I could join this debate in full Mitchell style but my post would be loooooooong as fuck!!! so i'll save the Mitchell toy player haters (You know who you both are
) the bother.
Anyhows i see a few fair points from the both of you,
n01scruff, Gérard Houllier did at least win us trophies & get a 2nd place finnish & Rafa did get to 2 European Cup finals winning 1
(My greatest ever football winning memory, as i never watched the ones in 81/84 & wasn't around in 77/78) an FA Cup & within 4 points of our first ever Premier League title & yes other than being a player Graeme Souness is a C*UNT!!!.
groundnpound Houllier's style, Ok wasn't quite as bad as Roy's but still not great & some of the buys were questionable but he did make some quality ones as well, Dietmar Hamann, John Arne Riise, Stephane Henchoz, Sami Hyypia
, & Gary McAllister
although along with Roy Evans he did sign Sean Dundee
Rafa got us to 7 finals winning 4 & a 2nd place finish in the league but on a football basis as you say stubborn & unapproachable as well as the fall out with Xabi Alonso were his downfall, & selling Danny Murphy when not knowing enough about him was pretty silly.
I hate people saying Gerrard won this & Gerrard won that, yes he may've got the final goal on the odd occasion along with his usual performance but take the Olympiakos game for example it was Rafa who brought on Florent Sinama Pongolle who scored our first & then Rafa brought on Neil Mellor who scored the second before setting up Gerrard for what was the crucial goal. The 2005 final he only scored the first it was Vladimir Smicer's goal & the timing of it what was the telling factor.
I
will say it's hard to Criticize someone who pays £750 a season to watch the team play the way we have this season especially when i myself don't get to many games due to a mixture of work & money
but still i'm not one of the armchair fans who swamp the phone-ins with silly remarks & suggestions i feel my opinion is pretty valid & more often than not quite accurate especially considering i'm doing my coaching badges & am a pretty good coach for where i'm at at this stage.
Like groundnpound says
"Give me a Liverpool side playing good attacking football anyday", but we also wanna challenge for the league as we've only finished 2nd twice & both times we never felt like we were in a title race so this is why i say we need a manager who's already won titles in the last 5 years & if that means getting a pretty conservative (Playing style) José Mourinho then i'm all for it as long as he leaves his the English media love me & i'm gonna milk it to the max attitude in London!!!.
Gerard Houllier's Liverpool signings.
http://www.liverweb.org.uk/houllier.asp
Rafa Benitez Liverpool signings including
45 youngsters!!!
http://www.liverweb.org.uk/benitez.asp
Yes i did say it would be short & sweet.