2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[Nymzee]

I say I get a lot right...more right than wrong. That's not the same as saying I'm infallible is it?

I mean, this kinda just proves you think you're never wrong.

https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/the-cleverest-person-on-got.112425/post-8671113

 

[ForeverBlue92]

It did result in Watford getting level though, and looking like they could score every time they got a corner.

It did result in West Ham beating us last week, it did result in Villa taking the game away from us.

I'm not the one who needs to wake up.

Benitez's system yesterday exposed our weaknesses and negated our strengths, the little ones we have. Digne isn't the best defensive full-back in the world but is good going forward. Until yesterday he wasn't asked to go forward at all for some reason. Yesterday he created three chances, a high for us.

Yet, that then exposes us at the back, and because Benitez didn't change the shape, it was Davies and Allan trying to plug the gaps Doucoure normally can.

It's just you who is taking this as people saying it's 'all on the manager'. No, it's not, of course it's not. You're just not accepting that Benitez can have any of the blame, when he absolutely has to take his share of the blame.

How are we, nine games into the season when we've only played one 'big six' team, down at an average of 40% possession, higher than only Burnley and Newcastle? The footy is crap, it's as dreadful as anything we saw last year and he needs to sort it.

The football has been crap since Martinez's first season mate when are people going to wake up that bad recruitment over numerous managers is to blame for that?

Im at the point where I hope they sack Benitez - because its obvious the raging crybabies who cant stomach the bloke will never give him a fair crack of the whip and such is life the loud minority are appeased.

But make no mistake the next manager whoever is stupid enough to take on this poisoned chalice of a mismanaged club with a rabid Geordie fanbase isnt going to do much better with Michael Keane at the back, Coleman at RB, Davies and Gbamin as our back ups in CM, Brands signing players and awful medical department.

So I look forward to reminding you all of that constantly whenever I see the "we are playing crap [insert managers name here] needs to improve or he'll lose the early goodwill given"

 

[tsubaki]

90% of the problems are down to Rondon though

By that I mean Benitez has set us up as a compact side that can overwhelm teams on the counter-attack, with 4-5 players bombing on quickly. With DCL, Richy, Gray, Townsend and Doucs we have that, and it keeps teams honest because they know (as Burnley found out) that if they make one mistake or someone makes one good pass they will get ragged all over the place. The defence when it is compact is how it should be too. We know it works with our squad, having seen it in his first few league games, never mind watching other teams (the RS for example) do it successfully.

It is fundamentally the right approach - but for some reason whilst DCL, Richy and Doucs are out he has in effect reduced that 4-5 players to one player, since Rondon is not mobile enough to do it and including him means we are now trying to control possession and looking to playing balls up to him (with players close to him to get knock-downs) rather than playing balls to the faster players and/or into space for the faster players to run in on. The maddening thing is of course that the former style was what late period Martinez and Koeman tried and failed to do (with a far better forward), as well as what Silva and Ancelotti tried and failed with - its never worked consistently, and never will with this concrete beach invasion defence obelisk playing as a no.9.

The good news is that, I think, all Benitez has to do is pick that exact same side (with Richy instead of Gordon and Simms or Dobbin instead of Rondon) and I think we'd look far better immediately - the pace up front would come back and we would go back to thinking this waiter isn't scum again.

 

[jamieni]

The football has been crap since Martinez's first season mate when are people going to wake up that recruitment is to blame for that?

Im at the point where I hope they sack Benitez - because its obvious the raging crybabies who cant stomach the bloke will never give him a fair crack of the whip and such is life the loud minority are appeased.

But make no mistake the next manager whoever is stupid enough to take on this poisoned chalice of a mismanaged club with a rabid Geordie fanbase isnt goimg to do much better with Michael Keane at the back, Coleman at RB, Davies and Gbamin as our back ups in CM, Brands signing players and awful medic department.

So I look forward to reminding you all of that constantly whenever I see the **we are playing crap [insert managers name here] needs to improve or he'll lose the early goodwill given**

Leaving aside Benitez, who I don’t think is any better or worse than many possible managers we could have, everyone can agree our recruitment has been largely inept ever since Moshiri took over. The squad just isn’t good enough for where we want to be but at the same time losing 5-2 at home to Watford is simply terrible. All very depressing.

 

[MACCA75]

Leaving aside Benitez, who I don’t think is any better or worse than many possible managers we could have, everyone can agree our recruitment has been largely inept ever since Moshiri took over. The squad just isn’t good enough for where we want to be but at the same time losing 5-2 at home to Watford is simply terrible. All very depressing.

Since Moyes left. We’ve had chances to get Moyes back, and we should have taken one.

 

[BlueToff]

We allowed Watford to have 20 shots on goal yesterday. 20 friggin shots.

Eight were on target.

Watford had only scored one goal from a set-piece before yesterday, they scored two against us.

They had conceded six goals from set-pieces, we didn't come close to getting on the end of one against them.

That is absolutely mental and the manager HAS to take his share of the blame because HE set us up.

He isn't a good manager and hasn't been for a long time. It just so happens that when he was good, it was at our rivals 15 minutes ago and that won't help him get the time he needs to show he still has *anything* at all.

I think he's a good coach, and committed. That's about it.

 

[coollino]

Hahaha

 

[BlueToff]

90% of the problems are down to Rondon though

By that I mean Benitez has set us up as a compact side that can overwhelm teams on the counter-attack, with 4-5 players bombing on quickly. With DCL, Richy, Gray, Townsend and Doucs we have that, and it keeps teams honest because they know (as Burnley found out) that if they make one mistake or someone makes one good pass they will get ragged all over the place. The defence when it is compact is how it should be too. We know it works with our squad, having seen it in his first few league games, never mind watching other teams (the RS for example) do it successfully.

It is fundamentally the right approach - but for some reason whilst DCL, Richy and Doucs are out he has in effect reduced that 4-5 players to one player, since Rondon is not mobile enough to do it and including him means we are now trying to control possession and looking to playing balls up to him (with players close to him to get knock-downs) rather than playing balls to the faster players and/or into space for the faster players to run in on. The maddening thing is of course that the former style was what late period Martinez and Koeman tried and failed to do (with a far better forward), as well as what Silva and Ancelotti tried and failed with - its never worked consistently, and never will with this concrete beach invasion defence obelisk playing as a no.9.

The good news is that, I think, all Benitez has to do is pick that exact same side (with Richy instead of Gordon and Simms or Dobbin instead of Rondon) and I think we'd look far better immediately - the pace up front would come back and we would go back to thinking this waiter isn't scum again.

tbh I think that's papering over cracks though mate.

Doucoure does the job of 2 players in midfield, so unfortunately you need 2 players to replace him or, at the very least, be playing a proper 4-2-3-1 and not a 4-4-1-1.

Rondon is an issue, but he's an issue Benitez wanted to have because he chased him all summer and isn't even taking him off in games.

But I just don't think we can get by with 2 in midfield if Doucoure isn't one of those players.

I said it during the game yesterday before it went 2-1 to us, we were just getting ripped to parts through the middle and we were. Ranieri spotted it and just had his forwards dropping into the massive gap between defence and midfield. That massive gap has been there all season, btw, in quite a lot of games even with Doucoure there.

 

[BlueToff]

I don't mean to single out one particular tweet, but this is the sort of view I don't understand. When we won it was all about how great Benitez is. When we lose it's nothing to do with him and even the CEO gets some of the blame. The media narrative is just a load of nonsense. Benitez managed the end of the game today like a kid on championship manager so he deserves criticism. Every decision he made was irrational and gave Watford more initiative. Surely if he was such an elite manager then he wouldn't get thrashed 5 at home to Watford. T

Oh you wait mate, Rafael's chums will be out in force this week

We saw it after deadline day and it'll be the same now

 

[BlueToff]

We allowed Watford to have 20 shots on goal yesterday. 20 friggin shots.

Eight were on target.

Watford had only scored one goal from a set-piece before yesterday, they scored two against us.

They had conceded six goals from set-pieces, we didn't come close to getting on the end of one against them.

That is absolutely mental and the manager HAS to take his share of the blame because HE set us up.

He isn't a good manager and hasn't been for a long time. It just so happens that when he was good, it was at our rivals 15 minutes ago and that won't help him get the time he needs to show he still has *anything* at all.

I think he's a good coach, and committed. That's about it.

*15 years, ffs

 

[GoSoccerToffees]

The manager is absolutely to blame for how much poorer our defending is than last year.

We've changed away from things that worked because he's too stubborn to accept other methods might be better than his outdated ones.

I can't take anyone defending this manager seriously. You can't support Benitez and have ambition for the club to improve. I'm sorry, but these arguments are fantasy land stuff. It isn't going to magically come good under a manager who thinks Rondon deserves 90 minutes every week.

Ancelotti played turgid, offensively inept football in a sit-back and hope style. We still lost bankable games.

Benitez has introduced organised counter-attacking football that threatened to unite the fans.

But the players have decided to keep to the regular implosion schedule. Has Benitez been perfect? No. But that was 80% the players yesterday and we should be directing our ire at them.

 

[MACCA75]

I think 3 things are essential for our run of fixtures now.

1. Get Mina back in the team. If he’s still injured then Holgate needs to come in for Coleman or Digne.
2. Play 3 in midfield. Any 3 fit midfielders we have.
3. Get Rondon out of the team. Richi will do the job.

 

[BlueToff]

Ancelotti played turgid, offensively inept football in a sit-back and hope style. We still lost bankable games.

Benitez has introduced organised counter-attacking football that threatened to unite the fans.

But the players have decided to keep to the regular implosion schedule. Has Benitez been perfect? No. But that was 80% the players yesterday and we should be directing our ire at them.

When we played turgid football, it was because we had a big injury list.

We got points, a lot of points, over that Christmas run.

My issue was when we came out of that run, and played lesser teams with players coming back, we didn't know how to transition back to playing some semblance of decent togger. That was the issue with Ancelotti but a big part of it was also down to a lack of quality options.

That's still the case, I'm not absolving Ancelotti of blame, but we got 59 points last year. We ain't getting close to 59 points this season. Now we might finish higher than 10th, last year was a weird season, on a lower points total. We might not, but something needs to change with how we play because it has been crap, really, really crap, all season.

The issues that were present against Southampton are still here now, two months later. The set-piece defending and attacking is woeful. Yet Benitez wants to keep games tight, so set-pieces have to be key. That being said, he's doing an abysmal job of keeping things tight because our defence is constantly exposed, and he is sticking to a stupid 4-4-1-1 shape that doesn't work unless all of our key players are fit, and at different stages this season all have been out injured.

 

[BlueToff]

I think 3 things are essential for our run of fixtures now.

1. Get Mina back in the team. If he’s still injured then Holgate needs to come in for Coleman or Digne.
2. Play 3 in midfield. Any 3 fit midfielders we have.
3. Get Rondon out of the team. Richi will do the job.

The thing is, a 4-3-3 can work with Richarlison up top too. Him, Gray and Townsend. It ain't perfect, but it's a quick, fluid (in theory) forward line.

That's all he had to do yesterday to counter-act Ranieri's change in shape, yet he brought on friggin Iwobi for Gray.

I was more than happy to criticise the footy last season when I thought Ancelotti should be doing better.

I didn't criticise him during December-Feb when we had 6 players out and I knew we were going deep and compact in order to negate weaknesses we had and pick up points.

I can't see how Benitez genuinely thought he could replace Doucoure with Davies yesterday.

I said this yesterday but I checked on Friday at Watford's fixtures under Xisco and Ranieri and knew straight away they'd play 3 in midfield, either a 3-5-2 or, more likely, a 4-5-1, and they played the latter. It's not hard to judge when you need numbers in midfield, especially when you're having to replace such a pivotal player.

It's not like Doucoure got injured on Friday, we've known all week that he wasn't going to play. How did Benitez fail to see it?

 

[john jako]

Ancelotti played turgid, offensively inept football in a sit-back and hope style. We still lost bankable games.

Benitez has introduced organised counter-attacking football that threatened to unite the fans.

But the players have decided to keep to the regular implosion schedule. Has Benitez been perfect? No. But that was 80% the players yesterday and we should be directing our ire at them.