A genuine legend who should never have been sacked. I think he would have done far better under FSG than that 2010 season. We challenged for the league the season before, lost a couple of key players, then came in 6th with a semi final, then he got sacked. I also still think we got robbed in that semi with a Benayoun goal wrongly chalked off.
Similar sort of story that we gave Jurgen time and money for and he fixed a woeful season by getting us 3rd and a trophy.
Of course, you do then wonder how things would have played out had we kept Rafa on and backed him and he won us the league, which I think he would have done for us if given a few more years. Would we then miss out on getting Klopp?
Because we have had a superstar for the past 9 years who will go down as more legendary in our history than Rafa, I feel like there's a lot of shared sentiment of that it turned out alright in the end and way better than we could have hoped for in Klopp, so whatever has happened was worth it.
To me, Rafa is the manager version of "what if x player never had all those injuries". Except he just needed the right backing at the right club and we were that right club for him. He just never got the backing - and the list of players that is commonly shared around that we missed out on shows the eye for talent that he had. The other clubs he managed weren't right for him.
I also think that if we had the fan media that we have now back in 2010, then there's no way we'd have had half the fanbase regurgitating the London press by saying we needed Roy Hodgson to come in and steady the fucking ship!