2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[Marius57]

Injuries are all part of the game though mate, it's like saying we can't judge Benitez because Lewin and Mina are out.

You can't judge benitez until he has had 15 games with his own players mate. Until then, it's not his fault.

 

[Marius57]

And Mina.

It doesn’t sound a lot but take Van Dijk and Salah out of Liverpool.

Evans and Vardy out of Leicester

Dias and Jesus out of City

Gabriel and Aubemayang out of Arsenal

Romero and Kane from Spurs

Ogbonna and Antonio from West Ham

Konsa and Watkins from Villa.


Yes teams can still play and might adapt but they’re not as good. Any team will suffer if you take their best centreback and best goal scorer out the team. Add in their best midfielder (Doucoure just back) and it has an impact, that’s undeniable.

The impact on teams with poor squads like ours is especially big. The players coming in place are Michael Keane/ Holgate and Rondon. Huge step downs.

We beat them last year without mina and with dcl only getting 30 mins due to returning from injury.

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

You can't judge benitez until he has had 15 games with his own players mate. Until then, it's not his fault.

We should stop paying his wages till that happens mate.

 

[hallamblue]

That’s because you can’t. This is what I keep saying. Adapt to no Docuoure? With what options? Gomes and Davies aren’t for and even if they were they’re both completely and utterly useless. Gbamin was tried and that lasted all of 45 minutes. So it’s been Allan and Delph and they’ve not got the legs.

DCL is out so we move Richarlison upfront and try and play on the counter, which is difficult to do when you have a midfield that can’t win the ball back. Then Richarlison gets suspended.

It’s such an easy throw away line ‘he should have adapted’. Koeman didn’t adapt to losing Lukaku, Silva didn’t adapt to losing Gueye and Zouma, Ancelotti was pretty much useless without Doucoure, yet we expect Benitez to find solutions to not having Mina Docoure Richarlison DCL Gray and to find them even when the rubbish supporting cast is also often injured. Blimey even Conte didn’t adapt to losing Costa and Matic. In fact there’s not many managers who adapt very well when you take their best players away from them.

There are no solutions in the squad. Every formation has been tried by every manager multiple times with multiple variants and combinations. No manager can escape the fact that Coleman can’t handle a football, Keane can’t concentrate for 90 minutes and can’t move outside of a 6 yard area, Digne can’t defend one on one, Gomes and Davies can’t run, Iwobi can’t do anything, none of the midfield can create, only Doucoure can possibly travel with it, and only DCL and Richarlison can put a ball in the net.

These are the tools Benitez had and he’s been deprived of most of them. There is no adapting, this group of players without its best players will lose a lot of football matches because they’re very bad. Thats the harsh truth that fans seem unwilling to accept. Even under Ancelotti who was very good tactically, Rochdale dominated us at Goodison, loads of bottom half teams ran through us with ease at Goodison, and that was with fully fit teams at times.

This is not a good group, even fully fit, and when you take out the best players it’s one of the worst groups in the league, seriously I look at players for teams like Watford and Newcastle and I think some of them walk into our first team and definitely into our squad, and they are two of the relegation favourites.

There is no making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, we don’t have a divine right to beat any team in this league with these players. We are in a bottom half scrap and fans need to get used to this, the writing has been on the wall for years but we just kept blaming manager after manager.

Ever player in this squad is not good enough to challenge the European places apart from Pickford Mina (when fit) Godfrey (maybe) Allan Doucoure DCL Richarlison and maybe Gray. If they’re not fully fit or on form then forget it also. Perhaps some kids like Gordon and Branthwaite may join this group in time. Everyone else is nowhere near the standard needed. Most are bottom half premier league players, some wouldn’t get into any other premier league team.

Would Watford take Davies Gomes Gbamin when they have Sissoko Cleverley Capoue. Would anyone take Kenny? How many premier league sides does Michael Keane start for, how many would Holgate play for? Iwobi, Townsend ( I like the bloke but still the question stands)

These are not good players. They are hugely overrated by a large portion of the fan base. Changing the manager will do nothing to change this fact. Only sustained investment or very clever player trading and recruitment will get us out of this mess.

If our players are that bad, why does Benitez think he can get 7th with them? We had 3 first team players missing against Brentford. Not 7, 3. And one of them is constantly injured.

 

[Tubey]

We beat them last year without mina and with dcl only getting 30 mins due to returning from injury.

Their centre half pairing was Henderson and Kabak and they were in the midst of their worst run in years.

We're getting thudded tonight and the only hope is it isn't a cricket score. Anyone seriously using tonight as a rod to beat Benitez with is doing so for extremely biased reasons - no manager in world football would win this game with this squad, not a single one.

 

[hallamblue]

Their centre half pairing was Henderson and Kabak and they were in the midst of their worst run in years.

We're getting thudded tonight and the only hope is it isn't a cricket score. Anyone seriously using tonight as a rod to beat Benitez with is doing so for extremely biased reasons - no manager in world football would win this game with this squad, not a single one.

Nobody should use tonight as a stick to beat him with. But you can't lose at home to Watford, and that Brentford team on Sunday were appalling. Those are the type of games to judge him on, and he's been found wanting.

 

[Kev The Rat]

Their centre half pairing was Henderson and Kabak and they were in the midst of their worst run in years.

We're getting thudded tonight and the only hope is it isn't a cricket score. Anyone seriously using tonight as a rod to beat Benitez with is doing so for extremely biased reasons - no manager in world football would win this game with this squad, not a single one.

Except this game is at the culmination of an utterly disastrous set of results that under competent management would not have happened.

Against a rival we rarely lose to at home.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

The longer he remains in position, the harder it is for the next manager to recover from this debacle

It is imperative that this doomed experiment is ended as soon as possible

Laughing if you think any other manager coming in could deliver any worthwhile improvement this season.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Laughing if you think any other manager coming in could deliver any worthwhile improvement this season.

I do believe there are managers who could do better

I also don't think it's fair to compare Benitez's only 13 games with Ancelotti's worst 13. Why not use Ancelotti's first 13 rather than his last?

 

[hallamblue]

Laughing if you think any other manager coming in could deliver any worthwhile improvement this season.

It depends what you call worthwhile improvement. I see it as a distinct style of play, and the promotion of a few fringe youngsters into the first team squad. I don't see why a different manager couldn't achieve that.

 

[The Sorting Hat]

So you want us to lose then?
Words really fail me with some on here!!

Nobody WANTS us to lose.
It's just that you'd have to be an idiot to think we are getting anything out of tonight other than a sore rectum

 

[nsno-chris]

sell to who? who would want us?

Me, I’ve got a fiver in my wallet

 

[Tubey]

Laughing if you think any other manager coming in could deliver any worthwhile improvement this season.

We'll improve with the January run regardless of what manager is in place, especially once Calvert-Lewin is back.

Nobody is saying Benitez is doing a good job. All people are saying is he's doing exactly what any other manager would be able to do with the shower of tossers at his disposal.

Yet the usual suspects on here won't acknowledge it, flat out refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Doesn't matter how many stats you throw at them or even what they see with their own eyes over years now, they just want Benitez out, regardless of logic and common sense. Who cares if sacking him further destroys our FFP standing and achieves literally nothing?

Self-entitled pathetic children.

EDIT: Oh, I used that stat the other day. I got told I was 'cherry picking' it and 'biased'.

They're idiots.

 

[Marius57]

Their centre half pairing was Henderson and Kabak and they were in the midst of their worst run in years.

We're getting thudded tonight and the only hope is it isn't a cricket score. Anyone seriously using tonight as a rod to beat Benitez with is doing so for extremely biased reasons - no manager in world football would win this game with this squad, not a single one.

I was reliably told in this thread, only in the last week, that they only had 1 key injury all season. Can't keep up with the different ways people are justifying backing benitez. The arguments people are making are at odds with each other.

Why are we getting thudded though? We have one defensive injury. A player who has missed a significant number of matches for years. Keane was being shouted about as our best defender less than a year ago. Godfrey was being raved about 6 months ago. And now they are apparently championship standard.

 

[JimmyK]

Laughing if you think any other manager coming in could deliver any worthwhile improvement this season.

I don't think Ancelotti did well either though so comparing the two of them doesn't prove much in that regard. I don't think either of them are suited to the job so they've both struggled with it but that doesn't mean nobody could do better even if they're not as good a manager on paper.