When are blatantly pro-Liverpool FC writers going to stop using tired clichés to back up their tenuous arguments and start telling the truth about the way things really are?
Paul Tomkins is a case in point: In his latest article, he castigates Jamie Redknapp for having the temerity to suggest that Liverpool would not win the title under Rafael Benitez due to his incessant rotation policy.
To many Liverpool fans who prefer to see things the way they really are, Redknapp merely stated the obvious truth.
The thing that strikes me about pro-Liverpool writers is the way they always use the same tedious excuses to back up their arguments. For example, if the topic is whether or not Steven Gerrard is world class or a good captain, you can guarantee that the response will include any or all of the following:
1. But what about Istanbul?
2. What about Olympiakos?
3. What about the FA Cup Final vs. West Ham?
Everything after those events is ignored, and they are held up as an answer to any criticism leveled at Gerrard.
Paul Tomkins has a similar set of excuses whenever someone criticizes Benitez, as this excerpt from his article proves:
According to Jamie Redknapp, Liverpool "have got no chance" of ever winning the league under Rafa Benítez. Presumably Redknapp would have said the same in 1990 about Alex Ferguson, who had taken a top four side at United for the previous four seasons under Ron Atkinson and turned them into ninth placed finishers (on average) over his first four seasons?
Benitez's league record outstrips Ferguson's in every possible way when comparing their respective first four years in charge, and while football has changed, and the past cannot be compared to the present with total accuracy, the fact is that no-one in the world thought Alex Ferguson could ever win a league title at United, and certainly not the United fans holding up banners asking for him to be sacked.
The comparisons between United back then and Liverpool now are apt: England's two biggest clubs, with all the monumental pressure that comes with it, both trying to end a two-decade drought without the league title. Except Ferguson took four years to win his first trophy, and spent most of that time in the bottom half of the table.
Change the record! There always seems to be this ridiculous comparison between Alex Ferguson’s first years at Man United and Benitez’s first years at Liverpool. The reality is that the comparison is redundant and is just serves as a pathetic excuse to deflect criticism away from Benitez’s appalling impact in the premiership.
Anyway, Mr Tomkins is focusing on the wrong comparison. A more accurate comparison would be between Ron Atkinson and Benitez. Like Benitez, Atkinson was a nearly-man in the league, finishing in the top four in his five seasons in charge.
Despite having a talented squad and ample money to spend, Atkinson could never get the best out his players, and was never able to break the Merseyside monopoly, which was the principal reason he was sacked in 1986.
Sound familiar?
Benitez is going through the same thing – good players and lots of money to spend but for various reasons (mainly flowing from Benitez’s stubbornness) Liverpool cannot seem to break the Man United/Chelsea/Arsenal monopoly.
Indeed, in the premiership, Liverpool are arguably going backwards. After finishing on 82 points in Benitez’s second season in charge, the third season saw a drop to 68 points – a total that will be tough to beat this season if the team continues it’s frustratingly inconsistent run of form.
Liverpool suffered the same fate under Gerard Houllier and Roy Evans – always finishing in the top 4 but never getting realistically close to winning the championship.
Mr Tomkins will have everyone believe that Ferguson’s first 4 years in charge were an unmitigated disaster on every level, as this quote from his article seems to suggest:
Benitez's league record outstrips Ferguson's in every possible way when comparing their respective first four years in charge, and while football has changed, and the past cannot be compared to the present with total accuracy, the fact is that no-one in the world thought Alex Ferguson could ever win a league title at United.
In Ferguson’s first full season in charge, United finished 2nd in the league with 81 points, beaten to the league title by possibly the most exciting Liverpool team in history. But no one would have believed Ferguson would win the league with United after that, would they?!
Utter nonsense.
In fact, in terms of trophies won, Ferguson’s record is almost identical to Benitez’s record in each Manager’s first 4 years in charge, with both clubs winning the FA Cup and a European trophy.
There are many reasons why comparing the early reigns of Ferguson and Benitez is pure folly, but the main one is this: When Ferguson arrived at United, the club was in disarray behind the scenes, with a huge drinking culture, desperately poor fitness levels, unmotivated players and general indiscipline eating away like a cancer.
When Benitez took over at Liverpool, the club was in fantastic shape. Gerard Houllier had restored pride in the club, off-field discipline and player fitness levels were excellent, and everything about the infrastructure of the club was in good order.
Ferguson had in infinitely harder job than Benitez to try and turn things around; instilling the requisite levels of professionalism, motivation and determination into United’s squad whilst having to wait for disruptive players like Paul McGrath to leave undoubtedly had an impact on the speed of Ferguson’s success.
Writers like Paul Tomkins conveniently seem to gloss over this fact though when twisting the past to fit their ultra-positive agenda.
As I’ve argued repeatedly in the past, Rafael Benitez suffers from the major flaw of irrational stubbornness – something that has hindered his attempts to mould Liverpool into a winning team.
History has proven that successful Managers in the top English league have all had the same attributes:
1. ‘My way or the highway’ approach.
2. Ability to be ruthless.
3. Stubbornness: a refusal to back down from what they believe is the right way of doing things.
Along with the likes of Brian Clough, Jose Mourinho and George Graham, Alex Ferguson is a prime example of this: an extremely stubborn Manager, evidenced by the fact he kicked Beckham and Stam out of United. He even forced out Roy Keane, his self confessed 'greatest ever buy'.
The difference is this: Ferguson is liberated by his stubbornness but Benitez is hamstrung his. Liverpool’s Manager can't adapt his La Liga style to fit the demands of the premiership, whereas Ferguson adapted and come up with a winning formula and stuck to it.
United may have struggled in the league in the first few years of Ferguson’s reign, but unlike Rafa, Ferguson was doing things the right way:
1. Playing his best 11 as often as possible.
2. Keeping the spine of thee teams intact bar injuries.
3. Rotating key players sensibly, if at all.
As long as the fundamentals are in place and things are being done the right way, success will usually follow, and it certainly did for United. Rafa fails on all three of the above points. It is doubtful whether he knows his best eleven players. How can he, when he is renowned for almost never playing the same team twice?
The question is, does it look like league success will follow for Liverpool any time soon? With the club languishing an embarrassing 19 points behind Arsenal, it doesn’t look like it.
Manchester United got rid of a Manager who finished in the top 4 five seasons running but was unable to push them to the top. Liverpool need to do the same and finally find the man who will take them to the highest level.
Rafael Benitez is not that man. The man who CAN take Liverpool to the title is already in the premiership. That man is...
That’s another article ;-)
Paul Tomkins is a case in point: In his latest article, he castigates Jamie Redknapp for having the temerity to suggest that Liverpool would not win the title under Rafael Benitez due to his incessant rotation policy.
To many Liverpool fans who prefer to see things the way they really are, Redknapp merely stated the obvious truth.
The thing that strikes me about pro-Liverpool writers is the way they always use the same tedious excuses to back up their arguments. For example, if the topic is whether or not Steven Gerrard is world class or a good captain, you can guarantee that the response will include any or all of the following:
1. But what about Istanbul?
2. What about Olympiakos?
3. What about the FA Cup Final vs. West Ham?
Everything after those events is ignored, and they are held up as an answer to any criticism leveled at Gerrard.
Paul Tomkins has a similar set of excuses whenever someone criticizes Benitez, as this excerpt from his article proves:
According to Jamie Redknapp, Liverpool "have got no chance" of ever winning the league under Rafa Benítez. Presumably Redknapp would have said the same in 1990 about Alex Ferguson, who had taken a top four side at United for the previous four seasons under Ron Atkinson and turned them into ninth placed finishers (on average) over his first four seasons?
Benitez's league record outstrips Ferguson's in every possible way when comparing their respective first four years in charge, and while football has changed, and the past cannot be compared to the present with total accuracy, the fact is that no-one in the world thought Alex Ferguson could ever win a league title at United, and certainly not the United fans holding up banners asking for him to be sacked.
The comparisons between United back then and Liverpool now are apt: England's two biggest clubs, with all the monumental pressure that comes with it, both trying to end a two-decade drought without the league title. Except Ferguson took four years to win his first trophy, and spent most of that time in the bottom half of the table.
Change the record! There always seems to be this ridiculous comparison between Alex Ferguson’s first years at Man United and Benitez’s first years at Liverpool. The reality is that the comparison is redundant and is just serves as a pathetic excuse to deflect criticism away from Benitez’s appalling impact in the premiership.
Anyway, Mr Tomkins is focusing on the wrong comparison. A more accurate comparison would be between Ron Atkinson and Benitez. Like Benitez, Atkinson was a nearly-man in the league, finishing in the top four in his five seasons in charge.
Despite having a talented squad and ample money to spend, Atkinson could never get the best out his players, and was never able to break the Merseyside monopoly, which was the principal reason he was sacked in 1986.
Sound familiar?
Benitez is going through the same thing – good players and lots of money to spend but for various reasons (mainly flowing from Benitez’s stubbornness) Liverpool cannot seem to break the Man United/Chelsea/Arsenal monopoly.
Indeed, in the premiership, Liverpool are arguably going backwards. After finishing on 82 points in Benitez’s second season in charge, the third season saw a drop to 68 points – a total that will be tough to beat this season if the team continues it’s frustratingly inconsistent run of form.
Liverpool suffered the same fate under Gerard Houllier and Roy Evans – always finishing in the top 4 but never getting realistically close to winning the championship.
Mr Tomkins will have everyone believe that Ferguson’s first 4 years in charge were an unmitigated disaster on every level, as this quote from his article seems to suggest:
Benitez's league record outstrips Ferguson's in every possible way when comparing their respective first four years in charge, and while football has changed, and the past cannot be compared to the present with total accuracy, the fact is that no-one in the world thought Alex Ferguson could ever win a league title at United.
In Ferguson’s first full season in charge, United finished 2nd in the league with 81 points, beaten to the league title by possibly the most exciting Liverpool team in history. But no one would have believed Ferguson would win the league with United after that, would they?!
Utter nonsense.
In fact, in terms of trophies won, Ferguson’s record is almost identical to Benitez’s record in each Manager’s first 4 years in charge, with both clubs winning the FA Cup and a European trophy.
There are many reasons why comparing the early reigns of Ferguson and Benitez is pure folly, but the main one is this: When Ferguson arrived at United, the club was in disarray behind the scenes, with a huge drinking culture, desperately poor fitness levels, unmotivated players and general indiscipline eating away like a cancer.
When Benitez took over at Liverpool, the club was in fantastic shape. Gerard Houllier had restored pride in the club, off-field discipline and player fitness levels were excellent, and everything about the infrastructure of the club was in good order.
Ferguson had in infinitely harder job than Benitez to try and turn things around; instilling the requisite levels of professionalism, motivation and determination into United’s squad whilst having to wait for disruptive players like Paul McGrath to leave undoubtedly had an impact on the speed of Ferguson’s success.
Writers like Paul Tomkins conveniently seem to gloss over this fact though when twisting the past to fit their ultra-positive agenda.
As I’ve argued repeatedly in the past, Rafael Benitez suffers from the major flaw of irrational stubbornness – something that has hindered his attempts to mould Liverpool into a winning team.
History has proven that successful Managers in the top English league have all had the same attributes:
1. ‘My way or the highway’ approach.
2. Ability to be ruthless.
3. Stubbornness: a refusal to back down from what they believe is the right way of doing things.
Along with the likes of Brian Clough, Jose Mourinho and George Graham, Alex Ferguson is a prime example of this: an extremely stubborn Manager, evidenced by the fact he kicked Beckham and Stam out of United. He even forced out Roy Keane, his self confessed 'greatest ever buy'.
The difference is this: Ferguson is liberated by his stubbornness but Benitez is hamstrung his. Liverpool’s Manager can't adapt his La Liga style to fit the demands of the premiership, whereas Ferguson adapted and come up with a winning formula and stuck to it.
United may have struggled in the league in the first few years of Ferguson’s reign, but unlike Rafa, Ferguson was doing things the right way:
1. Playing his best 11 as often as possible.
2. Keeping the spine of thee teams intact bar injuries.
3. Rotating key players sensibly, if at all.
As long as the fundamentals are in place and things are being done the right way, success will usually follow, and it certainly did for United. Rafa fails on all three of the above points. It is doubtful whether he knows his best eleven players. How can he, when he is renowned for almost never playing the same team twice?
The question is, does it look like league success will follow for Liverpool any time soon? With the club languishing an embarrassing 19 points behind Arsenal, it doesn’t look like it.
Manchester United got rid of a Manager who finished in the top 4 five seasons running but was unable to push them to the top. Liverpool need to do the same and finally find the man who will take them to the highest level.
Rafael Benitez is not that man. The man who CAN take Liverpool to the title is already in the premiership. That man is...
That’s another article ;-)
1 Comments - Disagree? Add your comment!:
So True! I can't understand y a top class club would employ a whiner such as Rafa...
He's never have the winning mentality. It sickened me out to read his post-games comments :'We created chances,but fail to deliver...bla bla'.
For him, there's always a fault when the team lose,not none from himself..
talking bout gentlemen...!
4 ur info, I'm from Malaysia and the Liverpool fan base are growing rapidly(not only in my country,but all over Asia!..IN FACT,THE WORLD'. However,if the team continues to be on 'Rafa's Standard', Im afraid sooner the admirers of the club will 'depart' to other teams. That would financially be a waste to the club,dont u think?
Also, I find your page very interesting due to its honest and rational reporting.
Keep up your good work!
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