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Rafa has done well to weather the storm, no doubt. In fairness though, winning the Europa League with the Champions League holders, in itself, isn't such a great feat. Di Matteo managed to win the Champions League with most of the same players, by more or less just keeping the peace, after Villas Boas' attempt at a radical project.
He done an incredible job and winning anything at any level is a great feat. Fair play to him.
Much of that article by my good friend Giles is bunkum.
"When it came to the crunch at half-time on Wednesday night and Chelsea looked down and out, he turned a sluggish, disconnected bunch of players into a unit again and won the Europa League".
So he doesn't take responsibility for the first half when they were cr+p but just the 2nd half when they were slightly less cr+p?
"I had to laugh at all the conscientious objectors at Stamford Bridge who suddenly found a reason to travel to Holland when there was a trophy at stake; the same people that were unable to watch a game at their home ground without aiming vicious abuse at Benitez."
Supporters do not follow managers or players. They support the club. Look at the people who still go to the Aviva or foreign fields following Ireland despite the fact that they despise Trap. The Chelsea fans were quite entitled to go to Amsterdam and support their team even if the Norwegian referee of a couple of years back was their manager. Of course it is a win for Chelsea AND the manager. To say otherwise is nonsense. Who appointed Benitez?
"Chelsea have won a lot of trophies with a lot of different managers but chaos surrounds the club" .
I'd take that sort of chaos at my club anytime.
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Originally Posted by KK77
You're a gas man.Quote:
Originally Posted by KK77
Chelsea are a Champions League team, he won the Europa League with them. Nothing incredible about it at all.
It is incredible achievement imo. If you don't think so that's what you think.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
So the charity shield counts then????? You're a gas man!!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
I would say common sense as opposed to bunkum myself!
So are you saying that if you had a manager at Liverpool whom you didn't like, you wouldn't be entitled to go and support the team and celebrate if they won a trophy ?
It sounds like it.
Anyway, Rafa, like Liverpool's League titles is almost ancient history....
I am saying i agree with John Giles.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Incredible, fantastic, remarkable achievement from the man. Europa League and taken them to third. All in all super stuff. Class act.
Tell me the one about the three bears please! LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy
They were third when he took over.Quote:
Originally Posted by KK77
They finished sixth last season.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
That might be relevant if he took over at the beginning of the season.
And the conditions he worked under are relelvant. Class act.
I enjoyed this synposis of the EPL season by Sean Ingle in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/b...12-2013-season
I agree that he conducted himself with a lot of dignity under difficult circumstances with regards the fans. I don't agree that finishing third or winning the Europa League were particularly significant achievements, given the players at his disposal. This time last year they were beating Barcelona and Bayern Munich to win the Champions League, I don't really understand how you think beating Basel and Benfica is so remarkable in a secondary competition. To be fair the Chelsea players, unappealing as they are, tend to deliver silverware regardless of who's in charge. Anyway, this is pointless, your hard on isn't going to shrink regardless of any logic presented, so we will agree to disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by KK77
It's funny how winning the Europa League is seen as validation of a season given that a club with a better Champions League record, Arsenal, are deemed to have had a poor enough season, despite only being a point or two behind Chelsea.
Sure, it wasn't easy to win but at the same time they'd have been favourites to win right from the moment they were dropped into the competition.
To be fair this time last year they were also finishing 6th... Di Matteo did very well to win the CL and FA Cup but it did come at the expense of the league form (they only won two of their last 6 league games and ended up 5 point adrift and worse goal diff). Benitez also had a fairly hard run of fixtures under his time at Chelsea - they had to play City three times, United three times, Everton twice, Arsenal home, Spurs home, Liverpool away all fairly difficult fixtures, yet he only lost twice in those 11 games (both vs City, away in the league and at Wembley in the Cup semi). He played United 3 times (twice of which were away) and won twice and drew once and his Chelsea team were the only ones to take six points off Everton this season.
Chelsea have some sensational players, but even so under him some of their players have got better. Luiz doesnt look anything like as error prone as before (although he is still a bit sloppy at times) and credit does need to go to him for generally picking Luiz as a defensive mid instead of a center back (where his errors had the potential to be much more costly) when other managers (Ancelotti, AVB and Di Matteo) didnt. He also eased Terry and (to a lesser extent) Lampard into the periphery of the team but managed the situation much better than AVB (who had a slash and burn mentality to man-to-man management) so there wasnt really any dressing room fallout.
Superficially maybe they have had similar seasons, but Chelsea and Arsenal had an identical record in the group stage (W3-D1-L2), it's just Arsenal's group didn't have a strong 3rd team to push them. Regarding the Europa league, yes on paper Chelsea had some very easy games against not very strong opposition. However the Europa league had some reasonably strong teams in it when Chelsea joined it - Lyons, Atletico Madrid, Zenit, Napoli, Inter, Ajax, Spurs, Liverpool and Benfica themselves were very strong in the final, of those teams back in early Feb I'd say at best Chelsea were perhaps slight favourites but it wasnt clearcut.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Chelsea also got a lot further than Arsenal in the domestic cups (semi final exits to Pl teams vs QF and R16 exits to League 2 and Championship teams) so from that point of view their season was again better than Arsenal.
Benitez has been there since November so he's had pretty much the same fixtures as every other team, cups excluded. He may have got decent results in a lot of those games (games that the players were going to be well up for anyway) but he also failed to win home games against Fulham and Southampton and even lost to QPR at the Bridge, as well as Swansea in the League Cup. They also lost away games at West Ham, Newcastle, Southampton and drew at Reading.Quote:
Originally Posted by cfdh_edmundo
Even in the Europa League run, they stuttered past vastly inferior opposition in Sparta and Steaua, and Rubin to a lesser extent. They needed a late equaliser to avoid defeat at Brentford in the FA Cup and lost the World Club Final. He lost ten games in charge altogether and failed to win twenty which I think it quite a lot. Finishing with a trophy is always going to put a nicer gloss on things and, to be fair, they did have some impressive league results near the end as well.