while reading it I can and had already anticipated what most of the replies will be. Mainly giving Rafa more time and assuming at the end of it all success is guaranteed. ( Pls note that the comment about giving Rafa more time does not mean that I want him out, not at all. I like many regard him as the best man for the job. )
For starters we're just assuming that Rafa is some what following the RM method in some way. We're basically just taking what we've seen and fit it into a theory just like we can fit almost any teams methods into Sun Tze's Art of War as long as one look hard enough.
I just think it's wrong to assume that even if Rafa is following/creating some masterplan, we'll somehow be magically invincible.
This is great honest comment and to be honest more the type of objective feedback i was anticipating - it's all based on the premise that
a. he's applying the RM blueprint
b. he's going to win an acceptable number of pots in the interim
c. he's going to put up a realistic league challenge at least this year
any coaching 'bible' be it rinus michels' book described here, clive woodward's winning, or any other book from any sport - they all say the same thing - you need to win things to buy yourself time, because if you don't, you won't get that time. RM says that directly, and also brings in the need for luck.
i'm not sure magical invincibility is the goal, but true winning football probably is, and i suspect Rafa Benitez is just as if not more impatient for the big trophies as we are. if he wasn't, i'm not sure he'd be in the job he's in, with the reputation he has.
that said, i've been preoccupied with the 'liverpool project' for a long time now, and reading into quotes from literally every source you research, you find circumstancial evidence to corroborate the premises listed above.
remember the contract extensions pre-Athens? every one of the players talked about the project and how exciting it looked. then torres comes in? reference to 'the project'... i really got to a stage where i had to know more about this project - yeah yeah, i know there's this talk of a stadium and blah blah blah, but what does it involve in sporting terms?
i think it's more of a Spanish trait - when Ramos moved to Spurs there was similar dicussion of his desire for a long-term project in which he could control things from a sporting perspective - they seem far more 'holistic' in their thinking on that front as a whole - certainly in football. possibly that's not as true in other sports, as we have some true progressive thinking in this country, but in certain sports, the worst of which is football, we have endemic luddism and the belief at all levels of the game that if you've 'done your time' then you know all there is to know about the game, and that you can't learn anything new from other people or from other disciplines.
That's something certainly benitez doesn't suffer from, and in that respect he's in the same camp as shankly, paisley, stein, and co. These are people whose sole aim was winning, and doing anything that made winning possible on a consistent basis for the long-term. So we saw shanks introduce dietary changes from boxing, revolutionise training routines ('we're not training bl__dy marathon runners at Liverpool Football club' etc), upgrade the stadium and training facilities... and similarly we see Rafa use his insight into computer science and multimedia technology, work with cutting edge dietary ideas, train himself in medicine (he did a year of a medical degree)...
anyway, i didn't mean to suggest invincibility - just that we'd be at level 3. the existence of other sides at level 3 is outwith our control, and as a result you'll get a sharing of the spoils, but with long-term planning and commitment, you get stability, and with it, a higher probability of success.