Rafa Lost it?

• Saltiga

  30 Jan 08, 22:22

  Rafa Benitez claims that Arsenal and Chelsea are jealous of Liverpool because the Champions League is the hardest trophy to win.

   

  In a ludicrous statement, Benitez claims that becoming European champions is more difficult than winning the Premier League title.

   

  This obviously fails to explain why Benitez and other Reds managers before him have found it so difficult to win the title while twice reaching the Champions League final.

   

  "How many teams have won the Champions League? That is a massive trophy and it is more difficult to win than any other trophy," Benítez says in The Guardian.

   

  "The Premier League is our target because we have won the Champions League. If you ask Chelsea or Arsenal what they would like to win most of all, I am sure they would say the Champions League. After 18 years without the Premier League we want to win it, but we have to be more consistent."

   

  The Liverpool manager added: "I came here to improve things and I still remember my first conversations about what we wanted to do here. In three years' time the target was to be contenders, and in three years we have won four trophies and played in seven finals. So we have improved.

   

  "We haven't been at the top level in the league for 15 years. Before I came we hadn't won the Champions League for 21 years. We are improving, but we cannot say it is enough."

   

  Liverpool are currently 17 points behind leaders Arsenal, who are of course seething with jealousy.

  quote taken from F365,

  had always been a fan of Rafa but this latest comments from him seriously make me think he might have lost it in term of getting Liverpool forward, both competition are difficult to win no doubt but to see a world class manager putting down a competition he hasn't been able to win makes me feels that the pressure had indeed got the better of him..

• ultimatePlG

  31 Jan 08, 03:31

  read carefully and i dont think benitez actually say that both arsenal and chelsea are jealous of liverpool. its just words that are put into his mouth. typical lazy journalism trying to create something out of nothing.

• Saltiga

  31 Jan 08, 23:33

  i'm not inplying that Rafa said both the other clubs are jealous of Liverpool or him, just that instead of doing what he supposed to do which is winning both competition if not all that there is to be won, he choose to choose to claim more credit for his Champion League medal, it might have been true that winning ECL is very difficult but my point is that, he seems to have been caught up by the pressure so much that he decided to put across a statement to hightlight to others his achievement to kinda stop others talking about what he fails to achieve.

   

  now, apart from why he choose to claim ECL being more difficult to win then the league, do you guys really think that it is indeed the case? my take is, as with all cup competitions, luck plays a very big part between winning and losing, whereas, in the league, consistency would be the key to it success..

• ultimatePlG

  1 Feb 08, 02:05

   

  i reckon that he said that to stop the journalists from asking him about the off the pitch stuffs. if you had followed liverpool news, rafa was almost replaced by klinsmann because of the 2 clowns that are currently owning the club. and that was asked at any chance the reporters had; pre game and post game interviews. you can imagine the amount of pressure he is under with the bosses trying to get rid of him all the time. he wants people to appreciate what he has done for the club, and that is progress. i read from somwhere, since his taking over as manager, liverpool had been in 7 finals, winning no less than 4 times. now that is what every club will like. but no one gives him credit for that.

  2004/5 champions league

  won against bayer leverkusen, juventus, chelsea and ac milan. they won arguably 3 of the best teams at the point in time. luck? maybe winning in the final was down to luck, i give you that.

  2006/7 champions league

  won against barcelona, psv, chelsea(again) and narrowly lost to ac milan in the final. winning against the then best team in the world, with eto'o, ronaldinho, messi, xavi, deco, i dont think it was luck. they then dominated against ac in the final(i may be slightly biased, but you can't argue that ac was in the game at all before they scored that well-worked goal.)

   

  therefore, winning against the best teams isn't really that much about luck as you said and i quote, " luck plays a very big part between winning and losing ".

   

  YNWA RAFA!

   

   

   
• ultimatePlG

  1 Feb 08, 02:08

  i forgot to add, arsene wenger only recently took his team to the final for the very first time in his 10 years or something in charge? and fergie only won the cup once in 20 plus years? if i am not wrong. dont flame me if my facts are inaccurate

  .

• gigabyte14

  1 Feb 08, 02:10

  rafa pattern not like that 1.................

• Saltiga

  1 Feb 08, 08:33

  don't get me wrong, i'm in no way trying to put Rafa down with the luck in cup competition thingy, just that in general cup competitions do requires a bigger dose of luck then in league competition but of course thats in my humble opinion, also i've also felt that its a big acheivement from Rafa to win them the ECL and i've always been pretty pissed with how some fans claims that Rafa hasn't been proving himself enough, the thing that i'm questioning is if he had lost it this time round, ppl respond to pressure differently and Rafa over the last couple of years had always been keeping pretty low profile even with when Jose target him and Liverpool and that is IMHO a cool and level headed way of taking pressure but this time round he choose to react to a journalist hence i felt that he must have gone to the state where pressure might have gotten better of him.

  all IMHO

   

  cheers

   

   

• 1greatguy

  1 Feb 08, 20:30

  Wat i dun understand is that Chelsea has been going through much worse than what Liverpool going thru now.

  How is it that they still toe to toe wif Arsenal & ManUtd & still chasing other 3 Cups but Liverpool is now

• SumOne

  1 Feb 08, 23:38

  Originally posted by 1greatguy:

  Wat i dun understand is that Chelsea has been going through much worse than what Liverpool going thru now.

  How is it that they still toe to toe wif Arsenal & ManUtd & still chasing other 3 Cups but Liverpool is now

  
  Stronger mentality of the players?

  But honestly, no matter how bad the rift was between owner and manager at Chelsea, Abramovich never came out to criticise Mourinho or even came close to saying anything that would destablise the club.

  Whereas the two owners at Liverpool are a different thing. They have publicly acknowledged approaching another manager and but really takes the cake is how they are quoted as having said they will use the profits from running Liverpool for purposes as well. Doesn't matter if the profits are used for another sport or club, what matters is that it isn't for the interests of Liverpool. To think the owners are dumb enough to publicly say that's what they'll do.

   

   

• 4getmenot

  2 Feb 08, 12:43

  well, their fixture with sunderland tonight, if its anything less than a 3 points, then there will be more pressure on him on and off the field from the press and the two owners..