Benitez to Chelsea Discussion & Sack watch

It was funny that they signed him, but ever since the Chavski faithful gave him such a horrific 'welcome', I cant help but look on in sadness. Its like watching an old heavyweight boxer in his late 40's making a come back for one final pay day, only to be ridiculed through psychological and physical in public.

I don't have any pity for Benitez, he fully knew the score before he accepted this job. Nor do I feel any pangs for the Chavski players - they have created this divisive culture in the club themselves.

But I do feel saddened that professional football has produced this sick and perverted microcosm of modern day life. Its like car crash reality TV fuelled by instant celebrity with no hard work and shady tones of the underworld all rolled up into one product.

Already, the entire affair is very unseemly.

Meh. Normally I like a humanist slant to any story, but in the case of Rafa and the reclused oligarc my sympathy is strangely non-existent.

I agree however that it's a microcosm of modern top-level football; a glorious concoction of dreadful leadership, horrid PR-management and a lack of fingerspitzengefühl that Hitler would have envied.

In short:

:lol:
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:lol::lol::lol:
 
Could be an interesting time come the end of the season. IF United take the league and let's say Chelsea does not do well under Rafa. We could see the jobs open at United, City and Chelsea, with the 3 clubs joined by maybe one or two others in Europe fighting over Pep and Jose. Purely speculation of course.
 
Could be an interesting time come the end of the season. IF United take the league and let's say Chelsea does not do well under Rafa. We could see the jobs open at United, City and Chelsea, with the 3 clubs joined by maybe one or two others in Europe fighting over Pep and Jose. Purely speculation of course.

and arsenal, if wenger decides to walk
 
Rumous running in the tabloids now that Rafa, as a team building experience, took the team to play bowling. And the loser, I shit you not, had to be waitering (is that the verb) for the rest :lol: . Rafa played but didnt lose apparently, Ashley Cole had to be the waiter.
 
Jose Mourinho, 49, tells Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez to
concentrate on his own job after the Spaniard made comments
about the Real Madrid manager and his possible availability in the
summer.

"As a Chelsea fan all I can say is that I hope he wasn't thinking
about Real Madrid during the Corinthians game," said Mourinho.

:lol:
 
Well Josey's titted this one up now then.

Rafa: "As a Chelsea fan its a shame Jose couldn't focus on his Madrid team losing to the United of Manchester last night"
 
I wish I was still in Africa. the lads i met there are mad at about football. Alot of them like chelsea too. Would have made for some brilliant comedy.
 
I still don't get why he had to rest Mata/Hazard against a team like QPR. :lol:

That's always been his biggest negative. Used to rest players and cost the team games all the time. He also used to take players out of the game when they needed them most.

Long may he remain at Chelsea.
 
That's always been his biggest negative. Used to rest players and cost the team games all the time. He also used to take players out of the game when they needed them most.

Long may he remain at Chelsea.

As if he will remain at ours.

The fans dont want him, regardless of results, he surely cant have the best relationship with some of the players, and last night was a typical Rafa result.

Rest key players and take a team fighting for their lives for granted. The man lives off Istanbul, which owes more to the heroics of a certain Steven than himself. Once the season is up he will gone i'm sure of it, if he does stay his incompetence will show through and RA will have no problem in sacking him, and for once it will be cheered.
 
Don't worry about it guys. Its not for everyone to understand.
It's not for anyone to understand, coz you cocked it up. For a start, to have some equivalency with Jose's comment, it would have to start with "As a Real fan..."
 
As if he will remain at ours.

The fans dont want him, regardless of results, he surely cant have the best relationship with some of the players, and last night was a typical Rafa result.

Rest key players and take a team fighting for their lives for granted. The man lives off Istanbul, which owes more to the heroics of a certain Steven than himself. Once the season is up he will gone i'm sure of it, if he does stay his incompetence will show through and RA will have no problem in sacking him, and for once it will be cheered.

The comical insulting of Rafa borders on hilarious sometimes.

He's won a CL, got to another final and won La Liga twice (With Valencia)

He's not a bad manager at all, but at the moment no-one can get much out of that Chelsea side. They might have fluked a CL (which you accuse Rafa of doing, when you were much much luckier) but their league form is atrocious and top four has to be a priority for you.
 
I still don't get why he had to rest Mata/Hazard against a team like QPR. :lol:

They've been playing a lot recently, I expect Benitez's logic was that he could afford to rest a few players in a home game against the worst team in the League.
 
The comical insulting of Rafa borders on hilarious sometimes.

He's won a CL, got to another final and won La Liga twice (With Valencia)

He's not a bad manager at all, but at the moment no-one can get much out of that Chelsea side. They might have fluked a CL (which you accuse Rafa of doing, when you were much much luckier) but their league form is atrocious and top four has to be a priority for you.

A long time ago yes.

Sven used to be a good manager too.

Trapattoni was a brilliant manager in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Managers can decline just like players do and the truth is Benitez has been posting really bad results with his teams for a while now. He hasn't won anything of note since 2006 and the last three seasons he's had as a manager he's been awful. When Benitez was in Spain and in his first few seasons at Liverpool he was clearly a good manager, but there's no way that finishing 7th with Liverpool, 7th with the reigning world champions at Inter (who'd won the league something like 5 times in a row before he joined) or losing the CWC and leading this Chelsea team to 4th is the sign of a current good manager.

This Chelsea side is full of quality players. For my mind they have the best back 4/GK combo in the league, they're decent in midfield with Luiz, Ramires, Mikel and Lampard and have attacking options to rival anyone in the PL with Mata, Hazard, Torres, Oscar, Moses, Marin, Sturridge. Do they have the perfect squad? No, but they have a squad which should be doing far, far better than lost 2, draw 2 and won 4 vs than the easy run of fixtures which is City, Fulham, West Ham, Sunderland, Villa, Norwich, Everton, QPR. A team with Chelsea's squad should be winning at least six of those games and losing one at most. Benitez is showing just as he does at every club he manages that he is awful at consistently winning games against weak teams. I don't know if it's purely because he rotates too much or he doesn't motivate his sides well enough for QPR on a Wednesday night but it's been the same at every club he's been at. Even at his famed Valencia he won the league with some of the lowest points totals anyone's ever won La Liga with.
 
The comical insulting of Rafa borders on hilarious sometimes.

He's won a CL, got to another final and won La Liga twice (With Valencia)

He's not a bad manager at all, but at the moment no-one can get much out of that Chelsea side. They might have fluked a CL (which you accuse Rafa of doing, when you were much much luckier) but their league form is atrocious and top four has to be a priority for you.


At what stage do past achievements stop being relevant though?

Wenger won some titles 10years ago. Would you be happy if he arrived here, and we lost 1-0 to the bottom team at home having pissed about with the lineup?
 
At what stage do past achievements stop being relevant though?

Wenger won some titles 10years ago. Would you be happy if he arrived here, and we lost 1-0 to the bottom team at home having pissed about with the lineup?

We lost 3-2 at home to the bottom placed team last year. Wenger is still of course a brilliant manager.

Benitez has inherited a deeply flawed squad at Chelsea. Deeply flawed. They have one striker. They have a really poor defense. They don't have one midfielder who can properly play in the 4-2-3-1 formation they try and play (actually there is Mikel but he's pretty rubbish)

Chelsea have a really thin squad and it's showing. I read somewhere that United have two players who've played in something like 21+ games this season, whereas Chelsea have about 10. Their weak squad is letting them down and whilst it may seem stupid to rest Hazard and Mata, he's obviously learned not to overplay them which is pretty standard really.

Put it this way, we rested RVP and Chicarito against West Brom. It worked because we've got excellence all over the pitch. If Rafa choses to rest Hazard and Mata he's got to play Marin and Moses. They've got nowhere near the depth.

I said at the start of the season top 4 should be all Chelsea expect and at the moment they're just about getting there.
 
I fear the day when Sir Alex is gone. Every season we lose to a team like Wolves or Norwich and it's written off as "just not our day". In reality, that's the right way to look at it but with a new manager, I fear we will be just like the Chelsea supporters are now.
 
They've been playing a lot recently, I expect Benitez's logic was that he could afford to rest a few players in a home game against the worst team in the League.

And he rested all of his main players while playing dross up front (Marin and Torres) against their West London rivals. He should have played either of Mata or Hazard at least, to keep a bit of the creative spark in the side which lacks any bite up front.

Losing to the last placed team in the League, at home, is absolutely :lol: :lol: