Is Rafa still right man for Liverpool?

Liverpool suffered another damaging defeat at the weekend, knocked out of the FA Cup in front of a disbelieving Anfield faithful by mighty Barnsley of the Coca-Cola Championship.

The Merseyside giants currently sit 19 points adrift of Arsenal, the leaders, in the Barclays Premier League and face Inter Milan at home on Tuesday night in the first knockout round of the Champions League.

Previously, all had seemed to be sweetness and light at Anfield, with the picture being painted of a band of loyal supporters united behind their manager and opposed to any upheaval at the hands of the club's interfering American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jnr.

But is that still the case now? What do you think, Liverpool fans - are you still convinced that Snr Benitez is the right man for the job.

Please leave your comments below and vote in our poll.

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Comments

[Graham Pascoe]

The problem we have at Liverpool is we are to far behind the other 3 teams, in terms of players and money. I think Rafa bought really well this summer the likes of Torres, Babel, Lucus and Yossi all improved the team, i think most people would agree.

But Mufc in the same summer bought Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves and Tevez then unless you spend 50-60 million in one summer (like Chelsea in Romans first year) you will never catch them.

One of the big issues is the stadium as well which is key to everything in my view. We must get that built asap because that is why MUFC have been so far ahead for so long. When you make 2-3 million a game you have a clear advantage in the transfer market.

The only way to catch them is do it is though your youth team, this is why Arsenal have come back so strong this season, cause they have invested in youth many years ago and now they are reaping the rewards. Rafa has bought some 20 youngsters in the last two seasons and i think that a couple of these will feature in the next few seasons and that could make the difference.

[Chris Holmes]

Hello Liverpool. Wake up. so you are having a bad season. i am a Chester City fan. we live through those. Rafa should be given the time and space to work. To often a string of bad results see the manager sacked. You are through to the knock out stage of the CL and your entire season rests on this?? Poppycock anf rubbish. You have won the CL under this guy and an FA and a CC. so you dont have the league in your cabinet. You and most of the Premiership lads.

[LizSara]

Barnsley Jason, Barnsley

[Jason]

There is no doubting Rafa's quality as a manager. And I wish that we would stop using the word rotation. The media have latched on to this because both Rafa and rotation start with an R. Rolls of the tounge better than Wenger's or Fergie's rotation. All managers know that the players cannot play the 65-69 games that make up a successful season. This is just a fact. And with a match against Barnsley (no disrespect to them) just 3 days before a make or break CL game, Gerrard and half the team should have been given a chance to rest and prepare for tonight's game. It is not as if they take turns to miss a game, as the term rotation implies!

I used to think that he was the man for Liverpool. Now, I don't. From an outsiders perspective, some recent decisions and selections don't appear to follow any logic. Why he took off Babel on the weekend is one - he was clearly posing the biggest threat to Burnley and should have been moved into more forward position by taking off one of the strikers (talent like his wasted on the wing - like Henry at Juventus). Also earlier in the season when he rested Torres for a premier league match (against Birmingham i think?) and then played him midweek in a pointless Carling Cup match. Shouldn't it have been the other way round? Also why play Hyypia against Burnley? We know he struggles to recover in time for midweek games. Does that mean the new guy (Skytl??) will play against inter? If so, then he should have also played on the weekend to help him and Carragher to get more experience playing with each other. Pennant's width would have troubled Burnley, Yossi kept coming inside and crowded up the area too much - playing right into their hands.

These are just some examples, so you have to question Rafa's decision making now. Any decision made should communicate a clear message. Rafa's decisions are not doing this anymore; they only communicate his indecisiveness...when the balls at his feet, he doesn't know which way the goal is either...and the team matches his performance.

[Phil J Noonan]

Dennis Riley said : "Shouldn't you be supporting Newcastle?"

No, I should be supporting my hometown team that I have supported for the last 40 years. The team I am entitled to have an opinion on and should feel free to voice that opinion on. With an attitude like yours, I`d probably be better served following Chelsea. Trophies are wonderful, but great team spirit, confidence, self assuredness under pressure, and good football are FAR more important on a week in week out basis. You have your opinions, I have mine.

Dave said :
"The problem is Liverpool's spoilt brat fans. They aren't supporters, they're mostly glory hunters who have no connection to Liverpool, merely attaching themselves to the club for some pitiful reflected glory. Now that Liverpool are a source of embarrassment rather than bragging rights, their little egos can't take it and the toys come out of the pram. Hence pathetic comments like those of Phil J Noonan."

This comment was so laughable I almost choked on my coffee.
No connection to Liverpool?
Oh, you mean like Rafa`a connection? based on huge weekly paychecques and liable to walk out the door at the drop of a hat?
My connection to MY team is based around years of growing up paying to get in the "boy`s pen" and then clambering up the linked fence to get into the kop and sit with my legs dangling over the white wall in the right hand corner. My connection to the club is spending my formative years being alienated by my family who are all Everton supporters. My connection to the club is going the half mile from my school in Breck Rd South at lunch times eating a "docker" from Fong`s chippy and chatting to the likes of Jimmy Case, Joey Jones, Tommy smith, Thommo, and Phil Neal.
My connection to the club is living in Castlewood road less than a mile from the ground and on the days I couldnt get a ticket for a home game, sitting in the loft space with the windows flung wide to hear that amazing anfield roar fill the air.

My "ego" can take losses... it can take poor seasons and lack of silverware.. what it cant take is money-grubbing idiots who lose the plot and have no sense of pride in the history of the club. It sickens me to watch the numerous players we`ve had over the last 10 years who DONT touch the "this is Anfield" sign as they head onto the pitch, and it bothers me when so called supporters blindly bow down to a manager who has zero connection to the plot, let alone the club.
Minor rotational policy is essential nowadays, but picking a team using a blindfold and a pin just because you can is "Pathetic".
The same as blinkered and blind fans who didnt get the "Emperor`s new clothes" story by Hans Christian Anderson is pathetic.

Now, if you gentleman will excuse me, I have a club to love and follow. Might I suggest you remove your Rafa-tinted glasses for a brief moment and "see" whats as plain as the nose on your sneering faces? Maybe then, we can get a manager who can make us proud again.

[Eagor]

I have been reading your comments with a certain amount of interest and as an Everton fan I suggest that you keep Benitez within the city boundaries for as long as humanly possible!

[dave]

The problem is Liverpool's spoilt brat fans. They aren't supporters, they're mostly glory hunters who have no connection to Liverpool, merely attaching themselves to the club for some pitiful reflected glory. Now that Liverpool are a source of embarrassment rather than bragging rights, their little egos can't take it and the toys come out of the pram. Hence pathetic comments like those of Phil J Noonan.

[Dennis Riley]

So Phil Noonan - you have been calling for Rafa's head for the last two years?
What?
You decided he wasn't good after just two full seasons in which he had taken Liverpool to a Carling Cup Final, won the European Cup and also the FA Cup?
Shouldn't you be supporting Newcastle?

[Chris]

Rafa is a great coach.
This is his fourth season at liverpool. He has brought us 2 champions league finals. 1 a victory.
1 champions league in 3 years and you guys are complaining.
Where was chelsea and man U in the final?
Rafa works with what he has got and does well in my opinion.
So he lost to barnsley. Stuff happens.
What would you rather win FA Cup or Champions league.
Liverpool does not have resources of Man U and arsenal. Bcos of ground size. Chelsea is propped up by Billionaire and have a glut of bought talent. We do need a bigger squad with more quality. This is why we have struggled to get higher than 4th place.
Im sure all will be forgiven if we win the champs league and we get 4th place.
So we finish 4th with Rafa but we get to chaps league final. If we get another coach and spend a heap we might get 3rd and do crap in champions league.
Careful what you wish for I say

[Peter Jorgensen]

If Rafa Benitez leaves, then Liverpool will certainly walk alone.

[Sam Muthusamy]

I think Rafael Benitez should go now. I have been following LFC since 1979. We never had such a dismal performance and mediocre style of play even during Souness days. I honestly do not think managers away from these shores would understand the nature of the beast.
We always played a best team and never underestimated opponents. Winning is a habit and you cannot bring it back by constantly chopping & changing in the name of keeping players fresh. OK we have many fresh players and what are they going to play for?
Clearly Messers Moore & Parry under estimated Mr O'Neil's ability to manage a club like LFC and also picked wrong people to sell their shares.
Obviously we as a club would have hit the bottom before we can climb. I hope now we have done that.

[Istvan Kozma]

I have watched and supported Liverpool for well over 17 years, and we still have the same old problem of reaching the level of Manchester United and Arsenal.

I can tell you that under Roy Evans, Gérard Houllier and Rafa Benitez we have threatened to win a league title, but we always hit a psychological ‘brick wall’ to get to the level to win the Premiership, like the likes of Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea have done. We had a good enough team in the mid-90s under Roy Evans, with players such as Fowler, Redknapp, Berger, McManaman and Collymore to win the league, at least once, but when it came for the players to be counted, they always came up short, one such occasion was a match against Manchester United, when he lost 3-1, with Beckham and Andy Cole scoring for them, and there were many more.

The same can be said of Houllier’s team that first went forward, and then took 10 steps back. Rafa had to build a whole new team, but now most of the players are ‘his’. If we were under the old chairman Rafa would have got another season, but I think his time as come. The problem is, where do we go from here. The player’s mentality at the club has to change, we need more winners like Carragher, Gerrard and Torres, and less of Voronin, Babel and Pennant.

Benitez’s rotation this season has also a factor, he did not need to tinkering as much as he has done, while seeing his right hand man Paco Ayesteran leaving clearly affected the team and the coach.

If he goes, I say thank you Rafa for the good times, but a long-term strategy and plan has to be brought in at the club. We have not challenged for the league since the days under Roy Evans, and that is just not good enough for Liverpool Football Club.

[Krishna]

When Rafa took off Babel in the Bansley game, that was the last straw for me. Babel who was playing his heart out creating chances, needed to stay in the game.But the smartalec Rafa did not think so. How many times has he blundered like that. Doesn't he have the commonsense to see how managers like Alex Ferguson(I don't like him, neither his MU)build teams up? In the Eighties it was famously mentioned in every game, "You can never write Liverpool off" And the Red lived up to that expectation. To think in retrospective, even Hullier
did better than this stubborn rotater. Nothing will come of Liverpool, if the present fiasco is let to exist. Sack Benitez.

[Eduardo Pierce]

Only Liverpool fans are as deluded as to even have to ask the question.

[abritincanada]

Liverpool need to rethink their strategy from the ground up.
1) A less cautious manager.
2) Sell Gerrard. As great a player as he is the plan of building a team around him has failed (as it did for England).
3) A smaller pool of first team players but of greater committment and higher quality.

[ARAVIND]

I think the club is being run badly in the last few months.

Rafa: He is a decent manager with a good CV. His problems appear to be his ego and stubborn attitude. Remember, he is the one who started this very un-liverpool like public outbursts. Hicks responded to it in a disgraceful way as well. His rotations have cost us dearly. If we were to be satisfied with being a great european team but only top 3-4 in england then he is the man. I am sure like me, my fellow reds are craving for the english title. His buys have been mediocre. Voronin for gods sake is not even championship quality.Kuyt has good work rate but he is supposed to score goals not just run around the pitch like a horse. Rafa is a good manager but I dont think he is the right man for the job at this great club.

Owners: I understand they are in for business and thats what they do. But had they known a little more about this great club's history and glory they would felt embarassed at the way they run it. They see liverpool just as a 'franchise' without being aware there is much more soul and heart to football in this country. I have a feeling DIC are in for the business as well. But they come from the part of the world where football is a passion and english clubs are worshipped. Irrespective of who owns the club, they have to understand the soul of this massive club and basic principles of how to run it.

I think Rafa's time is up here and he needs to go!

[Phil J Noonan]

It isn`t easy being a Liverpool supporter these days.
Sure, we are still a "Named" side that garners enough opinion from all football fans, despite current form, and many years of "top 4 status", but the respect is dwindling to a meagre trickle.
Respect. That is a huge word in sport.
Despite the usual sniping and bickering between devoted fans of different clubs, Liverpool always had that certaing "something" that engendered respect.
Not so much these days. If we can ship two goals agains Havant, and lose to Barnsley, any side, and I do mean ANY side, can look towards Anfield and believe they have a chance. Add to that the ridicule factor, and respect seems to be leeching away by the minute.
Of course, the finger pointing is raging.
"It`s all the fault of those damn Yanks" .... "Americans OUT!"...
Personally I believe that has played a part in the psychological wellbeing of the players and club and even manager.
But I`m sorry , I lay the blame firmly at the feet of one man.
Rafa.
Too much praise was laid at his feet for our 5th European cup win. How quickly we forget the travesty of those first 45 minutes.
It was the players who won that cup, many of which were kicked into touch within weeks..long before their medals had gathered the first specks of dust and tarnish.
Rafa , in my own humble opinion, is not, was not, and never will be, a good manager at Liverpool.
His man management skills are zero.
I could cite a thousand reasons as to why I believe this, but instead, I`ll simply say...
Peter Crouch.
Crouchy is no Torres, he is no Ronaldo... he is no Owen, or Rush, but is a lot like Aldridge.
He was scoring winners left right and centre for club and country and found himself, for god knows whatever reason, polishing the bench with his boney butt cheeks, at the worst possible moment for the club.
Benitez took a m an at the absolute pinnacle of his game and career, and in effect said. "Thanks, but no thanks, I want someone better"
I could write for hours on this subject, but i wont.
I love my club, my team, my history... and right now they embarrass me.
I blame Benitez for all of that, and have called for his head for the last 2 years.
Go, now please. Youve made alot of money, enjoyed the kudos that the players gave you, now go before you destroy whats left.

[Sola Aiyepeku]

I have been a fan for 30 years and have only experienced this level of dillusionment when Souness was in charge; and he took us nowhere! Since Rafa won us the 2005 Champions Lge title on a shoe-string till now has been a period spent yoyo-ing between promising and sliding into ABYSMAL!

What we have wanted since 1990 is the Premiership and AFTER watching us beat Derby 6-0, i knew Rafa couldnt get us there. All our goals bar 1 were off defensive errors!
Why? Simply because he has stubbornly refused to adopt the required mentality for winning the title! He cannot win it playing continentally (i.e. over-cautiously and rotating senselessly) but by formulating our own unique brand of Attacking Football like Man U, Arsenal and (yes) Chelsea do!
We need a fresh start and he should go....i wish he would before we played Inter but 'they say' it wouldn't make sense ... (that just shows you how fed up i am with him)! He can NEVER win the Premiership.

[Lee]

Personally i think Pako Ayesteran, Benitez' right hand man who left earlier in the seaon after disagreements, had much more of an influence on first team affairs than was initially purported by the club.

It was clear he understood the tactical side of the game as comprehensively as Benitez, and was credited with a vital role in the construction of the Valencia side that romped to the La Liga without the need for wholesale transfers. Chelsea, Manchester United and other members of Europe's elite appreciated as much, trying to snap the coach up following his departure from Anfield only for Liverpool to enforce the 12 months gardening leave in his contract, preventing him from joining a rival.

At Liverpool, he was a key link between the players and Benitez. A mediator. Evidenced by Xabi Alonso, among others, who in an interview following the Spaniards departure confirmed life without Pako would be "different". How right he was. Faltering league form followed by a sharp Carling Cup exit, a series of terrible FA Cup displays and another topsy-turvy Champions League campaign.

We might be right to point the finger at Benitez, but maybe not for persistent rotation, or even his quizzical team selections. Perhaps rather, in firing Pako Ayesteran he also blew away Liverpool's ambitions for the season.

[Colin]

Having a rotation policy is fine, if it is means an extended run in multiple competitions. Unfortunately we don't have this (again) - so the policy has failed (again).

Rafa should start with his best team for every game and get rid of some of the dross that have proven they're not good enough to step-up when needed. My guess is he can't and won't change his approach, so I'm afraid his days at the club are numbered.

[declan]

Who to blame for Liverpool's situation? Rafa or the Americans?

Its easy to blame the Americans as, well... no one likes really likes yanks. Also their treatment of Rafa and the way they managed the fall out was a disgrace. It damaged the confidence of the players and the manager alike and it showed. It was bad management from the yanks and that's it. No arguments.

However, they have come up with substantial money for new players - even $17 million for Mascherano in a time when things are going badly and they doubt Benitez. And they have managed to design and fund a world class stadium in a time of global financial uncertainty. Its not their fault that they found it hard to refinance the loan.

Its tough to do as an appreciative supporter but you have to look at Rafa.

He never won the dressing room and he doesn't seem to be able to inspire players and get the best out of them.

he's cold and the players don't seem to respond to him.

Then his tactics. So many changes don't foster fluidity and consitency. Everyone knows that.

The clincher for me though was the loss of Paco Ayesteran. Apparently his relationship with the players was fantastic and if you look at the results - we started to drop and play badly when we lost him.

In four years we haven't moved up the table and we have spent a fortune. unfortunately - some of it on sub-standard players; Kuyt, pennant, Leto, Voronin.

surely enough is enough and he has to go.