Opinion on Rafa's credentials are becoming increasingly polarised with each fixture that passes and it's really becoming apparent that it is dividing our fan base to the same manner with which it did during Gerard Houllier's final season here. Those who debate on both sides of the argument really need to stop being so esoteric. There are criticisms of Rafa which are valid and it is important that any individual at the club; players, coaching staff, the manager, the board et cetera are not beyond reproach. It's a particular kind of argument on this forum, probably because the popularity of the forum means that there is a huge variety of supporters here, not just those that go to the game or live local or have an encyclopedic knowledge or understanding of the game.
It really becomes tiresome to hear criticisms of the manager evoke the kind of responses that they do on this forum, nearly as tiresome as some of the ill-thought criticisms that Rafa is getting here. It descends to an almost childish debate at times. It's important that constructed criticisms of Rafa are not dismissed implicitly as coming from 'whoppers' or 'day-tripper's' and the like, I know many match-going fans who feel his time is up.
For me, I think Rafa has made many mistakes, this season and during his entire time here. But to focus only on his errors is an absurd injustice to a manager who has reconstructed a club that was directionless and a fading force into a club that has genuinely challenged for major honours in each season that he has been here (Champions League Final in 2005 & 2007, Semi-Finalists in 2008, the FA Cup in 2006 and now a title challenge in 2008-9.) The squad he inherited was poor, the team was poor and lacked quality. The academy wasn't producing new talent and the whole club practically needed reconstructing. What he did in his first season was almost miraculous. To see Igor Biscan confidently rampaging through the Bayer Leverkusen midfield and playing a delightful throughball for Luis Garcia to finish was almost miraculous.
He has made bad decisions in the transfer market at times (though not as many as his detractors would have you believe) and some of his tactical decisions in some games can be baffling. His scatter-gun approach to developing young players and his dealings with the press are also areas where I feel he has sometimes handled things badly. This season however, the criticisms he has been accused of seems to have been intensified. I think it's probably because of Manchester United's success last season.
For so long, our supporters held our records dear as we clung on to them out of desparation as we watched United win title after title in the nineties, safe in the knowledge that it wasn't possible for them to reach our title haul any time soon. It became our comfort blanket ... but now we're in danger of losing even that and in my opinion, that's why so many have become almost irrational in our desperation to keep it. Thus, everything that everybody is doing is being scrutinised microscopically, and Rafa being the man in charge, he is the man in the firing line.
Liverpool Football Club will go on without Rafa, just as it went on without Paisley, Fagan, Shankly and Dalglish. But to underestimate the job he has done in transforming the club in the four-and-a-half years he has been here would be folly. We finished the 2003-4 season, our last under Houllier, thirty points behind the leaders, three more points than the difference between ourselves and the relegation zone that season. Our two most important players were on the verge of quitting, our head coach had just quit (who, helpfully for our new Spanish manager who had a less than perfect grasp of English when he first arrived, spoke fluent Spanish), there was little in the squad that signified we would be capable of challenging for anything any time soon and we did not have the funds to compete in the transfer market with the main challengers, and neither did we have the infrastructure to build on.
The squad he inherited was:
GK: Dudek, Kirkland, Luzi. DEF: Finnan, Carragher, Henchoz, Hyypia, Traore, Riise. MID: Diouf, Smicer, Murphy, Diao, Gerrard, Biscan, Hamann, Cheyrou, Welsh, Kewell. ATT: Owen, Heskey, Baros, Le Tallec, Sinama-Pongolle.
Gerrard wanted out, Owen wanted out. The French duo of Le Tallec and Sinama-Pongolle had shown little to live up to their hype, Kewell and Finnan both failed to impress in their first seasons and Carragher had a poor season. The consensus was that Hyypia and Henchoz were past their best and a liability, that Hamann was too immobile, Dudek and Baros too inconsistent and the rest were not good enough. In the hands of the wrong manager, inheriting this squad could have been disastrous.
Gerrard stayed, Owen went at a fraction of his value. Rafa revitalised much of the squad; Finnan became one of the most consistent full-backs in Europe for the next few seasons, Carragher established himself as a world class central defender and even some of the 'dead wood' in that squad, the likes of Smicer, Biscan, Traore and Riise showed great improvement. Rafa has spent a lot of money, and he has made mistakes of course in spending that money, but then so has every other manager. When you're playing catch-up, you have to take chances in the transfer market. Our prize asset was leaving for a pittance, and it was important we got decisions right in the transfer at that crucial time for the club. In that first summer, Rafa spent that budget by buying Xabi Alonso for £10.5m and Luis Garcia for £6m. Two players who were essential for our success the following seasons.
Of course there are managers who could come in if Rafa did leave and do a good job, but there is no one who could have done the job he has done in the circumstances, save perhaps Jose Mourinho or Fabio Capello. It is not at all constructive to merely defend your own side of the argument verbatim. There are valid criticisms of Rafa, and if these are offered, it doesn't mean that the person offering them is necessarily wanting to sack him. Conversely, just because some of his actions or decisions can frustrate at times, it does not mean that the only recourse is his dismissal. We need to defer our reactions and our frustrations, and instead analyse his performance with a much greater sense of balance, otherwise our fanbase will become even more fractured than it is already.
How can you be having a go at him after he just scored!
