Annasfield

So you'd boo them to inspire them for the next game? I watched some pretty dire football for much of last season and spent a fair wedge doing so. Every match I clapped my team off the pitch. I wouldn't contemplate anything else.

Disagree. You should NEVER boo your team.

Boooooooooooooo!!!!! Couldn't hear it myself, but if our fans were doing that last night, then I don't blame Rooney at all. Don't get these moronic idiots who don't get behind their team when they're on the pitch. Wasn't a great performance last night. No one looked like they wanted the ball in case they cocked up. Half blame this nation's wonderful tabloid press. One cock up and you're hung out to dry. Shame that Carragher got booked as he was probably the only one who gave 100% and looked like he cared.

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Typical bloody germans.....of to a storming > start...and looking like the best team in the > tournament so far....grrrrrrr......lol.....helped > by the card happy ref of course ;-) It's okay. It was only Cahill.

I HATE my job. Need to start buying lottery tickets.

V96 - The Longpigs, Cast, Supergrass and Pulp. Those are the ones I remember anyway.

Just read this in the Echo. I know football isn't just about sentiment, but if there was ever a man that was meant to be a manager at Liverpool then Rafa fills those shoes. Gutted he has gone.

I really hope so. A few of us have discussed this and reckon it might happen one day. Would be great for him to come back and finish what he's started. How anyone can think that removing Rafael Benitez and replacing him with Hodgson/O'Neill/Hughes is a postive step for the club. Have heard that his wife and kids are staying in Liverpool as they love it so much.

Rafa to Inter then. Not good enough for LFC but seemingly good enough for the Italian League winners and Champions of Europe. Best of luck fella, you will be sorely missed. I hope you clean up.

I'd always considered cold Chinese with stale prawn crackers to be one of my filthy secrets. Tastes even better if eaten in bed.

Excellent peice from Brian Reade, Journalist, Kop Season ticket holder and Scouser; Rafa Benitez leaves Liverpool as a legend so could critics please stop rewriting history? Right to the end the professional pundits failed to understand why so many Liverpudlians stayed loyal to Rafa Benitez. As 500 fans marched on Anfield after his departure, chanting the Spaniard?s name, heads shook at a footballing sub-species bracketed somewhere between romantic die-hards and mawkish morons. To the ?expert? eye, these deluded fools had been conned by Benitez?s cunning and blinded to his failings by the glory of Istanbul and the criminal incompetence of the American owners. Liverpool fans they said, once among the most knowledgeable in the world, had clearly lost touch with the modern reality, and were now a sad throwback to the days when sideburned men kicked orange balls. Well, I?d argue one of the saddest aspects of modern football is too many pundits, including ex-players, have not paid to watch a game since those orange ball days. And they?ve lost touch with the fan. I?m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he?s been a major player in Anfield?s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing. But to paint his six-year reign as an unmitigated disaster, sustained only by the over-sentimentalising of Istanbul, is analysis at its most skewed and cringeful. By 2004 Liverpool had been relegated to the status of European also-rans. Benitez made the club a genuine world force again. It wasn?t just that 2005 Champions League win (which is shamelessly downplayed as a fluke despite beating Fabio Capello?s Juventus, Jose Mourinho?s Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti?s AC Milan). Or reaching the 2007 Champions League final and the 2008 semi-final. It wasn?t even UEFA elevating Liverpool to Europe?s top-seeded club due to results under Benitez. It was beating Real Madrid and Inter Milan at the Bernabeu and San Siro (which the Reds had never before done) and Barcelona at the Nou Camp. Magical victories at the very top of world football, which restored long-overdue respect to Liverpudlian hearts. Ah say the experts, but he didn?t win the league. True. But he got closer than any Liverpool boss in the past 20 years. A season ago he was a whisker away, taking the highest number of points by a runner-up in a 38-game season and the club?s best points haul since 1988. And he did so despite having the 5th highest wage bill in the league, the 5th costliest squad, the 5th biggest stadium capacity and a net annual transfer spend of ?15million. Which should have made experts ask why Liverpool were ever considered a nailed-on top four side under Benitez, especially when the boardroom was mired in anarchy. Ah, they say, but he?d long lost the players and the board. So why have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina signed new long-term contracts within the past year? Why last August did managing director Christian Purslow do interviews purring over Benitez and how he was integral to the club?s future? Ah, the experts say, but that was before he let Xabi Alonso go, which everyone could see was a calamity. These would be the same experts who, for the previous couple of seasons, claimed Liverpool were a two-man team. With Alonso (on whom Benitez turned a ?20million profit) never being mentioned as one of those two. Ah, they say, but Torres apart, he only signed sub-standard dross and ended up with a shockingly-weak squad. Really? Liverpool are sending 12 players (13 if you count Milan Jovanovic whose Bosman signing is going through) to the World Cup. Or an entire team: Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Rodriguez, Kuyt, Torres. Subs: Kyrgiakos, Jovanovic. Eleven Chelsea players flew out to South Africa, the same number as Arsenal, and Manchester United sent eight. Does that look like he?s left Anfield bare of talent? The truth is Benitez leaves a squad worth many times more than the one he inherited, despite spending less in the past three transfer windows than he?s brought in. I don?t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez?s failings. I saw last year?s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give. Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let?s do him the honour of getting his legacy right. Rafa Benitez was many things at Liverpool but unlike every manager since Kenny Dalglish, he was not a failure. Indeed a majority of Liverpudlians will remember him as a legend. Because like Bill Shankly, on more days and nights than those expert pundits ever care to recall, he made the people happy.

In a word silverfox - NO! That's another reason why the sacking of Rafael Benitez is likely to be one the biggest mistakes that the club has ever made.

I find it pretty disgusting how many ex reds have stabbed Rafa in the back. NOT the Liverpool way!!! Another thing that saddens me, no matter what your opinion is of Rafa, is how none these ex reds have mentioned how healthy the club was before Hicks and Gilett took over compared to where we are now.

Mick - are you related to Martin O'Neill or do you just have some huge man crush on him. You always go on about him. I don't know a single Liverpool fan who would want him at Anfield

'bout now Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The perfect fit for Liverpool is almost > unthinkable. > > > Arsene Wenger, there I said it and if I was in the > Liverpool boardroom I'd throw 10 Million at that. And where would you hope to find that money? There isn't even ?5m for players and I imagine that will come from sale of Mascherano and a few others.

Where have Gerrard and Torres hinted that they will leave if Rafa stays. That was your original post? LFC is approximately ?450m in debt ? any money from the sale of those players will not be put back in to the team. We are being bled dry. Interesting that Aquilani is deemed to be a flop after half a season, which I think when he played he has shown promise. Also interesting that the press forget to report that Roma owed us money for Risse and given that ,we only paid a pittance upfront for Aquilani because of the structure of the deal. That?s the money that Rafa was given to spend. If Rafa was offered a clean ?80m to spend with no caveats, such as, you have to spend ?10m of it at xxxx club (i.e. Pompey) etc, then I think things would be VERY different. Keane ? I?ll concede that he didn?t work out; however people need to remember that he was bought to play with Gareth Barry who Rick Parry and the yanks decided was too expensive, so Keane came on his own. Where did the money go that was returned to us after he went back to Spurs? It certainly wasn?t invested in the squad. I also find it amusing that no one has ripped Harry apart for wasting money on his return. Rafa has made mistakes and I sometimes question him, however it is a disgrace how he?s been treated by the board and I am absolutely gutted that it has come to this. I just hope that he spills the beans about the cancer that seems to have infested our club once he?s gone.

Where have they said that Jah? In my opinion it's all tabloid spin. The only one who has come out and said anything about Rafa is Riera. Interesting read on that from Balague

"You'll never walk alone" ? What a load of shit!! If Dalglish steps in, it will be the worst mistake of his career. Rafa had one bad season and our fans turned on him. Kenny will always be a legend in my eyes, but under our current ownership and with our fickle fans, I fear this will end in tears. Absolutely gutted.

Good job it's not up to you eh Ruffers?

Only what SOS have been saying for the past 2.5 years. The tabloids break it like it's news, yet we've known all along that this is the case.

5-3

Made up Blackpool won. That's going to be a great away trip next season.

Yep. This is how he is rewarded for all his fuck ups this season.

Jaybee, I have lists from two of my mate's detailing what they've got of your requirements. Will try and get sorted and send them to you. Think I have a list of what they need too.