Got this of another site and I can't believe I'm saying this but take a bow Pat Dolan Rafa the Lion Heart When it comes to Rafa Benitez, my message is simple – “Sack the Boredâ€. I’m not talking about those clueless Yanks who cling on to power along with Rick Parry at the expense of the club’s ambition. No, I’m talking about those nasty Rafa bashers who are just so plain boring, boring, boring There have been a lot of comments around this weekend after Liverpool staged their remarkable comeback against Portsmouth. Incredibly it put Liverpool top of the Premier League on Saturday evening. If you have the privilege of analysing football and potentially influencing opinion, you have a moral responsibility to be fair. When I picked up one of the Sunday papers, when it came to reporting Liverpool’s fight back at Pompey, everything continued along the lines of ‘Liverpool in Crisis’ theme. It was a fairytale – a disgusting manipulation of the truth HEADLINES If this is a crisis for a football club that hasn’t won the league title for nearly 20 years, then my name is Hans Christian Andersen. Recent headlines have included lots of ‘Ragas lost the plot’ rants, with words and phrases such as meltdown, crazy days, Reds are a Joke featuring prominently. These are all agendas driven and they were all exposed as a myth by the character of Benitez’s team on Saturday evening. This is a manager who doesn’t even have full control of who he brings in and out of Anfield. He works for people who sometimes don’t even go to the games and who promised the fans a new stadium which would provide the revenue to compete with Manchester United and develop Liverpool and their brand in a global sense. They have failed spectacularly and Rafa continually cops it for their sins. Just take the Robbie Keane situation. The headlines told us how on Keanes return to Tottenham he ‘stuck the boot in’. The strongest term he used was that it was ‘baffling’. Another cheap headline to grab attention, and another distortion of the truth. Ian Rush was a legend when he played for Liverpool but exactly what does he know about management? Fans can be gullible and when they hear an ex-favourite such as Rushie speak they are going to listen – even when he is talking tripe. So let’s analyse what Rushie told us. When it came to team selection he told us that when he was in Italy he played in a game where he scored four goals. He was then taken off when he felt if he had stayed on he would have scored a couple more. The next game Juve lost 1-0 and Rushie’s conclusion was that they lost the game and he didn’t score because he had lost confidence having only scored four in the previous game and not six. You couldn’t make it up! Some of the ex player brigade at Liverpool make a good living out of criticising Rafa but they do a disservice to the fans and it’s a slur and stain on the great service they gave the club on the pitch. Robbie Keane showed immense dignity in dealing with questions from journalists looking for the next Benitez attack. The sale of Keane will not define Liverpool’s season because even the player admitted that the move did not work out. Keane made 21 starts for Liverpool and the bottom line is he didn’t score enough goals. Keane is a good player but he wasn’t good enough for Liverpool. His goal return is irrefutable evidence of that. In the last two matches at home to Chelsea and away to Portsmouth post-Keane, Liverpool have got six precious points. Yet if you picked up the paper during this period, Rafa Benitez selling the striker was the football equivalent of shooting Bambi. Keane was sold for economic reasons – that’s the way life is at Anfield. And the reason that Liverpool cashed in was because the Americans needed the money. Come the next window, Keane’s price would have come down. That’s why he had to go when he did. One thing not reported in the thousands of column inches devoted to the Keane sale is one undeniable fact – it was Keane’s choice to go. Keane was protected by his contract. He could have stayed, fought for his place, looked to have improved form and score some goals that would have seen his boyhood heroes miraculously snatch the title. He chose to leave and go back to Spurs. In the modern game, every transfer is the player’s choice. That truth does not suit the agenda of the football pundits. Benitez is the prince of Anfield and whilst Alex Ferguson concentrates on one thing – nurturing the empire he has been given so much support to build – Benitez has been fighting on so many different levels. Undermined from within, attached by the British press who hate the idea of a little Spaniard putting manners on them, he has sorted out a dressing room that was in disarray after the Gerard Houllier implosion. And yet they crank up the pressure, Benitez just goes into overdrive. He has the courage of a lion and Liverpool fans who want to bring the club that SHankly built back to the glory days should get down on their hands and knees and thank him for being prepared to Walk Alone for the cause. It is an abomination that pundits try and tell the football public that Liverpool should win the league. Manchester United are far stronger. Each season Benitez has made Liverpool stronger. That’s called building. It’s called management. He has two top players because of the clubs transfer policy, a club history that has suffocated some of his predecessors and yet they are still in there fighting. Anyone can listen to the pundits who categorise Liverpool as a team in crisis. But the truth is that as long as the Reds have the great man at the helm, they have hope. Benitez, take a bow. And shame on you who run from the truth of his greatness Pat Dolan – The Star mail: pat.dolan@thestar.ie
I have always been a Pat fan. Went on the piss with him once in Harcourt St. Agree with everything he said, although his own paper are just as guilty as any other.
rafa gettin dogged week in week out and arsene wenger who is laggin behind and in danger of not qualifyin 4 c l next is seen as this great genius of the game. he is good at what he does but his team selection and tactics are changed about regularly without notice yet when rafa does it he s bashed from all angles . he cant win . the press would love to see him sacked .rafa a legend
Yeah but if everyone was praising Rafa he probably would say the opposite.Hes a bit like Dunphy deliberately contraversial to keep in work. seen him often on Setanta giving out about rafas tactics.
Dion Fanning is another big rafa fan and even the ***** andy dunn made a serious point,if it wasnt for rafa's headlines then Wenger would be up a certain creek without a paddle. we should compile a list of rafa's media fans,it would be short enough.
im excluding the echo lads here so imo his media friends are Fanning Dolan Balague Marcotti Honigstein(Guardian writer) Martin Samuel All of the above are the most prominent Rafa defenders and interestingly all are excellent non sensationalist writers.
A lot of truths in that article from Dolan, well written but I would say that Fanning is the best journalist of them all....he can see through the bullshit. Rafa could make his life easier by learning the media game like 'Harry Houdini Redknapp' or to a lesser extent Martin O'Neill, however he is strong enough to stick to his principles and accept the flak that inevitably comes with staying true to his principles. Ferguson gets away with murder through sheer intimidation of the media who have to cosy up to him to get the stories and keep their jobs. If we take off our red-tinted glasses for a minute and look at it objectively we should realise that outside of Aston Villa, we are probably the team who are most performing above the sum of its parts in the premier league. Realistically we shouldn't be as close to the top as we are but success creates more pressure and expectation to which we are falling victim at the minute. I know I wouldn't swap Rafa for anyone out there. The reality is we would have gladly taken our current position at the start of the season. I think what is making it that more pressurised is the fact that the Mancs are top and are closing in on our 18 titles haul. That is making every disappointing result that bit more painful to take.
Excellent article on a similar note: Lucky, lucky Liverpool I think we all knew what the headlines were going to be as soon as Fernando Torres nodded in that 92nd minute winner. As the men on the pitch and the fans in the stand celebrated in the way only a last minute winner can be, the hacks in the press box had already written their match reports; and there's no way they were re-writing their critical words of the manager and his selections just because of a late winner. "Late Torres winner gets manager off the hook" "Rafa the rotator strikes lucky" The lazy press, bar the odd few exceptions, seem to have a typecast of each club and report on that typecast no matter what. For Arsenal they are brilliant to watch, producing flowing football and have some of the best youngsters around. Yet Wenger is never criticised, despite going without silverware for over 5 years and currently 12 points off the pace in the league and in grave danger of missing out on a Champions League slot for next season. Chelsea have spent incredible sums of money, yet are currently sat 4th in the league, dropped yet more points at home over the weekend and have won only 4 of their last 11 matches. But they are known as a brilliant counter attacking side and one of Europe's best. A handful of fans may have unfurled a "Scolari Out" banner over the weekend, but you won't find the nation's press and media asking questions of him. I put that banner and the booing down to the small time "new fan" Chelsea have following them these days. A side with only 3 league titles and no European Cup wins in their entire history now trying to hound out a manager halfway through a season as they've dropped a few points. Anyway, back to the point being made. Every time Liverpool concede a goal from a set piece it's put down to zonal marking. The pundits hark on about it in every post-match analysis, stating how they don't like it and it doesn't work. Yet non of them have enough of a brain to realise that Liverpool have had the best defensive record in the league over the past 3 or 4 years using that system. Non of them ever question the man marking system when another side concedes a goal from a set piece do they? It's lazy and it's all part of the typecast associated with each club. They state we are nothing without Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and will struggle in a big way without them. Yet somehow we've managed to sit top of the league for large parts of the season, with Torres spending most of that time sitting in the stands through injury. We managed to beat United at home without Torres or Gerrard in the side. We beat Chelsea away without Torres in the side. We beat Portsmouth on Saturday without Gerrard in the side. All of which is ignored when reverting to type in writing those reports or asking questions at a press conference. Where Alex Ferguson rests his players and keeps his players fresh, Benitez rotates or drops them; damaging their confidence and ruining all chance we have of winning the league. When Man Utd win by the odd goal away from home despite hardly having a shot on target, they are deemed unstoppable. When Liverpool win by the odd goal away from home, despite having chances to score 6 or 7 goals, we are deemed lucky. The side Benitez sent out at the weekend surprised everyone. We can argue the rights and wrongs of it until Lescott's wife comes home, but he got the result, came home with 3 points and the key players were only required for the last quarter of the game at most. Job done. The game could have been, and should have been, over long before then. We had enough chances to win it before the introduction of the so called rested stars. That was always the plan. To try and win the game with the side put out, and if not, then the others were on the bench to come on and change things if needed. It worked, and yet the manager is still grilled post-match over his selection and policy of resting players. Torres, Alonso and Kuyt all had gruelling games in midweek against Everton and left the field on their knees. All will be turning out for their countries this week, and I think Rafa knows that they will play for the majority of those games, so wanted to give them a chance to rest. Even if they play the full 90 minutes for their countries, they will have had a rest this weekend, and then have another week or so off until our next game, returning with batteries recharged. That result put us back top of the league, albeit for only 24 hours, yet the manager was being interrogated in the way he would if we'd just drawn away from home at relegation candidates and looked in grave danger of missing out on the lucrative top 4 finish; a little bit like Arsene Wenger maybe? I wonder if he was dragged over hot coals yesterday afternoon after falling further behind in the race for 4th place, never mind the race for the title. The media treatment of Rafa Benitez is a disgrace. I was critical of him after the Wigan game, mainly for his removal of Steven Gerrard and the defensive approach to those games. And I still think that criticism was justified, as is all constructive criticism when required. But when the criticism is constant, no matter what the result, then it starts to become a little tedious. On Saturday we may have started with a different system and players in unfamiliar positions, but for me, it was an improved performance from other recent games on the road. We attacked, and even when we went 1-0 and 2-1 down, I still thought we were going to win the game. We went forward, attacked in numbers and I just knew it was a matter of time before we scored again. That's something I couldn't say about the games at Stoke and Wigan, and it was a refreshing change. We ended the game with Torres, Kuyt, Babel and Benayoun playing upfront and going for it, which is exactly the way we need to be finishing those games, as there is no margin for error anymore. Every game is a must win. Is it too much to ask for games to be reported on, without letting a vendetta against a manager dictate the tone of that report? Paul Jones Posted at 08:51 PM in Liverpool | Permalink
Watchin Setanta on a saturday afternoon, ive often thought Pat talks out of his arse!!! You have exceled yourself here Mr Dolan.
great article. good point about the ex liverpool players. they have a go when ever they can and all think they know better than rafa when really theres not 1 ex player I can think of with any serious management experience these days. the whole setanta crew were laughing their heads off when the team sheet was announced at the weekend. it was hard to watch. Tim sherwood also got on my nerves. All this "Play your best team" rubbish. Cos he knows it all, what with being one of Harry Redknapps 6 assistant managers.....?
buy that man a burger sense and perspective will be completely forgotten the next time we fail to win though