Rafa has been great for this club, but the time has come - like with Houllier - where he just cannot get the players going anymore. You see it week in, week out. Not bad luck, not a bad run but just a fundamental lack of bite and sullen demeanours. Managers very rarely pull it around from this sort of position. Being outplayed not once but twice by a very poor Championship team is a damning indictment when combined with the rest of our form this season.
59 pages of embarrassing shite, but I personally feel that this post sums up our situation fairly accurately. The club is in disarray both off and on the field, but the first issue should not influence the latter. It's the manager's job to ensure that the team performs irrespective of circumstances beyond his control. Rafa is not making that happen.
The players on the field tonight should have been capable of beating Reading comfortably. The culpability for that failure ultimately lies at the door of a manager who has allowed events to overtake the team, who has permitted a negative attitude to grow within the squad, who has mismanaged individuals, and who has fundamentally failed to acknowledge his own errors of judgement.
The similarities with Houllier's final season are stark.
The difference is that the inheritor of this squad has a much bigger task on their hands than the one that Rafa had when he took over the team from Ged.
