NEIL ATKINSON and Mike Nevin are joined by Adam Melia to talk about Liverpool’s 2008/9 season; the football club’s very own dark night of the soul.
Full, frank, angry and funny, the three go through from the transfer business to Liverpool’s 3-2 victory at Manchester City.
The ridiculing of Rafa in the media (which wasn’t confined to the tabloids) and the way this spread to fans of other clubs was appalling. If you were to believe the English press, LFC were winning in spite of him. What’s sad is that by the end of the season both Carragher (with his cultivation of ‘friendships’ at Talk Sport), and to a lesser extent Gerrard, seemed to have bought into this.
Great Episode, I remember the arguments back then with other Liverpool fans and having to bite my lip as they regurgitated some spiel from Andy Gray about Zonal marking, Rotation or negative play.
Truth is Benitez put us back on the map as a European Footballing Powerhouse.The likes of Madrid, Barcelona and Milan would shudder at the thought of getting drawn against us. As a Fan born in 85 this was definitely
my favourite period as a supporter ( bar last season of Course ). Big Games Big Moments Big Trophies Big Players and a spats with Fergie were the icing on the cake.
Fergie only has spats when he is worried about somebody else and his role in the setting the media hounds on Benitez should not be understated.
Fergie Great manager Terrible person.
Great to hear someone talk about the Alonso situation in the right context. He had a very average season the year Benitez tried replacing him with Barry
and the year after was his best ever year for us. It turned out he left ( but he was always going to leave at some point wasn’t he ? ) Difference is we got another great season
out of him and 40% more money for the sale. Barry went on to win a league or two as well so it was hardly the worst bit of management.
Benitez Had flaws like all managers
but he knew how to win. Always be a Pro-Benitez fan and if the Rodger experiment doesn’t work out. I’d love to see him have a crack with the money-ball owners as I think they could be a great fit
for one another. The replacing of him by Hodgson just shows how much incompetence was around the Liverpool board at the time
I believe Rafa could have done something with our squad last season. A of our defensive problems were on display in the Asian/Australian tour, and unless Rodgers gets over his puzzling love affair with Lovren soon, our season will likely start badly. The lad seems to have no idea of positional play. He seems to wander about aimlessly. Our CBs should be Skrtel and Sakho for me. Déjàn would even be behind Toure in the queue.
As an older supporter, first started going in 1965, I will be eternally grateful to Rafa for making me feel proud to be a Liverpool fan in a European context. To get us to UEFA’s no.1 club was simply heroic. I was at the San Siro for his master class aginst Inter in 2008. Compare that with what we have sunk to on the European stage. Rafa wasn’t perfect, which manager is, but he was a winner and a fighter. When he gets replaced at Madrid, boy would I welcome him back.
I still see him as OUR manager. FSG SHOULD have gone to him first, second and third. There would be no folding your tents at half-time, no stunned mullet looks when an opponent scores, no wtf do I do now.
Rafa Rafa Rafa Benitez..class..winner.one of the .worlds greatest coaches wonderful human being ..Liverpool Legend..YNWA
Hard to take, so near and yet so far and so many if only’s. If only Skrtel hadn’t played right back at Middlesborough, if only someone had taken Arshavin out before he started scoring in the 4-4 at Anfield, if only Howard Webb hadn’t been the referee for Manchester United’s game against Spurs, if only Macheda hadn’t scored that goal. A travesty that this team won nothing. The treatment of the manager by the folks in the mainstream media was something else. At the time it felt like an orchestrated campaign with all that ‘not good enough for Liverpool’ tripe.
Rafa Benitez was ‘…Not good enough for Liverpool…
Folks, meet Roy Hodgson.
‘Thanks Kenny, but your time has passed by.”
‘Folks, meet Brendan Rodgers…’
Don’t get me started, please.
Could have been Shteve McLaren…
I have tried three times to listen to this and have had to stop before ten mins.
It still hurts to even think about it and I just can’t listen to it yet. Maybe one day when I’m really happy and life is good, I will see if I can listen to it without breaking down.
I have never felt so cheated and i still have not got over the way that every non-Rafa supporter and this included LFC ‘fans’, players such as Gerrard and Carra and the whole Sky / Talksport / Henry Winter fraternity were hell bent on getting rid of Rafa, for reasons that even today i don’t understand. Except that Gerrards best position was center mid, (time has unfortunatly proven what a load of bollocks that theory was, and that by the end of 08/09 Carra’s legs were starting to go).
Rafa took us to two European cup finals and made us the most feared club in Europe and still for many, this was not enough. I said to my son when Rafa left that he would go on to win more trophies over the next 10 years than Liverpool would and so far this has been true. That Rafa will never get another crack at Liverpool is the most ludicrous situation i have ever known.
One of these days, you lads should fix-up the archive for the “What We Call History.” I get that it’d be tricky to have ALL your old pods easily accessible, since you do so many, but the series that will never age—like this one, your season reviews, great interviews, and other series I haven’t discovered yet—should be in their own little archive where your new (and old) subscribers can easily access.
You should really consider this because it would provide subscribers with a lot more great quality content.