things had Benitez NOT spent a single penny. Therefore as Bruce says it is £40mil in return for nothing.

I don't think we would - we're having our best Premiership start for goodness knows how many years, certainly the best one we've had under Rafa. We'll never know what we'd've had if we hadn't brought in the players we have. In the simple sense of 'take away the goals that the new players have scored' that leaves us:

Not beating Toulouse 1-0 away (Voronin)
Losing at home to Chelsea 1-0 (Torres)
Not scoring any away to Reading in the Carling Cup (Benayoun, Torres x3)
Drawing away at Wigan instead of winning (Benayoun)
Losing 2-0 at home to Spurs (Voronin, Torres)
Not winning the penalty against the Blueshite (Lucas)
Not getting the first goal against Fulham, and thus possibly drawing 0-0 (Torres)

There's plenty of contributions from the new guys, there, not including games where they've scored or contributed assists that we've won comfortably (Besiktas, Derby, Sunderland, etc) and Torres is fast looking like an excellent player (ran Newcastle ragged on Saturday, even though I appreciate that that's pretty easy). The fact remains that we had to replace players who were leaving, and that's been done with better players in my opinion. We didn't get the centre back we needed in the summer, but apart from that I'm pretty satisfied with Rafa's dealings. And it's easy to say he's spunked £40m, but he recouped a great deal of that, and his summer spending this year wasn't a great deal greater than any of Liverpool's spending in the last few years.

What simplistic analysis.

40M spent and to the neutral viewer you look at best marginally better than last year.

However, I think you have some good players but the right team isn't necessarily picked.

Crouch and Torres look the natural front pair to me.

But you have to remember that for the money Rafa spent you may well expect more in terms of performance than we've seen so far.

[blurred]

What simplistic analysis.

Well it sort of had to be - one can only speculate as to what we'd've achieved with last year's squad, I thought I'd just point out some key contributions that new signings had made.

40M spent and to the neutral viewer you look at best marginally better than last year.

Yes, but that's gross and not net. Since he came to Liverpool Benitez has spent somewhere in the region of £62m NET, which if you split into the 4 summers that he's been here comes to £15.5m per year. For a club of Liverpool's stature/income/whatever that's not exactly breaking the bank, especially when you factor in two long Champions League runs and the revenue that develops.

To put it another way, since Abramovich has been in charge at Chelsea, they have spent more than Liverpool's average annual spend on 9 players by themselves. (Shevchenko, Duff, Mutu, Crespo, Makalele, Drogba, Carvalho, SWP and Essien). You could also make a case the £5m + Gallas is above that mark, too, that they paid for Cole, and Veron for £15m falls just shy of that mark.

That is what we have to compete with, and I'd say that we're making a pretty good fist of it. And no, I'm not doing a 'oh poor woe is us, only able to spend £15m a year' thing, it's just the nature of our competition. For us to get above Chelsea (and United for that matter) would require us to punch above our transfer budget in comparison to the sums of money that they can spend, and have been spending for 5 years or more ahead of us, in the same way that for Bolton to leapfrog the likes of Spurs into the UEFA places requires the same of you.

Crouch and Torres look the natural front pair to me.

Horses for courses, though, isn't it? Not saying you're wrong, but it depends on the team we're playing and a million other factors.

But you have to remember that for the money Rafa spent you may well expect more in terms of performance than we've seen so far.

In terms of performance or in terms of results? Because in terms of results we're seeing his best start to a Premiership season in his 4th year here, which would seem to suggest to me that we are seeing the fruits of a squad building process that can take years. Wenger didn't hit it off right away at Arsenal, it took Fergie years to get it going at United. Any talk of getting rid of Rafa is, in my mind, farcical.

[BWFC_Insane]

I'm not suggesting they sack Benitez, although if I was Hicks or Gillett I'd be might unhappy that a manager was questioning whether he'd have money to spend when he's spent as much as Benitez has.

Don't care what you say 62M is a lot over 4 seasons to have spent net.

Even for a club of Liverpools standing.

Presumably the future spending Rafa wants is funded from the owners pockets. However, 2 points, one they're building a new ground so perhaps some sacrifices need to be made, two the situation with credit in America has changed their plans and they are now more cautious when borrowing money and increasing the clubs debt.

If Rafa can't accept these then perhaps he should be shunted out.