I'm a Liverpool fan, and I think very highly of Rafa too.
What I found with Rafa is that he does best when under pressure e.g. when he needs his contract extending, people in the media doubting him...but once he's got his 5 year contract and won the trophies, he gets complacent and things go downhill. He was like this at both Liverpool and Valencia. At Valencia he won La Liga, then the next year they finished 4th, the next year they won it again. I'd expect Rafa to do extremely well in this short season at Chelsea, winning 1 or more major trophies. Once he's got his long term contract, he might not be able to keep it up, Abram might sack him after a bad 3 games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross
Rafa is a great manager, I would LOVE to see his half time team talk in that dressing room from 2005 Champions League final, whatever he said to those players to bring them back from 3-0 down must have been inspirational. However, Chelsea is a different animal than Liverpool, the expectations of a young owner with more money than he knows what to do with, makes it pretty tough. 3 bad games and all of a sudden he is thinking about replacing you. I like Rafa Benitez, he is always methodical in his manner and approach, he's clever and speaks well but dealing with Abramovich I think he will find it tough.
|