Don't mention his big money flops. The Liverpool fans will go off on one. It's all about net spend, even though MUFC's net spend was around minus £70m last summer yet still mananged to challenge for the title until the final weekend of the season.

Getting into this debate, as I said, is pointless. Nobody will deny Fergie has done better than Rafa in the market, but the different circumstances, expectations and situations of the two clubs makes a comparison pretty pointless. All it generally results in is United spending less, performing better and WUM comments from you

Spending £18m on a right back after you had just finished second in the league has to go down as a major blunder? A new right back was never going see you make the jump from runners up to winners. Remember Utd lost both Ronaldo and Tevez and were reduced to signing Owen on a free. With a more appropiate signing(s) with that money last season would've been your best chance of the title for ages.

He was also a big reason he may well have left this summer...

In hindsight, you're probably right, but in hindsight, Pompey still owed us £7m (or more) for Crouch. Considering the way they've gone, I doubt we would have got that by now, so by sweeping that off and using that directly as a fee for Johnson, it probably made more sense. We needed English players, we needed a right back so when the best right back in the league is available, you generally go for him. We probably overpaid, but the biggest blunder last summer was not signing a back up striker, or, at least for me, not keeping Nemeth at the club as I believe he could have had twice the influence Voronin did. But, I'm sure Rafa wanted a striker, I'm sure when £30m was brought in directly from selling Alonso and another £4m for Arbeloa, he'd have thought '£17m on Aquilani, a good £10m or so on a good back up striker', instead he got £17m on Aquilani (potentially, there are a lot of clauses that probably won't be triggered for a while) and a £1.5m centre half that we had to scrape the barrel for.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm sure Rafa wouldn't have signed some players he had or spent as much as we have, but there are so many little complex things that influence stuff, it's really hard to put a 'clear' view on it.

Still spent more than Fergie(net). I think you will realise down the line that him going is a great thing for your club. Im devastated he's gone.

As much as I detest Benitez, I'd be one his side over the spending issue. It's okay pointing to Fergie spending less net or the money Benitez has wasted, but that totally ignores the fact that a lot of Fergie's spending was before the huge inflation and the freak occurrence of so many talented youngsters filling the squad. It ignores the fact that not only was he up against Fergie's Man Utd, he was up against Mourinho's Chelsea and also had Wenger to compete with at Arsenal.

Liverpool were always fighting with one arm behind their backs when up against CFC and MU, Wenger has had ten years of total support and backing from Arsenal.

Benitez has made mistakes while at Liverpool. But so has Fergie. So has Mourinho and Capello. So has Wenger.

In a way I do think Liverpool were right to get rid of Benitez. Liverpool are in a difficult position until new owners come in so it's going to be a struggle for whoever is in charge, but having a whining Benitez in charge wouldn't help in any way. They need someone who can rally the club and get the best position they can from the situation they're in, not Benitez who would be sulking because he's not getting the right tools to challenge at the top.

I'm glad that Liverpool are in this turmoil, but I'm slightly worried that they might manage to bring Hiddink in. I think Hiddink would be a huge success at Liverpool and I'm praying they don't get him. Roy Hodgson could be good, but he also could just be one of these managers who are great at smaller sides but can't perform at the top. I think Hughes or O'Neill would be a disaster, so I'm hoping it's one of them who they get.

Don't believe everything you read.

He seems to conveniently overlook the fact that the £120m revenue generated by the CL comes at a huge price in terms of greatly increased wages. If he genuinely believes that the £120m is all surplus money that could be spent on new signings then its not suprising that he fell out not just with the owners but also the CEO's.

I think the problem with Benitez was that he became so negative, not in his tactics but in his public statements. Apart from the "big European nights" there just seem to have been such an air of gloom and despondency surrounding the club recently. Thats obviously mainly caused by the ownership issue but Benitez seemed to be continually adding to the negativity. It must have hasd an impact on the squad, which I still believe was capable of coasting a top 4 place.

The whole gross v net spending argument is pointless as the fact is he has spent £220m mostly on players who have not developed. The footballl we have played under Rafa has been as just as inept as under Houllier .

I just feel the whole "We don't have the funds" attitude of Rafa and many others failed to address the fact that from top to bottom there was/ is a lack of leadership and judgement. But ultimately I feel that the coaching/ management is flawed.

Especially when you look at player development.

When I analyse this I find the following:

1) Everton coached Rooney to become a 30mil player.
2) Berbatov cost Spurs around 11mil. Spurs then coached Berbatov to become a 30 mil player. The inital figure Spurs paid for him is approx the same as what we spent on Kuyt. We also spent roughly the same on Babel.

We rejected a bid of 9mil for Babel (which including what we have spent in wages on him adds up to be a huge loss) and how many clubs would pay 30mil for Kuyt?

We have had season after season of Rafa telling us we have less money so have to develop our own players to compete, but how many of them have actually developed under his coaching system?

To highlight this you only have to look at players both past and present.

Alonso - Great first season, major dip in form and we fail to get the best out of him until he feels the need to be in the shop window for his dream move to Real (after Rafa trying to sell him to buy Barry)

Bellamy - Signed on the back of a good season only to fade away and sign for City.

Kuyt - Prolific goal scorer for Feyenoord, in his first few games showed great touch, vision and movement only to see a major dip in form and then be switched to the wing.

Keane - Never had been a prolific goal scorer until 06/07 & 07/08. Has always been a gifted player though especially when playing just behind the front man. Signed on the back of his two most prolific seasons. Used as a lone striker. Sold at a loss half way through the season after being baffled with tactics.

Now this is the one that really gets to me.

Yossi Benayoun - whether other Liverpool fans would agree with me or not this guy is actually one of our most technically gifted and minded players. Right footed and shows an eye for goal. Often has to make do with a place on the bench, even after scoring the week before and when brought on usually has to play on the left wing when it is obvious he should be playing just off Torres.

Alonso is the only one of the above who we turned from a 10mil player into a 30mil player and it was Rafa poor management that instigated that.

Which brings another issue, when all the world could see we needed to reinvest that money into buying a striker why did we buy an injured midfielder? And why given Rafa's constant "We have no money" bleat did he decide to spend 17mil on a right back who can not defend? At least Johnson can attack though.

For me it shows other than Torres (who I think most people knew was an extremely good striker) he really hasn't a much of a clue when it comes to buying attacking players and when he does make a decent signing he doesn't know how to use them.

We really need a manager who can sort out the whole coaching system.
Players play in their natural positions.
Get training to consist of actually playing football and getting to know the movement of your team mates.
Use man marking when defending set pieces.
And actually use a bit of man management, praise players for showing skill, flair and imagination.
Play and develop the youth players and don't drop them the week after they have played a good game. (Infact don't drop players at all after they have had a good game, unless they are unfit of course)

Unlike some I don't think bringing the King back into the post would be wise but something has always stuck in my mind from what he says in a book I have. When posed the question of what we did in training that made us so good he answered "We play football."