When I read the title, I was rolling my sleeves up, ready for an argument.
But you have pretty much summed it up quite astutely.

I had a longer title but it didn't fit in the box.

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Do you not think Benitez with long term DIC backing, could have brought you level or close?

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After Bob Paisley left things started to change and although we still had success the continuity began to alter. Once the tragedy at Hillsborough had happened and Kenny was a broken man after that in all unravelled. Of course it coincided with a remarkable job done by Alex Ferguson on Man U to make matters worse.

Rafa came close but let it slip badly but Hicks and Gillette made his position untenable.

Agreed. I think the 'fit and proper persons' test was exposed as a joke when Thaksin Shinawatra was allowed to be City's owner.

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I again agree. I thought you should have kept Rafa after seeing Roy fall on tough times. But your hierarchy needed a scapegoat to take the heat off them. I liked Benitez a lot. He made mistakes but ultimately proved a great manager for you. I would have liked to see him receive the backing Dalglish has. Not saying he would do better, but he wouldn't need to fight the owners.

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Kenny;s resignation was the start. Souness was a disaster in terms of the signings he made and the quality of the team just wasn't the same.

This problem was confounded by the club not maximising the marketing potential and failing to capitalise on the commercial opportunities.

Evans gave us good football but the team couldn't defend. Houllier gave us solidity and a greater degree of professionalism but he was too negative in his outlook and towards the end, like Souness, made some really bad buys.

Rafa brought tactical nous and understand how we the fans tick. He won us number five, reached another CL final and a second place place finish in the league.

Not accepting the DIC bid by Moores was ridiculous and he seems to have sold to the two cobboys for the cash. Taking Gillette's word about Hick's and making the monumental error of not completing due diligence on Hick's was phenomenally stupid

spelling fail

Wow... Quality post/discussion. These late night discussions after the kids are in bed are definitely welcomed.

It's hard to pinpoint a single fall, and I suspect the slide began at Hillsborough or even Heysel. Those events deeply affected the club and the football was no longer the only focus and consideration. Being out of Europe didn't help either. After that there are a series of false starts with Houllier and Rafa that we never quite capitalised on to sustain a momentum to take us back to the top. There were several failings on and off the pitch. Man U have shown that a stable management team do help consistency. It also helps to have the right man too!

Good article, kind of an anti climax for me though I was looking forward to an argument lol.

Now to the subject at hand, I felt at the time that sacking rafa

Good article, kind of an anti climax for me though I was looking forward to an argument lol.

Now to the subject at hand, I felt at the time that sacking rafa was a huge mistake and the appointment of Hodgson never exactly filled me with confidence and the first half of last season was pretty much exactly what is happening at Arsenal at the moment.

The sale of Alonso was obviously a lot more important than it seemed at the time, we really did suffer, because we never really had a replacement for him, and playing Lucas and Mascherano was just never going to have the same effect as Alonso and Mascherano and you could see that throughout the season. We went from having the best midfield in the world to one that simply didn't work, and this lead to us struggling in games, and then confidence was shattered and we just got worse and worse.

However, I do think that Rafa should have stayed on, we all knew that a takeover was imminent (was a rather worrying process though) and I think Rafa, given the proper backing would probably be doing a fantastic job. Rafa wasn't around at the right time it seemed.

More than happy with Kenny now though, but when he decides enough is enough after 3 or 4 league titles ( ) then I will be ecstatic to see Rafa back at the helm to finish what he started.

YNWA

(OP could you do me a favour and delete my above post? Slipped on my phone and pressed enter)

Good article, I'll keep it short and sweet

Graeme Souness
Salif Diao, El Hadji Diouf
Letting Alonso leave (Riise/Hyypia also to a degree)
Selling to the Texas Cowboys

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Dare I say it, losing Arbeloa and Alonso may well have been a contributing reason to Torres's downturn in form and his inevitable departure.

Losing a large chunk of the squad's Spanish contingent was absolutely going to be detrimental for Nando.

Moores ran us into the ground.

Top post. I like one of the first posters saw the title and thought "here we go".

Brilliant analysis and pretty much exactly what I thought.

I'm too young to pinpoint from a personal perspective what went wrong from Kenny resigning to now. But what is no coincidence as Taggart says is that our poorest years are those of the Moores/Parry tenure (and latterly H&G).

Moores can cry his crocdile tears regarding the sale but ultimately he went for the bigger buck at the expense of the club.

Its impossible to say for certain whether Benitez could have taken us to the title under DIC, they have fallen apart in the recession as well so there is nothing to say they wouldnt have pulled the plug. But with different backing it would be interesting to see how he would have gone about replacing Alonso and Arbeloa.

I would have liked to have seen him managing under our current ownership, but as things stand Dalglish is doing a fine job, and as well as any realistic fan could have hoped for in my opinion. I rate Benitez as an excellent manager, however I'm not too certain that the likes of Kelly, Spearing and Flannagan would have been given quite so much game time under his management.

The less said about Hodgson the better. Those calling for Rafas head at the end of 2010 got exactly what they deserved when we appointed Hodgson in his place. It showed the job he was doing under extremely difficult circumstances and Hodgson was just not even in the same class of manager.

That is the first time I have given 5 stars to a Chelsea fan.

Why aren't the rest of them like you?!

wow

great article, great posts

I never expected this