I can't imagine if we had other managers instead of rafa during the dumb and dumber days. Rafa was the one who kept us afloat and alive during those dark days. Despite all the odds against us on the financial front, we were still challenging in the european front and were often in semis of CL.
Tell me, which other manager could have done what he achieved with such limited resources?
Mourinho? Don't make me laugh. He will only work if you give him 100m blank check.
Hodgson? We would have been in league 2 if he had been in-charge 2-3 years ago.
Houllier? - if he's that good he won't have been sacked.
The only person whom I can think of who would have done quite as good a job as rafa was Gus Hiddink. But he was not available. Or rather, he would rather coach chavs than us.
So for all nincompoops who have been slagging off rafa - give an alternative manager who would have done a better job than he did during those dark days when we had almost zero funds to work with. If you don't have any suggestions, then keep the mouth shut before you slag rafa off.
i think i speak for everyone when i say "i'll say what the fck i want to say" and also if rafa never did anything wrong he'd have kept his job and we'd be competing in the CL so don't go on like rafa made a mistake he also the man who brought skrtel,sissoko,jan kronkamp,josemi,jovanovic,morientes,babel,insua, so rafa deserves a lot of slagging off for a lot of things and a lot of praise but the man made plenty of mistakes
My point is, he had to gamble and wheel & deal to sign players. If he had been given full backing like a normal top 4 side would, do you honestly think he would sign people like kromkamp, josemi and all the other flops?
The beautiful thing is that most of his flops either exited with none or minimal losses or even at a profit. i.e crouch, bellemy.
And another note, he wanted to sign vidic and david villa but was rebuffed by lack of funds or club instability. Was it his fault? I don't think so.
Perhaps you should analyze the situation in its full entirety before slagging off rafa.
