I have to admit, I haven't read all the replies and discussion in this thread. As much more of a lurker than poster that's quite unusual for me, but I feel the need to post on this topic.
I'm a younger Red. Twenty-three.
I'd imagine most people calling reactionally for Rafa's head after losses(or even draws!) would be placed somewhere near my own age.
I can only vaguely remember football before Sky - sadly, against my own will, I am one of the Sky generation. We belong to a time of constant media exposure to our sport, constant headlines, constant debate, constant bullshit spouted out by pundits and experts without the balls to manage a club themselves or even go against the common perception of footballing cliches.
And it messes with your head. It messes with my head.
This is my first time experiencing a real, concrete challenge for this title we all want so fucking badly. And it tells on me. Every dropped point, every decision that goes against us, every word thrown out in a verbal sparring match. It fucking exhausts me.
But this is it.
This is what we - I, at least - begged for, for as long as I could remember. We are in there. Mixing it up. Trading blows with the from the East Lancs and those nobodies from London. Fighting for every point.
And when I remember that, I remember WHY every dropped point hurts - because they have never mattered as much as they do now. They have never counted as they do this season.
We have a chance. It hurts me when we drop points...but this is a fucking TITLE RACE. Something only those of us old enough to appreciate 1990 - which I cannot - can truly understand. We're in it! We're fighting for our crown.
Who brought us there?
That's all I ask.
If you will cast your mind back to 2004. Our top striker decides to leave because his home club, one of Europe's elite, cannot match his ambition. Our club had failed to reply to going one nil down to so long it had become a running joke. Laughed at even in our own league - and mocked, by proxy, by the actions of our best player - for our gutlessness and lack of ambition.
And in Europe...
Those four cups we all hold so dear seemed like long ago, distant memories, as revelant to those in my age group as tales of King Arthur and Excalbiur. Mere legends, fanciful tales spoken in bragging but sentimental tones around firesides the world over.
Rafael Benetiz.
If you can remember where we were when he took over, you can remember what e, and he alone, brought us. Back to the forefront of European dominance. Replacing players like Diao and Diouf with the likes of Mascherano and Torres. Making us look like a real title contending team for the first time since...well, a very long time.
He takes abuse from our press, our own owners, and some of our fans. He faces an impossible mission - to restore a proud, but battered institution to its rightful place atop what is now the hardest league in the world to win.
And here we are, near February, fighting for it.
IN THE MIX.
And to all those pissing and moaning here, ask yourselves this- if you had been offered this position before the season started, would you have taken it?
Down the Lancs, all we heard and see is confidence, while here we splutter and worry and bite our nails like frightened little schoolgirls. I have been guilty of it myself at times this season. But we're undermining ourselves. Our players, our manager, our staff - OUR FUCKING TEAM - need us one and all behind them.
No in-fighting. No OOT vs Scouser. No superfan vs whopper. No optimist vs pessimist. No fucking nothing.
Our team needs us.
Rafa can takes us there, of that I truly believe. But only if we give him the chance. We've been starved too long, have waited patiently only to be denied time after time. It shows in our behaviour. Like a starved animal we squirm and howl and struggle in vain for what we need.
But our struggle has come close to ending - all we need now is the fucking bottle to see this through.
And if we fall short - is it Rafa's fault?
It took that piss stained fucking wino Ferguson many title challenges to win his first one - and look what followed.
