I wouldn't go that far. The football philosophy we clearly have is one of valuing hardwork. Our football is about being aggressive, closing down spaces quickly, putting bodies on the line when needed and winning the ball back.
No offence mate, but I don't think that's a footballing philosophy. Every team in Europe wants to do that. If that is as deep as Rafa's vision for a team goes then it's fucking pathetic, let's be totally honest about that. Every good team works hard. Simple. That's not their philosophy though. Mourinho's Chelsea, Yernited and Barcelona work hard but 3 more different teams you couldn't wish to find.
What exactly is the vision here? With due respect to what is a great initial post that got this thread going, let's get rid of the rhetoric and question what this philosophy or idea of playing football is about.
The phrase "a Liverpool player" is mentioned a fair bit but the meaning is still locked in the past. When people say "he's a Liverpool player" they're talking about the teams of the 70s and the 80s where there was a philosophy throughout the club - You pass, you move. There isn't a template now for a modern day Liverpool player. There's a type of player that Rafa clearly values but that's because of work rate and attitude, not a particular style. Liverpool under Rafa Benitez don't have a style. It changes every bloody season. First off it was meant to be like Mourinho's Chelsea, but slow building (IE from the back because we couldn't exactly go out and buy a Duff and Robben) then Rafa seemed to think, after the 2nd season in charge, that he needed to be more expansive. That failed miserably initially with some shit buys and we reverted back to the Chelsea-lite sans-attacking threat for the rest of the season. Then it was more expansive with quality players. Say what you like about those two cancerous leaches in charge of the club but without the money spent (or borrowed against the club) in the 2007-08 you'd have to question where exactly we'd be. Torres, Mascherano, Skrtel, Benayoun. That was an injection of quality but still no real style. Let off the leash 2nd half of the year after being too cautious the first... and again last season. Towards the end of last season it finally looked to have clicked but again, just a purple patch, another summer of reinvention (forced to a degree) has followed. 10 months ago our players played in 10 yard invisible cells, now they move all over the pitch. The whole core philosophy changes all the fucking time.
What type of team are we?
I was going to mention this as a concern for all the young players we buy that go straight into the reserves, but fuck it, I'll broaden it out - how many players have been signed in Rafa's reign that have been moulded into "Liverpool players"?
I realise it's a vague question, but still. We've had plenty of players that Rafa has bought and coached into far better players than they were when they arrived. Gerrard, Torres, Reina, Carra, Skrtel, Agger, Benayoun -Let's face it the list goes on. Individually Rafa's taken their game to a whole new level. But, who has actually been moulded to fit into a team? A style of play that lasts longer than 6 months?
I can watch La Liga or the Bundesliga and I can see players who immediately jump out at me and say "Yeah, they'd be perfect at Arsenal" (I said as much with Arshavin well before he was signed). With Liverpool I see players and I think "Yeah, he'd be fucking great because he's a very good player" but I don't ever think "yeah, he'd slot in perfectly and suit our style of play down to the ground". Our style of play and philosophy adapts to each individual player, at a lot of other clubs it seems to be the players that adapt to the philosophy (but then they're usually signed because they have the tools to make that transition pretty smooth).
Isn't that what happened under Shankly and Paisley? The idea was there to begin with you just signed the best players possible to execute it? Under Rafa it seems to be "sign the best players you can and then try and figure something out, and if it doesn't work quickly scrap the players, and the system, and start over again pretty quickly". The turnover of personnel and ideas under Rafa's tenure has been fucking scary. It's non-stop.
I'm a huge fan of Rafa, I think he's as good a bet as anyone to win the league (fuck me when Mourinho is the alternative then Rafa is easily the best out there) but this is the 6th season now and we're getting dangerously close to being out of a title race before the turn of the year once again. This would be the fifth time in 6 seasons... There's patience and then there's ignoring the obvious.
There are some pretty glaring blind spots that need a bit of light shed upon them and questions asked. Why we have no footballing identity is one. The way he uses the youngsters is another. He threw Spearing to the wolves today and it's not the first time he's done it with a young lad. Conversely, when there's been a chance to introduce a youngster in a relatively "low pressure" game he's always gone for over-paid, uninterested squad players... which means come next summer he has no faith in those youngsters and so brings in more cheap and cheerful squaddies, hoping to eek an Arbeloa or two out of the dross but generally ending up with more uninterested squad players who put another body in the way of a youngster.
Oh yes, and finally, those substitutions. People can piss and moan about the bitter bluenose saying Rafa's "playing the game on paper" with them, but he has more than a little bit of a point. The is nothing progressive or reactive about his substitutions. They're all preplanned. Every. Fucking. Game.
Do a lot of our substitutes score goals off the bench? Yes. Are the stats impressive? Yes.
That's not because they're wonderful, game changing substitutions though most of the time. That's because Rafa is a fucking brilliant manager who is good enough to think about these things ahead of time. The scenarios are pre-planned and often work... that still doesn't mean that he's brilliant at reacting to problems with changes 'cos he clearly isn't. He is unbelievable stubborn with regards to making changes and is tied to his preconceived ideas of how the game is going to go. More often than not he's right because he is a very good manager, but christ, it'd be nice to see a reaction to things as they're going on. Ad Lib once in a while, don't always read off the bloody script.
