2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[d34noj]

Who said he was available for nowt?

Once the window was shut. And we knew we wouldn't have siggy, why still force him out? He contributed to 15 goals in 26 games last season. Would be pretty handy having someone who could do that right now wouldn't it?

It's because he was on £700k a week mate.

 

[Marius57]

Benitez joins at the end of June and Rodriguez leaves in mid September so their was a 2.5 month spell once he changed his mind. The financial position of the club made it an obvious move to let him go. How can you warrant him on well over 100k a week for him to play around 50% of the games when we are midtable.

He played 26 games last season.
Mina only played 29 yet is considered key now and is on 120k+.

 

[Saint Domingo]

The fans, inc us Blue Geordies, as you call us, are realistic about the current state of the club, no one expects Champions League or league titles.

What we do expect, bare minimum, is a team that looks to have a coherent strategy on the pitch and players who look like they know what system they’re supposed to be playing, even if it’s sometimes not necessarily going to be pretty. Also for the players to look arsed too.

Instead what we’re seeing, is an absolute shambles. No strategy other than to lump the ball up to a Sumo in an Everton shirt, who can’t even make into the box, as he’s that slow most of the time and players who clearly don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.

That is all on Tapas Tits.

My 15yr old lad summed it up really.

“ if you think your managers a prick, who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you don’t really try your hardest do you ? “

Have these players tried their hardest for any manager they’ve had for longer than about 3 months?

 

[JLW]

It can also be an escape from what's going on in the real world which lots of us need at times because of what we are dealing with.

Spot on this!

 

[Marius57]

It's because he was on £700k a week mate.

Forgot about that. That was what benitez said wasn't it. Get rid of james so that we would have some money to play with in Jan.

Then a month later said we dont have any money to spend in January. (Probably because he is on 8m a year)

 

[willo30]

Right. Let's put it this way.

Would you rather...

A: Play a hugely talented player for 50% of games and massively increase the chance of gaining points

Or...

B: Buy Andros Townsend and Salomon Rondon for effectively the same wages as player aforementioned was on, play those 2 for 100% of games, and effectively decreasing the chance of gaining points.

This isn't rocket science mate.

He was involved in 9 wins from 26 appearances.

Without him we won 8 of the other 12 games.

He really wasn't that good apart from a few glimpses of what could be. As I said earlier if he showed this more often he would never have ended up here.

 

[LocalNative]

Read in the Echo we're on our longest winless run for 16 years. Yikes.

 

[COYBL25]

Have these players tried their hardest for any manager they’ve had for longer than about 3 months?

I do agree, but there seems to be one of the most rapid downing of tools out of all of them.

Maybe they’ve had enough of just lobbing the ball up to an overweight, unfit managers pet, who can’t even make it into the box most of the time.

Just a thought ?

 

[Toffee222]

He played 26 games last season.
Mina only played 29 yet is considered key now and is on 120k+.

Mina was in the squad 30/38 games last season and Ancelotti was always tinkering with his centre back partnerships.
James was in the squad for 24/38 games and flew home early when we still had an outside chance of European football.

 

[JimmyK]

Read in the Echo we're on our longest winless run for 16 years. Yikes.

Yes that might well be true but we had a much shorter run without winning last year so that's virtually the same thing.

 

[catcherintherye]

Brands is the reason we have to resort to the likes of Rondon and can’t give a new manager money to spend.

Look at the summer window. We were just about able to bring in Gray Townsend and Rondon as long as we got Bernard Kean James and Walcott off the wage bill.

What type of squad doesn’t have any wingers; no backup striker, three number 10s (all of which useless for various reasons to the new manager) and bo right back at premier league standard?

Brands picked up a horrible position but he has done nothing to improve it and in fact made it worse by sanctioning the Iwobi deal and giving Keane a new contract.

Yes he gets some criticism on here, but no one is holding banners up against him or other board members are they? They’ve had years at this but instead everyone is lasering on a guy who has been here for ten minutes.

I’m getting to the point where I hope we do just fire Benitez if nothing else just timepiece how futile it is. Get someone else in and give him the same tools and conditions and I’m sure it will be loads better, the last five will have failed but let’s spin the dice again I’m sure it will be different.

Those stupid in game subs and selection pieces are almost irrelevant. They might rescue a point here and there but just look at what we’re saying ‘why didn’t he bring Simms on’ ‘why didn’t he bring Gray on sooner’ ‘what about two up top with Tosun’

So that’s a kid who didn’t light up Blackpool, a winger Leicester and Leverkusen deemed surplus to requirements, and a crock who no one on here rates anyway. We’ve seen manager after manager try all these combos. Koeman abandoning his strikers and having to go with Niasse, Allardyce playing Davies after benching all his midfielders, Ancelotti swapping midfielders virtually every game to find who was less crap.

It doesn’t matter. They’re all really poor options, one week one might make an impact and rescue a point or three but in the long term they are not credible options.

We continue to ignore the root causes of the issue sat this club because we are blinded by hatred for Benitez and desires for a quick instant fix.

Some interesting points there. Just for a few points of order first though.
1) There was literally a banner, protesting against the board at Brentford on Saturday. I saw no such banner relating to Benitez. I'm not sure it's accurate to say there are no banners against the board.

2) My post wasn't a defence of Brands, it was just to point out, he gets a lot of criticism. It's just not true for you to say he doesn't.

Now onto the substance of the argument. Look I think it's possible to criticise the manager, board and DOF. In honesty each of them are partially culpable. The manager doesn't get let off because the board is rubbish. To me it's the opposite, he compounds the boards failings.

I get your point, in the broader picture if you want to compete at the top, revenue growth is the most important thing to do. Wage spend is then the most valuable thing we can have. Our commercial board members don't grow revenues. TV deals go up, no thanks to them, and Moshiri's mate Usmanov gives us sweetener deals. They don't drive revenue.

The DOF just doesn't run the club. The kindest thing I can say for him is that he is not assertive enough. He hasn't contributed to turnover enough, we haven't produced enough saleable assets, and he hasn't developed the academy enough.

The manager could take us down. He inherited a team that finished 31 points (over double) the relegation zone. Yes he didn't spend much, but he also didn't recooperate much. We didn't lose any key players. I'm sure some will make the argument about Sigurdsson, but I don't see him as an enormous loss. There have only been a couple of seasons in the PL we finished 31 points (or at double) clear of the 18th place side. It's almost inconceivable you get into a relegation dogfight from that position. It's not good enough from the manager, who is now over 1/3rd of the way into the season.

We are currently on our worst league run in 16 years. Worse than any 7 game run Martinez, Silva, Allardyce, Kendall, Smith etc went on. The majority of them were sacked for much less. If we lose on Wednesday it is the worst 8 game run in PL history. From a position of reasonable strength (or one of the higher points totals the club has had in the PL era). It's nowhere near good enough. If we don't get a result on Wednesday, I can't see any reason why we just give him more time to take us down.

None of that means you don't tackle the above too. But to me it's a worrying situation. If we have another 7-9 games like the last set, we will be dead and buried.

 

[JimmyK]

Have these players tried their hardest for any manager they’ve had for longer than about 3 months?

7 of the 12 players on the pitch yesterday have only played under 2 managers and neither of them have been sacked. It's a bit of an urban myth this thing about the players being the same ones that have supposedly downed tools on the last 5 or 6 managers to get them out.

 

[d34noj]

Mina was in the squad 30/38 games last season and Ancelotti was always tinkering with his centre back partnerships.
James was in the squad for 24/38 games and flew home early when we still had an outside chance of European football.

EUROPEAN FOOTBALL YOU SAY?? WITH THIS SQUAD??

Preposterous. This squad is League 1 standard, I watched them play last Sunday mate.

 

[windymiller]

Questioning and demanding the manager sacked are 2 different things.

Last season under Carlo we also went 3 wins in the last 13 games - also quite poor.

I'm not quite sure what the pro-Benitez lobby feel that they gain from comparing Benitez to Ancelotti? Ancelotti has gone and there was near universal agreement that the second half of last season was abject. Beyond that, however, Benitez is behind Ancelotti in just about every metric. So, not only is the comparison moot, it also paints a picture of decline under Benitez.

 

[willo30]

Read in the Echo we're on our longest winless run for 16 years. Yikes.

But we had one of our best starts.
To be honest if it wasn't for the start I'd be calling for his head like others but that start has given me hope that he can get a tune out of a fit squad.