TheDonis

Hey, don't take one negative posters views as representative of the whole. This place is garbage when the team are struggling, always has been, emotions take the place of reason. Blaming Rafa for Ashleys running of the club is bordering on the insane imo. But we could/should have a three man midfield every game, Shelvey needs to be out there purely for the way he can change a game. (and I'm not thinking red cards. ) I have posted on here before and said quite clearly that I don't understand - at all - why Rafa has abandoned a system that has served him so well and gone 4-4-2 in search of goals. Yeah you've scored them but you're shipping them at a ridiculous rate. I find it bizarre. Rafa is usually the stubborn guy who never rips up his rulebook, and yet he's cast aside his favoured formation. I genuinely don't understand it as it could cost him his job - (my comments up the thread were in response to some dimwitted meff who said he'd damaged you forever) - and that'd be a shame for you, and for him. But that's football Have any journos asked him why he's abandoned 4-2-3-1? He's played it everywhere, through thick and thin. Was there a clamour to change it? There was, but I don't think Rafa's they type to cave in to fan pressure. Maybe he just doesn't trust his team to be able to keep a clean sheet so is looking for more threat up front instead? I don't know. He's never caved in to any pressure. Which is what makes this decision so out of character. Yeah you were turgid early season, but you won 1-0 a few times and were in with a chance of drawing other matches. That's a route map to staying up. I'm genuinely baffled.

Hey, don't take one negative posters views as representative of the whole. This place is garbage when the team are struggling, always has been, emotions take the place of reason. Blaming Rafa for Ashleys running of the club is bordering on the insane imo. But we could/should have a three man midfield every game, Shelvey needs to be out there purely for the way he can change a game. (and I'm not thinking red cards. ) I have posted on here before and said quite clearly that I don't understand - at all - why Rafa has abandoned a system that has served him so well and gone 4-4-2 in search of goals. Yeah you've scored them but you're shipping them at a ridiculous rate. I find it bizarre. Rafa is usually the stubborn guy who never rips up his rulebook, and yet he's cast aside his favoured formation. I genuinely don't understand it as it could cost him his job - (my comments up the thread were in response to some dimwitted meff who said he'd damaged you forever) - and that'd be a shame for you, and for him. But that's football Have any journos asked him why he's abandoned 4-2-3-1? He's played it everywhere, through thick and thin. Was there a clamour to change it?

I'll leave you to it lads. Best of luck with Steve Bruce.

Wasted money on Gayle.

Yeah, got you promoted at the first opportunity and really fucked you over.

Ok lads, fire him then and save yourself the pain.

p.s you're not very good, but I've just been on your match thread and you're not half as bad as you make out. Just very low in confidence.

Wondering if this could be Rafa's Becher's Brook. A team without much talent, who have now lost all confidence. Not sure giving it the old 'once more unto the breech' schtick and channeling his inner Pulis is his thing.

yeah - had a mare with Coutinho there...! Didn't seem like he bought anyone of note at Inter at all. Hence the reason he called out Morratti and got himself fired.

This is wrong. He bought and built really well with us, and also at Napoli where the team he built is the one doing so well now. I thought he bought well for you for last season. Maybe not so much for this, but he wasn't given loads and he found you a bargain in Merino. Yes, he buys a few players at lower prices who don't work out, but then that applies to all who rummage at the bottom end of the market. The problem is when you only have a few quid, nearly every buy has to work out.

Rafa is always in a much stronger position when he makes these points when the team is doing well rather than when they aren't. Otherwise it looks like he's trying to distract from a poor run of results, which he might well be doing. But he's probably right. I'm not sure what the longest run of defeats is for one of his sides but he must be near it. I don't remember any bad runs when he was with us, or elsewhere. But he's hardly dealing with the same calibre of players. This is a genuine test for him now. He's overcome a couple in charge of you. Can he do it again? I love him to bits but I'm not sure a moan about Ashley right at this juncture is entirely in his best interests, even if it suits the club and takeover, because it will draw fire. Not that he's ever given a fuck about that

As a seasoned Rafa watcher, I'm confused about why he's changed formation. The football might have been turgud, but his 4-2-3-1 makes you hard to beat at least. And occasionally you nick it. Why change to a formation which leaves you more open? Very very un Rafa-like to go in search f goals and ditch what was (sort of) working. I wonder what gives.

It was the only way. Had you pressed on, Palace might have scored. Hodgson's game plan is always to sit back and you don't have the players to tear them apart. Rafa knew to pile on the pressure was to invite conceding on the counter, so he basically let it turn into shit on a stick and then banked on grabbing one as they tired. I reckon that game went according to his plan. He's the ultimate pragmatist. And Hodgson is a knob-truffling arsebasket.

This was always going to an awful game. Hodgson plays two banks of four and sits back, waiting to score on the counter or from a set piece. Rafa will know that and won't want Newcastle to commit too many men forward. The result = stalemate.

Before Hodgson came to us I thought he was a decent manager and a decent bloke. When he was appointed after Rafa left, it was hugely disappointing - Rafa is a world class manager, with a rapport with the fans, who had given us some great times. Hodgson was a solid enough boss and a nice enough cove, or so it seemed, but it was a step backwards. He'd never really won anything or achieved anything other than respectability and a nice little UEFA cup run with Fulham. It also didn't help he'd been appointed by a world class fuckwit in Christian Purslow, but that wasn't his fault. Nor was it his fault that Rafa had run himself into the ground fighting the crooked owners, and the fans wanted them out, and Roy came in trying to give to Kofi Annan. You can hardly expect him to start a ruck when he'd just been appointed. But little prepared me for the horror of the Dreaded Hodge, though. Fuck me, he was abysmal. First he bleated about the squad he inherited being too big. Then he bleated about it being too small. He fucked off Mascherano. While it was clear that Carra and Gerrard and the egg butty brigade were happy to have him, it was also clear some of the foreign players were not impressed. Two banks of four, two up top, set up not to concede. maybe nick one on the break. That works if you're Fulham, or Neuchatel Xamax, but not at Liverpool. The football was shocking. A step back in time. I half expected Don Howe to pop up on the bench. I;ve never seen a more timid, insipid and downright dull Liverpool team. Not a single player improved under his tutelage, which is the essence of coaching. A lot of them went backwards. But the crud on the pitch wasn't half as bad as the self serving drivel that spewed from his mouth. My God, there's enough to fill a book but every time he opened his mouth it was a snide comment or something thaat Definitely Wasn't His Fault. He would bleat and blame someone else, have a go at the players in the snidest terms, talk up terrible results as if they were greatest nights in the club's history, stick his tongue right up Ferguson's arse, have a dig at Rafa, make half racist digs at foreign journalists, or have a go at the fans at protesting at the owners - a protest that would soon bear fruit. Imagine that - the fans were trying to save their club from sliding into financial oblivion and into a vacuum of failure and mediocrity - and all Roy could do was moan and groan about it not being helpful. It was blessed relief when he went and I hate seeing manager's sacked. Even Sounness. Roy's suited to mid table sides, or lower, making them hard to beat and kissing everyone's arse. But if you have passionate fans and a club which dreams, he's a rancid splash of cold piss in the face. He's spineless and his teams often play in his image. I wish him all the very best at Palace.