They feel a sense of loyalty towards Rafa Benitez for winning the 2005 Champions League, but as his only other trophy was the 2006 FA cup, Rafa's record is nothing to shout about. In fact, I think that the Champions League win has made them Liverpool fans delusional about Rafa's capabilities as a manager.
Other than the fact that he has a tendency to get into verbal fisticuffs with other managers, Rafa's also been implicitly damned by his own players for not communicating with them. And it's not just the players who are not playing who have made public their grievances. Even Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have mentioned this trait.
But there's one thing that really riles me about Benitez.
He has often pointed out that United and Chelsea have bigger budgets than Liverpool, implying that he is not able to compete with them due to financial constraints.
Steve Nicol, a Liverpool player for 14 years has something to say about this :
"They've spent over £200 million so you can't say they've not had money to buy players. If you don't get the right players, you're not going to win games, and you have to say they haven't got the right players as a unit.''
Now Rafa can say that he's had to sell players to to finance his purchase of new players but if he had bought the right players in the first place then he wouldn't have had a need to keep on buying new players. So far, his hit-and-miss record has been more Miss than Hit.
But the most glaring omission in Rafa's CV at Liverpool could yet be the fact that Liverpool's youth system has not produced a single significant player for their first team squad. 6 years at Liverpool, and Rafa hasn't been able to get even one first eleven player from Liverpool's youth system. Compare that record against Sir Alex Ferguson's and Arsene Wenger's and it's apparent that Rafa's looks terrible.
And that's a fact.
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