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Rafa Has Little To Lose By Voicing Grievances

After spending nearly two years looking for work before Chelsea came calling in November, Rafa Benitez has little to lose now he's been told his contract won't be extended...

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HarryBoulton says...

Chelsea have spent plenty of money. And I do mean plenty. I'd have a pretty good guess that only City have spent more in the last 4 years or so. A quick check of recent arivals (ie, those in the last 3 years) see's a substatial list of names and fee's. With the managers they have had, I find it hard to believe why they have stuggled for consistency.

Posted 11:36am 4th March 2013

uptheblades (Sheffield United) says...

Speaking as a complete neutral - someone who support's a League 1 team - Benitez has a very valid point. I've heard ex-Chelsea players and managers make the point that Di Matteo and Avram were happy to be called "Interim", but they were both internal "caretaker" appointments and Avram is a personal friend of Roman. If you go to the trouble of recruiting a new manager, he is simply the Manager, for the relevant term of his contract - why the stupid "interim" title? Also, I hear Chelsea fans hiding behind the "if only he'd apologised" excuse. Get real! Some of you are so bitter and sensitive that if he had apologised, you would have been saying that it wasn't a proper apology! Its the sheer hypocrisy of Chelsea fans that I find so astonishing! They are in love with Di Matteo and think Benitez is the son of Satan, but they are too afraid to criticise the person who is responsible for firing one and hiring the other, so instead they go for the easy target - even at the risk of de-stabilising their own team...shame....

Posted 2:27pm 3rd March 2013

uptheblades (Sheffield United) says...

@Crowsy - "Chelsea haven't spent as much as people think.." How about £92million this season with a net spend of about £72million. And yes, he inherited a CL winning squad - but also one that had already been dumped out of this season's competition. And you talk about Benitez's time at Inter - if we are going to go down the ridiculous route of judging someone on only 6 month's performance, let's also remember that he actually won 2 trophies in that time. Amazing how people judge manager's ability on the basis of a very short time in a single job. Look at AVB's performance pre- and post-Chelsea - and I wonder if Brian Clough would have ever been allowed to make history at Nottingham Forest if everyone had judged him completely on his 44 days at Leeds United...

Posted 2:21pm 3rd March 2013

crowsy (Chelsea) says...

Zedsmith I don't know where you get your information from (Daily Mail?) but imo you are way off. Chelsea have plenty of young talent but what Chelsea lack is a manager to bring it altogether. TBH Chelsea haven't spent as much as people think on transfers but to say Chelsea spend wildly is an ignorant remark. Liverpool for example would never spend so wildly would they? LOL. Also add to the fact when Chelsea go looking for anybody they have to spend extra because clubs put their players fee up just because of Roman. I'm the first to admit the high prices will damage football in the long run and the high wages players want does not help at all. Refering to Rafa I am sure when he first took the job he was confident of staying put but know he has obviously been told that he isn't his ego has deflated. When Rafa first took over all he had to do was to apologise to the Chelsea fans for his abuse when Liverpool manager and the Chelsea fans would have accepted him, but of course his arrogance stops him from doing so. As for his ability as manager well I think he hasn't any. A manager is only as good as his last job and look at what he did to Inter. He even left Liverpool as a mid table team. Look at the squad he inherited (CL Winners) and now look at the trophies he has cost us. I'm sure he only knows one formation he struggles with anything else. The players don't know what he is on about half the time. This season is so close as being a write off I would sack him now and get Avram to see out the rest of the season and put someone decent in the fans can get behind. I would love to see Hiddinck or Mourinho but he has to give someone a little longer next time. PS for your information Zedsmith Lukaku supported Chelsea as boy and has always dreamt of playing for Chelsea so blows your half baked dig out the water.

Posted 6:28pm 2nd March 2013

zedsmith (Liverpool) says...

jt-cll, I think you're proving my point. Add together the fees paid for Lukaku, Piazon, De Bruyne and the others, and it is more than most teams spend on transfers at all. Without Abramovich's money, this policy can't continue - most clubs can't spend so wildly on potential, and, frankly, most of those players would go nowhere near Chelsea without the money (given the sort of other clubs in the mix for them). And until they prove adept in bringing players through - I think McCeachran shows how bad they are at this, rather than the opposite - I would have little faith in their ability to turn the potential into actual success.

Posted 3:44pm 1st March 2013

markarogers (Liverpool) says...

Petulant - it's just a real shame for Chelsea fans in the long run, that after all the money invested, all the good players that have come and gone, that if Abramovic left tomorrow, the club's standing in the league might not be much better than when he arrived (save for Liverpool and Arsenal getting considerably worse, and Manchester City becoming considerably better). I can't help but feel that they could've amounted to so much more, if "how many points did we earn last month, how many more would we earn if we changed our manager tomorrow" wasn't the attitude. I honestly think Chelsea could've developed into a more stable force if Abramovic had just decided to manage the team himself, with a cursory Head Coach beneath him. It's not like he hasn't had a distracting say on the team's signings and lineups in the past afterall.

Posted 2:04pm 1st March 2013

Petulant_Radish says...

@zedsmith awww, but d**k swinging is all the rage these days! I'd say Chelsea has quite a lot of decent youth to come through, it just takes a long time to get them into the first team. @nugget agenda to say I am talking nonsense and then claim that Benitez's time at Inter wasn't a failure beggars belief, he failed there and was sacked. There is no way you can say he was not a failure there, just like he will be a failure at Chelsea. His stock has faded and he's been dining off the Champions League win that Gerrard & an unprecedented second half opposition slump got for him for the past eight years. @markarogers though I would like some stability at the club and agree it would help, Chelsea have been the most successful English team since Abramovich came in and that keeps the mad bugger thinking it works...

Posted 12:15pm 1st March 2013

markarogers (Liverpool) says...

Luca - while the record isn't bad (more in spite of than because of their Chelsea stints), it's still a ridiculously short-sighted way to run a football club, and one that simply hasn't worked. The team is disjointed, no single manager has assembled that team or made an imprint on it, other than whoever was responsible for the summer splurge this year. Much can be masked by City's inevitable ascent in recent years, but Chelsea were every bit Man Utd's equal a few years ago. Now 2010 seems a very long time ago. And before the Champions League is mentioned - well done, but did Chelsea get there by building a team that had any chance of being in the final this year? How about next year? Totally unsustainable.

Posted 1:08am 1st March 2013

ajsr1982 (Liverpool) says...

I think there's a lot to be said for having all the players and the fans pulling in the same direction, and realistically, Benitez was never going to achieve that at Chelsea. It's why City will struggle to topple United despite having better players. Ferguson and Mourinho are both excellent at getting all the players to buy into their mantra, and they get results because of that. Good players help, but Ferguson has hauled one of his worst United sides, a side in transition, to a scary winning margin this year. Therefore a foolish decision by Chelsea to appoint Rafa. The small differences count at the top, and despite Chelsea having what I believe to be the best squad in the league, both Di Matteo and Benitez have failed to get that extra few per cent out of the players. One could look at it and say the likes of Lampard and Terry have too much influence, and argue that Chelsea won't rise again until they rid themselves of the egos in the dressing room.

Posted 12:35am 1st March 2013

msj456 (Liverpool) says...

Little harsh to say criticism has got under his skin because he's not received criticism. What he's received is a barrage of A4 sized abuse since before he'd even taken charge of a single match because three years ago he was in charge of a rival. Oh, he made a throwaway comment about plastic flags, prompting the Chelsea fans to prove his point with the most pithy of protests. There was no way he could win in this job, winning four trophies and building a new Zola out of paper masche wouldn't win over Chelsea fans, so I do wonder why the hell he joined the most bonkers of bonkers regimes in the first place. Chelsea is a managers pension scheme, he's there to earn a few quid and remind everyone he's still alive. Nothing more.

Posted 8:24pm 28th February 2013

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