Now, putting aside my personal feeling towards Benitez, I have written an argument against Benitez purely based on his performance as Chelsea manager. In that detailed post, I explained the decisions he had made based on his team selection or subsequent substitutions in games that Chelsea had dropped points in the Premier League, the two legs of the League Cup semi final against Swansea, the Europa League and FA Cup against Brentford.
(I would like to point out that since then, another classic example was Southampton away a couple of weeks ago!)
Without question, our form under Benitez has been up and down, and I challenge anyone else to tell me otherwise. Outstanding one minute, mediocre the next – Jekyll and Hyde, if you will!
Now, Chelsea Football Club find themselves in a battle to qualify for the Champions League next season, and like I have pointed out, we should never have been in this position!. We have dropped a total of 23 points in Premier League games with Rafa in charge. In some of those games, the players are to blame as much as the manager, but the buck stops with him.
We have world class players here at the club, and to lose that amount of points is scandalous!
Now, before people say it, I understand the pressure on the players playing every three or four days constantly for the past few months. It has caused problems, and we have had to rotate the team for certain games. If anything, that has made us all realise that the squad isn’t as strong as we thought.
My personal opinion is that the games shouldn’t be a problem to play for these “professional” players. Think about it, if someone was to ask you to swap what you do for a living and tells you that you have to play football three times a week for 90 minutes and train for only two hours a day – would that be a problem for you? Tiredness is no issue, if you ask me!
Anyway, back to the point of this post…
In light of our performance in the FA Cup, Europa League and the fact that we are back up to third in the Premier League, I still believe as I posted before that for Rafa Benitez himself, he would see those cup competitions as the priority personally for him, no matter what anyone says!
Think about it. He knows he is leaving at the end of the season regardless, so if he finishes in the top four or not means little to him and his career. It’s the trophies he has always talked about, that would be welcome additions to his CV and would stand out to future employers. I’m sorry, but I cannot see how anyone would think any different!
Then there was his rant at the Chelsea supporters and the Chelsea board, which as far as most of us were concerned, was the beginning of the end for him. The only reason he is still here is because the board couldn’t afford to sack him so close to the end of the season.
Those are the reasons that I have the feeling I have towards Rafa. I had a view on him before he was here, and based on his performance as Chelsea manager, it’s gotten worse.
So I am asking you, the Chelsea fans reading this all over the world and the ones that follow Chelsea up and down the country week in, week out – Am I being too hard on Benitez?
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