Rafa Benitez is once again being promoted as the next West ham boss should the Hammers decide to sack Manuel Pellegrini.
As repeated at various times the Irons have no immediate plans to get rid of the Chilean who desperately needs a win over Spurs at the weekend regardless.
As is well known, the Mirror reports that the Hammers came close to signing him as boss before he opted for Real Madrid in 2015.
And his is a fairly obvious name to conjure up in the present circumstances surrounding Pellegrini given that.
Like our current boss, the Spaniard is now earning what might be described as his pension in China with Dalian Yifang, with whom he has won six of his 14 games so far.
And the report linking him with us adds therefore that should results continue to slide it may not be long before he is sacked.
Quite how that would make him a suitable candidate for the Irons is not made clear and it is a strange name to be linked therefore at this stage of his career.
He left Newcastle under a cloud after a three year spell having bossed 11 clubs in the previous 16 years playing a brand of football which has often been seen as ultra defensive.
At 59 years of age he is not at the best age for many who would prefer to see a younger figure take over at the club after Pellegrini.
It seems unlikely too that teh Hammers would return to China for a manager who has departed the Premier League so recently.
Funnily enough Newcastle look better with Bruce in charge, so maybe he wasn’t that great for the Geordies either.
The knives are definitely out for Pellegrini!
I’d love Rafa Benitez, a proven top Manager, but the huge stumbling block would be him wanting a massive Transfer Budget and our notoriously stingy Board won’t go along with that – a great idea but a bit of a non-starter! IMHO
and football as boring as a boy band
The football at Liverpool under him was not that bad, apart from that really tedious CL Final against Milan! The point with Rafa is he will get the best from what he has got. At the moment that is the best we can hope for. No way can we stay up with one of the worst defences in the PL. If Pellegrini can plug the holes in it now, after 50 games when he hasn’t looked as if he has a clue, then he really is a genius.
Being honest Can’t see the long term advantage of this “speculation ” if it was true? There is no long team planning in a move like this? We have to look further to the future with a manager younger and more in tune with football coaching today, but whomever it is, it has to be more thought out and methodically, not just a ” quick fix “? Although I would welcome a manager that has different team selections to suit the gameplan of whatever opposition we play? Not the Pellegrini one way only gameplan which I.M.O is getting us into what we are now witnessing as a mess????
Lazy journalism at best…most probably because in an interview last week Benitez admitted he wants to return to England at some point as his family still lives here.
I agree, a younger, hungrier manager would be a much better punt. All these wise old heads we’ve gone for over the last decade have hardly set the world on fire, have they?