No I'm not a Liverpool supporter. I dont have a passionate protection of Bentiez, I just think that his achievements at Valencia (last non-Barca/Real manager to win the league) and in Europe with Liverpool are fairly good. I don't think he's the best manager in world football, (off the top of my head I'd pick a number of coachs like Hiddink, Mourinho, Simeone, Klopp, Ramon Diaz, perhaps even Bilic as better than him), but equally well I don't think he's a bad manager and given Chelsea had to get someone in mid-season I dont think he was a very bad choice. I think it's way to early for anyone to judge him at Chelsea. He has only just got to know the team and only now can he bring in new players (like Ba) and get rid of players to balance out the squad (and even then January is not a good time to do this compared to a summer transfer window).
For all their struggles in front of goal in those four matches, I think there are some objective Chelsea fans who can see some signs of promise. He's finally started to play David Luiz as a defensive midfielder, which is something that previous managers should have done a lot earlier. Aside from Ivanovic's horror show last night the defense is looking reasonably solid, with him and Cahill in the center and Cole and Alpiuzecuta on the flanks. They are still without John Terry (personally I probably wouldnt play him, but he would be a reasonable option on the bench) and since the Everton match have had Turnbull in goal (who is not really a top level goalie) due to Cech's injury. Turnbull wasnt really at fault for any of the goals last night, but a very good keeper (like Cech) might have been able to get something on Michu's shot. Without Terry and Cech Chelsea dont have a traditional experienced organiser in the back line, yet still their defence seems fairly good, it's not water-tight a la Milan in the 1990s, but Man Utd and even City (who were solid last year) have also looked shakey this year at the back.
Up front the big issue is Torres, Chelsea are creating enough chances from midfield and have enough attacking quality there to win games, but with Torres offering very little movement (and not that much finishing quality) opposition defences can push forward, largely ignoring him or assinging him one marker, and stifle Chelsea's midfield. If Benitez plays Ba more often I can see Chelsea's attack improving and I can see them scoring more goals. Although picking Ba ahead of Torres might not be down to Benitez if Gourlay, Buck and Abramovic insist on Torres starting.
As I said in my previous post I think Liverpool are still suffering from the ownership disaster of Hicks and Gillette. They had no clear vision and their financial planning was catastrophic, Liverpool as a club needed decisive boardroom leadership. Hicks and Gillette were muddled on their strategy in terms of moving/redeveloping Anfield. Benitez spent a lot at Anfield, he brought in some quality players a lot of the spend was on players for less than £10 million and generally squad players (the likes of Riera, Dossena, Benayoun, Kuyt, Sissoko and Crouch were all under £10m and a lot of them either at the club a long time, or were sold for similar prices). Even on big outlays (Torres £20m, Mascherano £18) were usually value for money (in the sense they were then sold on for more or similar fees, the only big exceptions perhaps being Aquliani (£20m), maybe Babel (£11-12m but sold for £8m) and Keane (£19m but a signing he was against) the jury is probably still out on Glenn Johnston (£18m). He also signed a number of very good players for small fees Lucas, Reina, Skrtel and Agger were all under £6m and Alonso was around £10m). At the end of his reign the board were signing players like Keane (and apparently negotiating the £20m value of Aquilani) yet selling off a lot of the squad. For instance in the last three summers when he was at Liverpool the club turned a profit on transfers. For whatever reasons, the board were economically downsizing Liverpool and the decline in team performances was bound to happen.
We need players of his calibre in the league. We don`t have that flair anymore in the BPL
