GuerrillaClock said:
the financial problems at Liverpool have screwed him.
He's spent a huge amount on a lot of players who have been rather unspectacular over the last few years, and still spent around 40mil+ last summer (I reckon Aquilani is worth it if he stays fit, Johnson fee was better spent on a player like David Silva imo). His buys in the 20mil+ range have been successful (while they usually should be great players for that much, he hasn't bought any players who failed in the premiership like Veron) but for prices below that he just buys too many average players who need to be bailed out by Gerrard or now Torres. While there's been some players that have risen to the challenge of playing at the higher level, Benayoun notably, there's been too many players that haven't handled it like Pennant, Keane, Babel (I've been hearing about his potential for 3 years now), Morientes, Cisse etc.
And he was determined to replace Alonso with Barry, which says it all about his judgement of a player's ability imo.
With such a patchy transfer success rate like that, I can't really see him ever taking Liverpool back to their old position of giants of English football. He's a decent tactician and can galvanise his team to an extent, although the amount of last minute winners his teams used to get have been covering up his team's shortcomings in the last few years.
I reckon he should have gone some time ago really, when Liverpool apparently contacted Klinsmann (although he wouldn't be my choice for them). Perhaps Laudrup, if Real don't lose patience with Pelligrini and get him in first, although I can see Mancini being the preferred choice given his track record of winning titles.
I would not miss Benitez's amateur mind games, and I don't like the style of the team he's made. They just seem to be the unacknowledged masters of snide fouls and sneaky dives to me.
Of course, I'm a West Ham fan so I may just still be bitter over
that cup final...
