He's won the Champions League, the UEFA cup, La Liga twice, the FA Cup, Italian cups, lower leagues too. He's also won personal honours for his work. But none of that counts? Behave yourself man.
I mean, he's won a shit load of trophies all over the place, he's clearly,
clearly, a good manager.
I've asked this of other Sunderland fans, so I'll ask it of you. Do you think Rafa Benitez is a good manager, if not ask yourself honestly why that is. It can't be his career, that is demonstrably impressive.
He's not the only manager, no, that's why I said it was rare, not unique.
We didn't "scrape over the line". That's a total fabrication. We were 9pts clear of 3rd and 19 pts clear of 7th.
Have you proof he
couldn't have done it with less money? And when have you heard of a manager that didn't want to buy the best squad possible? It would be foolish for a Championship side that didn't spend what they could afford to try and get promoted, that would be poor management. We had 10s of millions available to us and are in a financially healthy position, why wouldn't we spend it?
He wanted to strengthen in January so that the new recruits were able to deliver promotion and then perform in the Premier League. This is why we were pursuing Townsend. He's a player that is good enough for the Premier League and we could have had him in January, he gets 6 months playing for Benitez in a lower division and is ready to go as soon as the season starts. That's just good management. No different to trying to get players in asap in the window; the longer you work with them the better they understand the systems, the tactics, etc.
Of course you don't want to talk about Villa, they spent more than Newcastle and failed. Proving that money alone doesn't assure you of anything.