The Benitez Thread

[xPetrCechx 13,548]

We were 4 points of the lead with the football we played under RDM. Now i am not even sure how many points it is because we haven't been in contention for so long. 25 points behind or something. Yes we got trashed by Juve away. Oh well. I won't even list the games we have been outplayed in under Rafa because there is far too many. There is no way we would be in a worse situation league wise if RDM was still here.

Ofc all everyone will remember is how Rafa's hazard substitution changed the game to earn us a reply against united, which we then went on to win. No seems to question why hazard wasn't starting in the first place (non chelsea fans didn't). Or will remember the shitty team he put out vs southampton and how demba ba didn't even get on the pitch when we were losing. We just need to get 4th now. Anything else is a bonus, then this joke of a manager will be gone.

Great, as usual!

[Heisenberg 1,824]

"I'm a little bit disappointed with a group of fans singing, and I think they are not doing any favours for the team. They have to support the team instead of wasting time making banners and singing songs, and create a good atmospere at Stamford Bridge.

They have to support the players. I am an experienced manager, and I will do my best until the last day. They gave me the title of 'Interim Manager'. It's a massive mistake. I'm the manager, and I will manage the team until the end, every single minute.

If they want to carry on wasting time because they have an agenda, they have to accept responsibility when something is wrong [...].

At the end of the season I will leave, they don't have to worry about me."

[Blue Gino 377]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/jose-mourinho-set-stun-football-1816250?

With PSG's endless cash and Fergie not yet ready to step down, this is a real possibility. Ugh.

[Santiago. 1,500]

Inconsistent squad Mentality and Torres doing absolutely fuck all in trying to get the ball into the back of the net when the likes of Sturridge and Ba are 10 times the footballer he is, yet we got rid of both of them. Those are the two reasons why Dimatteo got the sack.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/jose-mourinho-set-stun-football-1816250?

With PSG's endless cash and Fergie not yet ready to step down, this is a real possibility. Ugh.

No, he'll comeback, we lack options, José is available, its all down to him, our board are "forced" to talk to him, if he doesnt accept the job, that means he was lying.

[Hutcho 8,443]

25 BS newspaper reports saying he is coming. Followed by a BS newspaper report saying he isn't coming. They will change their mind soon. He will be going to aldershot next.

[Hutcho 8,443]

And by BS. I don't mean that he isn't coming, just that the majority of reports are just copies of others or people putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.

[Henrique 9,133]

Tbf, Benitez is doing a really decent job, the football under RDM was easily the worst the Chelsea displayed in an UCL edition.

This is the stupidest line I read today, good job mister.

Are you serious or just joking ? Under Roberto Di Matteo we were heading into a direction, and it is to play good football, nice & entraining football, he was changing the mentality & the style of play, we always wanted the ball, we were not as direct as now, and it is normal to concede more, to be more " friable " because that's what change cost you as a manager, it is exactly what AVB wanted too. Robbie never had time to fully implement his ideas of how things should be done, now, we are purely playing long balls or hoping for a miracle coming from Mata, Oscar, Hazard, or a long shot from Frank Lampard.We are not trying to be the dominant force in the match, that's why we lost the CWC & Carling Cup, because we are not trying to create a style of play, we are simply tinkering until the end of the season, could you describe me Rafa's tactics ? Style of play ? I know you cant, dont even try.

Robbie won us two titles, with a less talented squad, lets see what this Rafa Benitez can do.

1- you should download those matches agains, because being outplayed by Shaktar in 2 UCL matches is far from heading into right direction. In fact it was a team with good players trying to play some good football. No tactics at all.

2- RDM had time enough to implement his ideas, at least he got much more time than Benitez.

3- Robbie didnt won us two titles, in same way Avran Grant did not made Chelsea reach the UCL final back in 08.

4- Im not sure the squad last season was less talented in terms of competitiveness, the current squad have more potential, specially with Hazard and Oscar, but last season we had Drogba, a match winner in a way that Hazard is not even close yet to be, now we have Marin and Moses but I'm not sure if thats an upgrade to Kalou and Malouda, last season Ivanovic was playing as a RB, and in that position for me he is a better player than Azi.

Your post ended with you asserting that we now playing with long balls, you should watch more games and understand more about tactics.

[Kojo 4,676]

1- you should download those matches agains, because being outplayed by Shaktar in 2 UCL matches is far from heading into right direction. In fact it was a team with good players trying to play some good football. No tactics at all.

2- RDM had time enough to implement his ideas, at least he got much more time than Benitez.

3- Robbie didnt won us two titles, in same way Avran Grant did not made Chelsea reach the UCL final back in 08.

4- Im not sure the squad last season was less talented in terms of competitiveness, the current squad have more potential, specially with Hazard and Oscar, but last season we had Drogba, a match winner in a way that Hazard is not even close yet to be, now we have Marin and Moses but I'm not sure if thats an upgrade to Kalou and Malouda, last season Ivanovic was playing as a RB, and in that position for me he is a better player than Azi.

Your post ended with you asserting that we now playing with long balls, you should watch more games and understand more about tactics.

Henrique i love you man

But you're downplaying Robbie too much, yeah he was no saint this season, but last season i don't care what you say he's the only man who could've done that and won us them titles.

Can you remember in the space of about 6 days we had to play 3 games, we beat Barca 1-0, beat Spurs 5-1 and i think we lost 2-0 to newcastle (due to two fantastic goals from cisse). But Robbie got us results out of nothing, he got the players working, and call it a fluke or what, he still won us two big titles.

He's a legend in my eyes, and he's the only Chelsea manager who has been able to do it, and with the worst squad we've ever had.

EDIT: And if i remember correctly, because of them bastard scousers thinking the world evolves around them, they made us play on sunday so we only had one day rest against Barcelona, and we still manage to craft out a win. You have to be blind to say Robbie wasn't a magician, luck can't be that consistent, he got everything right, when we had to park the bus we did it in a way no one has ever been able to do before, and when we had to outplay napoli we fucking murdered them.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

1- you should download those matches agains, because being outplayed by Shaktar in 2 UCL matches is far from heading into right direction. In fact it was a team with good players trying to play some good football. No tactics at all.

2- RDM had time enough to implement his ideas, at least he got much more time than Benitez.

3- Robbie didnt won us two titles, in same way Avran Grant did not made Chelsea reach the UCL final back in 08.

4- Im not sure the squad last season was less talented in terms of competitiveness, the current squad have more potential, specially with Hazard and Oscar, but last season we had Drogba, a match winner in a way that Hazard is not even close yet to be, now we have Marin and Moses but I'm not sure if thats an upgrade to Kalou and Malouda, last season Ivanovic was playing as a RB, and in that position for me he is a better player than Azi.

Your post ended with you asserting that we now playing with long balls, you should watch more games and understand more about tactics.

" RDM had time enough to implement his ideas, at least he got much more time than Benitez."

Completely wrong, I'll give the example of Dortmund and Jurgen Klopp, how much time he needed to become twice champion ? And Allegri with his new squad this year ? And Ancelotti with PSG ? And Pep with Barcelona ? Managers need seasons, not months.

" Robbie didnt won us two titles, in same way Avran Grant did not made Chelsea reach the UCL final back in 08."

Well, it was clear we were heading to the final under AVB, this is just incredible, and you are a CFC supporter I guess ? Who changed the formation ? Who changed the mentality ? Who made crucial decisions ? I dont even want to talk more, to compare our win with the loss under Avram is crazy.

"Im not sure the squad last season was less talented in terms of competitiveness"

Well I'm sure this squad is better in term of talent, surely not in the mentality.

"our post ended with you asserting that we now playing with long balls, you should watch more games and understand more about tactics. "

That's why you are here, to tell me where I'm wrong.Show me our style of football.

[Henrique 9,133]

Henrique i love you man

But you're downplaying Robbie too much, yeah he was no saint this season, but last season i don't care what you say he's the only man who could've done that and won us them titles.

Can you remember in the space of about 6 days we had to play 3 games, we beat Barca 1-0, beat Spurs 5-1 and i think we lost 2-0 to newcastle (due to two fantastic goals from cisse). But Robbie got us results out of nothing, he got the players working, and call it a fluke or what, he still won us two big titles.

He's a legend in my eyes, and he's the only Chelsea manager who has been able to do it, and with the worst squad we've ever had.

EDIT: And if i remember correctly, because of them bastard scousers thinking the world evolves around them, they made us play on sunday so we only had one day rest against Barcelona, and we still manage to craft out a win. You have to be blind to say Robbie wasn't a magician, luck can't be that consistent, he got everything right, when we had to park the bus we did it in a way no one has ever been able to do before, and when we had to outplay napoli we fucking murdered them.

Im not downplaying him, but I would not go that far and say: he won us this and that. In fact the tactics in final against Bayern were really poor, he played a part in everything, but for me it was more about players than RDM.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

"Robbie didnt won us two titles" "Im not downplaying him"

Logic.

Yes I know what you'll write, he didnt literally won us two titles, but he played a major part in it, and to say he had the same impact & touch that Avram had is for me, idiot.

[The Skipper 20,593]

2- RDM had time enough to implement his ideas, at least he got much more time than Benitez.

Benitez has been at CFC as long as RDM now (this season). This season he's had as much time as RDM to implement his ideas - not sure what you're getting at.

3- Robbie didnt won us two titles, in same way Avran Grant did not made Chelsea reach the UCL final back in 08.

This is bullshit sorry. You can't compare Avram Grant's team to our team last year. We were far stronger then, we weren't on the verge of a CL exit and our best players weren't in their prime like they were under Grant. Why twist the facts just to undermine what RDM did?

You don't have to be controversial just for the sake of it, Henrique.

[OneMoSalah 8,619]

No, no, no.

We played the most entertaining football in the league under RDM in the begining of the season and got 22 out of 24 points.

We went into bad form because of the psychological effect of loosing to manutd in a shitty way. So RDM had to go back to basics to make things right but sadly, the board didn't give him any time to do that. Benitez is nothing compared to RDM, its not even up for a debate.

We didn't go into bad form because of the psychological effect of loosing against United in that manner. The squad was tired, we have a very small squad, players like Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Ramires, Torres, Cole, Ivanovic, Luiz etc were playing 180 minutes a week. The lesser teams we managed to beat because we had that bit of quality despite players being tired.

United were strong and energetic all over the pitch due to rotation and quality in their 25 man squad where as some of our players were absolutely fucked due to midweek games etc and well as good and entertaining as our offensive football was, we suffered defensively against United who play through their wings a lot. Cole and Ivanovic were usually up against Valencia and Rafael or Nani and Evra due to the lack of defensive work from whoever was given the two wide positions off the ball. We did play well to get it back to 2-2 but United helped us in that manner as they let us have the share of the ball, with 9 men it was impossible as certain players were that tired from doing double or triple the amount of running they had to do usually due to the sending offs.

Di Matteo going back to basics wouldn't have done anything. It showed vs Juve, we basically played 5 at the back and still conceded 3. His 'luck' possibly ran out. We played poorly under him just before Rafa came in, we'd only won 2 games in 6 or 8 I think it was.

Going back to basics after that still would have been pointless. It won us the CL because we had limited players that weren't good enough to control games against Bayern, Barca, Benfica and Napoli in Europe but we could let them commit players forward, stay compact and use the pace of Ramires, Kalou, Torres, Bosingwa, Mata, Sturridge and whoever else to get up the pitch. We still don't have the right player to go next to Mikel or Romeu to control bigger European games in my opinion (but at least we have more creative players than Ramires Kalou and Sturridge to play in the three so we are kind of half way there). Di Matteo gave himself and Rafa and potentially the next coach a problem by not signing a central midfielder who could do such a thing. This stuck out like a sore thumb in pre-season too.

I'm not saying Rafa is the right coach, hell no but in terms of rotation and use of the squad we've got, hes been very sensible with using the squad players (Marko, Yossi, Ryan, Victor, Romeu) to rest players to try prevent fatigue and injuries despite results. Robbie had implemented a good idea in terms of playing style offensively but defensively we were a mess, he failed to overcome the problem that ultimately cost him his job in a way; to get the offensive players to defend when we didn't have the ball. Rafa didn't solve that completely but against City (the borefest game) we were better as a unit. I remember Mikels interview after the Juve game in Turin before Rafa was appointed, he said without the ball it was a nightmare and he hit the nail on the head. Which even against the MLS team, PSG and Brighton in pre-season you could have said without the ball we caused ourselves problems all day. The signs were there.

The thing about RDM not getting enough time is a myth. He was on borrowed time from the day he signed that 2 year deal. He would have been sacked the following season had he won the PL unbeaten because Roman wanted Pep to rebuild Chelsea. I'm not trying to say Robbie was a bad coach or that but he wasn't the right man to rebuild Chelsea especially as he had never rebuilt a squad in his whole career. He brought the feel good factor back after AVB's sacking (even though I believed AVB deserved time as he actually had a plan to rebuild the squad and change the philosophy), that's for sure and he did very well to win us two big trophies with that squad. Robbie's a better manager because of his experience here and it will benefit him greatly if he gets another top coaching position.

[ulsterchelsea 3,213]

Just want to say that whilst a lot are wavering in their hatred towards Benitez I for one want him OUT asap! Never wanted him here,hate and loath the creature and honestly feel ill at the thoughts of him being in interim charge of us when we win something. RAFA OUT

[Laylabelle 9,305]

Oh god imagin if he had sacked RDM in summer....Pep never really looked like he was gana come and it'd been a whole season with Rafa!!

No way can he stay anymore after this is over.....surley they wouldnt...

[ulsterchelsea 3,213]

Oh god imagin if he had sacked RDM in summer....Pep never really looked like he was gana come and it'd been a whole season with Rafa!!

No way can he stay anymore after this is over.....surley they wouldnt...

They wont, he knows hes hated and he himself wouldnt be annoyed with us after this season anyway. Ive never listened to a press conference (bar his arrival) pre or post match and will take great delight in booing him, if we win anything, when he lifts the trophy. Clueless self egotistical man

[zolayes 14,489]

They wont, he knows hes hated and he himself wouldnt be annoyed with us after this season anyway. Ive never listened to a press conference (bar his arrival) pre or post match and will take great delight in booing him, if we win anything, when he lifts the trophy. Clueless self egotistical man

FFS Ulster stop sitting on the fence ..do you Rafa with us next season or not??