CHOULO19

Th club found it "justifiable" last season to go into the longest season we ever played with the thinnest squad we had in a long time and with RDM as a manager for a transitional season. So, NO, I don't support their decision regardless. I wouldn't mind him here, but not on a 4 year deal and certainly not on 135K/wk!

Wait, 7m per year? For a 30yo? Really?! That's a 135K/wk! REALLY?!!

Tom won it? Run for your lives! Congrats mate

I don't think the Eredivisie is worse than the championship. And since he is Dutch it makes sense that he goes there since he will probably be more comfortable there and might develop better as a result. He was never going to stay with the first team here after we signed Van Ginkel.

This hardly an ideal place for one...but if you insist! If it helps you settle the debate, you can have the WC here in Lebanon. We don't have the facilities to have it and we certainly don't have enough security, but we do have the world's larges Humos plate and you can go from the beach to the mountain in under an hour!

First, yes I think you are too harsh. No offense, but I really think that your opinion is affected too much by your hate towards Rafa. I'm not by any means a Rafa fan, but I think he is a good manager and an excellent tactician. To deny that, imo, would be delusional. He's man a who's outwitted on several occasions great managers like SAF and even Jose Mourinho while managing weaker teams. His achievements in football are by no means that of a "weak" manager. I am well aware of his weaknesses like his inability to change a game, and his stupid rotation policy and squad selection, but all that is irrelevant here because I was talking about the impact of hiring him on our future. He is by no means one of the best managers around, but tactically he was the best option available (which is why I reckon we chose him), he cannot even be compared to RDM (who I love so much); it'd be like comparing the Lebanese and English NTs. Regarding his time here, at the start of the season I expected a top 4 finish and a trophy (I expected the Capital One Cup tbh, did not see the EL coming ), and at some point in the middle of the season I even doubted that would happen. So to finish the season with just that makes it at least an average season for me; definitely not "terrible". Tactically I think he did a good job for the team consider how "raw" the material he had to work with and especially when you factor in the circumstances like the fans reactions, the schedule..etc. Here's a bold statement: Jose Mourinho would not have done as well as Benitez did in the same circumstances (I don't think he'd take the job to begin with). Not because Rafa is a better manager, far from it, but because Jose NEEDS certain circumstances to work with. If he does not have 100% the backing of the players and fans he cannot do his thing. A minor note about Oscar, even though he was the best at defending among Mazcar, he was also the least effective and affecting in offense. Rafa needed at times to take one of them out of the team to bring balance and since he needed immediate results he opted to go Mata and Hazard who are more likely to win you games and play Moses who made the side he played at very solid. Because of the hectic schedule he could not really work out a proper system for all three of them or work on Oscar's development properly and had to settle for a quick fix. Throughout Rafa's entire time in charge, I think we only had one week where we did not have a game in the middle of the week (or an international break), so that means that throughout that time, he could only have 2-3 light training sessions each week. There was absolutely no time to work on changing a lot of things. This is why I said he did well at improving the team tactically considering the circumstances. You are of course free to thank him or not, I don't think that will make much of a difference now, but I think that your decision is purely based on your emotions and has nothing to do with what Benitez did here. It is easy to discredit anyone if you want: There were no real strong teams in the PL when Carlo won it; Jose had unlimited cash back in 04-05, anyone else could have done what he did..etc (no I don't believe those things, just giving examples of what other people might say to discredit managers). The proof that this has more to do with feelings than achievements is that you'll probably thank RDM for the CL even though he had less to do with that than Rafa with the EL and top 4 finish. I couldn't care less what type of a man he is, I'm not asking you to marry him (you could if you want to, though ) all I care about is that he was given a job to do for my team and he did it so I'll thank him. Would you not thank the plumber for fixing your sink because you heard he was not a gentleman somewhere else? On any account, the article here had absolutely nothing to do with Benitez's personality. In fact, it was more about why Robbie had to go because of the work that needed to be done if we wanted to compete for the PL tittle next season. Most people were just 'offended' by the tittle. I meant it that way so that they would be provoked to actually reading it, but instead a lot of people just got angry and answered the tittle instead (I know you did not do this, but some people did). Anyway, I'm just glad that this season which was always going to be a transition is over, and for me, it has been a success despite seeming destined for failure back in November.

A lot of rumors on Twitter that he might join Vitesse on loan for next season.

My pleasure, mate And welcome to TC. Hope you stick around.

Why can't you ever write those in English for once

Tbf, I did write this article before we won the EL and secured top 4. In fact, when I wrote this, he was still the FSW Because like I said, I was not referring to the results but rather the changes in the team as opposed to what we had under Robbie and how important that will be for next season. Yes I probably exaggerated, but that was just to make it a bit more controversial.

May be he thought someone might try to behead him..

"Transfer List"?! I'd cut down on FIFA and FM if I were you.. It makes no sense to me to spend 30m+ because the difference between having Ba-Torres-Lukaku and for example Lewandowiski-Torres-Lukaku is not worth 30m imo because like I said the center of our attacks will always be our attacking midfielders and they will always contribute the most goals to the team.

No..I only found Emma Watson and Kate Upton in there

It is very normal for clubs to inquire about players even if they don't want to sign them. Clubs inquire about players all the time. It's just a way to keep tabs on players they might be interested in in the future.

I don't!

It might have been just an inquiry which is pretty normal even for players you don't really want to buy.

Chase? When did we chase either? And even if you assume that that cunt Palmeri was right about us going after Cavani (very highly unlikely), we have certainly never "chased" Lewandowiski.

Thin? We currently have 3 players for one position. And Scurrle and even Moses can cover there if needed. Lacking the needed quality I actually agree with. Ideally, we should have a world-class striker with Lukaku as second choice and someone like Ba as third choice. But since that is clearly not happening, Torres-Ba-Lukaku is not such a bad alternative, especially because we do not rely on our striker as much as other teams do as I explained above. I honestly don't think we'll go after a striker. But I guess we'll see..

Why would he leave? He did well in his 6 months here, he's not worse than Torres and Lukaku and he still hasn't gotten a chance in front of the new manager. And he still has 3 years on his contract. He's also our only target man while Torres and Lukaku are very similar to each other. The rumors, like all other rumors, are 99% BS. It's not that we're trapped, it just makes no sense to buy another striker, definitely not for the 30m+ prices that are being quoted.

Not denying that at all. Like I said, one of the reasons why the percentage of goals scored by strikers in our team has dropped because of the lack of clinical finishing and we can certainly improve on that. But I just don't think that is very important or would make much of difference. It's certainly for me not worth the prices that have been quoted for some of the 'Top' strikers. I just think we have bigger concerns atm.

Worst part is, it is even recycled news. I remember reading about this a few months ago..

They're only shooting themselves in the foot because the year after that none of those players will be with them and they'll have to rebuild their team almost from scratch.

United play an attacking system built around their strikers. Their midfielders and wingers main job is to create chances for the strikers. We on the other hand never rely on our strikers for goals. Just compare the goals our midfield scores to united's. The percentage of goals scored by our strikers may vary a little from season to season, but we'll never be as reliant on them as Manchester are. And that, imo, is a good thing. Now, the reasons why that percentage has dropped in the past couple of seasons are two. First, our main strikers seriously lacking some clinical finishing. This is something we can improve on. The other and bigger reason is the change in our attacking system. Now more than ever, our attacks are based on our attacking midfielders more than our strikers. The striker is almost a mere distraction at times. We use the striker to move defenders and create space for attacking midfielders to run into. The positional freedom that our front four have and their ability to interchange roles is our biggest asset in attack, imo. That won't change regardless of who or if we sign someone in the market. Regarding our activity in the market, I honestly don't think we will sign a striker this summer. First, we just signed a striker in January. We also have Lukaku coming back from loan and he has earned a chance with the first team. While Torres will not be sold simply because no one is willing to pay his wages. So basically we have three strikers that aren't going anywhere while playing a system that only utilizes one striker. Buying a fourth striker would not make any sense and would cause a lot of needless headaches for the manager.

About Suarez or Scarlett? No, I completely get your point, I can't see my self rooting for him either. Besides, he's only leaving Liverpool because he wants to leave England, why would he come here?! Exactly. I even believe that the rumors linking us to Cavani, Hulk and Falcao are bullshit.

Oh, okay. Thanks