It's amazing. Soccer Special was the same today. People don't concern themselves with reading what the quotes actually say. Rafa hasn't said he doesn't want to be accountable, and he hasn't said there's no role for a Chief Executive.
Rafa wants control over footballing matters, which, as he says, is generally what has to happen in the absence of a technical director. Nobody, not even Parry's biggest advocate, could claim Parry is qualified to play a technical director role for Liverpool Football Club, let alone any football club at a professional level. Yet that's exactly the role he's trying to play, getting involved in football matters, making football decisions at Academy level, second guessing the management and scouts, and generally disrupting the progress of our football.
Then there's the fact people chuck in "aah but what about Barry/Alonso?".
The problem with the Barry/Alonso thing was the dithering and posturing that extended over the entire summer and got the club in the limelight again for not being very good at this sort of thing. The same applies to Keane. We know, on the other hand, that Rafa wants business done quickly, and if there's any nonsense of that kind, he'll move on to another target, because a big priority is getting the player in early. So chances are (and I think this is very likely indeed) that in Parry's shoes this summer, Rafa would have acted very differently, and that many of these issues wouldn't have caused the storms they did.
And beyond that, had Rafa been given the authority he was led to believe he would get from the outset, the squad would already be balanced, strong, and deep enough that we wouldn't have had to consider the issues of Barry and Keane in the first place. Players in all the positions they tend to fulfil would already have been secured, and better players at that.
This stuff about 'not being able to get on with your bosses' is idiotic by the way. Rafa's worked with people he's not gotten on with on a professional basis from pretty much the word go in his career, but he's gotten on with it and tried to do what's best. The problem here is we have a very well connected man installed as manager who is being hindered from doing his job. The business people should set the budget and any guidelines on player ages, resale targets, wages and related structure... whatever... but within those guidelines the football people should have authority to act, and the bottom line is they'll be judged on how well they do their job.
People say 'how can we let Rafa get this type of control if he would have sold Alonso and bought Barry?', but they conveniently ignore that the squad may well already have been fully mature well before the summer, and with some of the kind of players I'm currently drooling over watching La Liga this evening.
As for this 'in an extreme example he sells gerrard, torres, reina and alonso...' - what the fuck are you talking about mate? Some of the stuff being posted in here is an utter joke. But then most of the stuff being spouted on Soccer Special this lunchtime was just as bad, so what chance do we have eh?
