Liverpool Need A Miracle
Just when Liverpool fans thought things couldn’t get any worse the side with the worst away record in the Championship arrived at Anfield in the fifth round of the FA Cup. With Liverpool sitting fifth in the Premier League, three points behind their city rivals Everton, and with a particularly tough draw in the Champions League against Inter, currently eleven points clear in Serie A, having not lost a game, this game had the increased significance of representing Liverpool’s best chance of winning something this season.
Although Rafa Benitez continued with his policy of squad rotation and left out Gerrard, Torres and Reina, arguably their three best players, he still selected a side that should have been easily good enough to see off the Barnsley challenge.
As we all know, an injury time strike by Barnsley captain Brian Howard saw Liverpool knocked out of the cup, and their season hanging on by the narrowest of threads. It is true that on another day, against a less inspired goalkeeper, Liverpool would have won comfortably, but they didn’t.
So now, a defeat this week against Inter would effectively finish the season for the great Anfield club, with only a fight for fourth place in the league to play for. This is so disappointing for the club and their fans, who together with many pundits thought this just might be the season that they made a serious challenge to the big three of Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.
After the game yesterday a small group of fans stayed behind to protest against Tom Hicks and George Giillett the American owners of the club, chanting and singing the slightly politically incorrect phrase, “Yanks out.”
As an outsider looking on, I can totally understand the frustration of the Liverpool fans, but I can’t quite understand where their anger is being directed.
In the summer, Benitez demanded money from the owners. They allowed him to spend £46 million. The owners and fans had a right to expect that success would be achieved by a squad who were Champions League finalists and were improved by that sort of expenditure.
What has followed has been comparatively poor League form, defeat at the hands of Chelsea in the Carling cup, initially poor results in Europe and humiliation by Barnsley in the FA Cup.
It seems to me that the Liverpool fans anger is directed almost entirely towards the owners of the club. Benitez and the players seem to retain their full support. Surely the players who failed yesterday have let the club and the fans down? Surely the manager who has spent so much money, accumulated a star studded world class squad, but fails to achieve results is letting down the club and the fans?
It is Benitez who regularly left out Torres earlier in the season. It is Benitez who persists in playing Harry Kewell, who seems to me to be a shadow of his former self, it is Benitez who leaves out Alonso and Babel and it is Benitez who picks Dirk Kuyt. It is also Benitez who leaves Gerrard out of ‘less important’ games, and sometimes substitutes him in the bigger ones.
It is the players who lost yesterday, not the owners. If a side containing Finnan, Hypia, Carragher, Riise, Benayoun, Alonso, Kuyt and Crouch is not capable of beating Barnsley at Anfield, then there is something seriously wrong with the players and/or the manager.
A win against Milan this week is absolutely essential for Liverpool, but looking at the current situation they might just need a miracle to get one.
Can any Liverpool fans explain why it is the owners and not the manager and the players that are the target of all the anger and frustration?
Graham writes at www.viewsofafan.org
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I see where you’re coming from, but in terms of looking after the club, the pyramid starts with the owners, so the rot naturally gets sorted by pulling the cancerous root out, its an absolute essential action. Don’t worry yourself, if Rafa and the players think they can get away with the dross they’ve been serving up, they too will be in for an awakening. Lets just hope whilst the stewardship of the club is getting sorted out, they can rediscover the necessary formula to turn these results around, we do have the nucleus of a challenging team, our reserves are top, so the future doesn’t look so bad. It is possible a number of players will be leaving in the summer and next season it will be Rafas last in charge (if he’s given the proper respect). So as far as im concerned, this year was full of empty expectancy. We have been bedding in six first team players, Babbel, Torres, Benayoun, Voronin (Free), Lucas and Mascherano, realistically you can’t expect them to win the league in their first season, can you??? The deadwood will be shipped out in the summer and we will progress. First things first, as they say!! That starts at the top!!
We back Rafa because its easier to blame the new people at the club, than to lament the uncontrollable loss of others, namely Paco Ayesteran, and his training methods.
Plus, any jibe at Rafa is construed as positively reaffirming the americans, and their agenda.
Add to this the feeling on the terraces that the club has been losing its “scouse” identity for years and years, and with the birth of the football ‘consumer’, the end is near for the average football ‘fan’.
Clinging on to Rafa, is like clinging on to the past. Clinging on to some vain hope that we are not becoming everything that we lambasted Chelsea and the Mancs for, during the past 5 years.
As an outsider looking on, I believe that at almost any club, in Liverpool’s current circumstances, it would be the manager and the players that were being criticised by the fans. I simply wanted to know why this doesn’t seem to be the case at Anfield.
Of course Rafa has achieved wonderfully well to get to two Champions League finals, but this season is going horribly wrong.
It is a genuine question.
If it was any other club Rafa would be booed out by the fans. But because he won the Champions League and reached the final of another, he is seen as God and fans cannot contemplate the idea that he has lost his touch and can only get his tactics and selection right against European opposition (but then again even this year they struggled to qualify for knock-out stages)
Whatever arguments there are between Benitez and the owners, we (and the players) only know about them because Benitez publicizes them.
I agree with Benitez that the spending of Man U and Chelsea (and the unearthly gift Wenger has for picking out gems) makes it difficult to win the title. But in terms of money and players Liverpool are way ahead of their nearest rivals and should not be fighting for fourth place or getting knocked out of the FA cup and losing the most ridiculous games in the League.
Torres should play as many games as possible. Crouch should partner him, not Kuyt. Gerrard and Alonso should be in central midfield, with Mascherona as needed (playing instead of Crouch). Although Liverpool still lack good wide players they should put Babel and Pennant out there. The defence picks itself.
In the long term I think Babel should revert to being a forward and twoo decent wide players purchased (Downing and Simao for example)
This season has gone wrong in many ways, the loss of Paco, the new stadium debacle, the new owners, the massive debt, the results on the pitch..blah de blah…
The fact is that Benitez has been viciously undermined, not only by the owners making the Klinsman affair public, but he has been slated by the media and fans alike, ex players having a dig etc, players are obviously not performing, injuries, rummaging the average bucket for transfers (in respect of £20m plus players as at chelsea and man u , and given Wengers time in charge to develop players) so i expect he has the most pressured management job in football right now, if Benitez actually did have some sort of plan, how can it be expected to work in such conditions, especially with the loss of Paco who was responsible for translating ideas onto the pitch?
Rafa has had a very, very rough ride by all concerned, don’t get me wrong the results are what a managers success is based on and we haven’t had much to shout about, but the man is in his first term (YES FIRST) with his own team, and has not been allowed to function. If he is sacked before this squad is allowed to mature then we will go backwards not forwards, and if the next new manager hasn’t won the league in two years he will be sacked and we are in danger of becoming Newcastle. No cohesion, no progression.
Rafa deserves next season to put the record straight, this was the deal in the original contract and Rafa is a man of honor who has made his plan with this in mind as absolute, that is respectful. If things do not abide by the terms on which his contract runs, he is the first to question and in doing this he has already unearthed tyrany at the heart of the club. This should be greatly appreciated by ANY Liverpool fan. Even Moores and Parry were duped, but not Benitez.
Yes he is learning the hard way about the prem, but he is a winner, he is a poker player and i would personally like to think that whilst we are all concerned about the weaknesses at LFC, and worried about the future, it pays to be realistic and recognize the mans talents, Benitez more than anyone KNOWS our strengths and will already be planning next season. If you were to back Benitez at poker right now, id say you’d think he was ripe for stinging, and you’d take him for everything, but i rate him a bit more highly and reckon next year was his intended target for success in the league, because realistically that is natural progression. That is when HE surely would expect himself that he would be at his strongest after implementing his systems, his squad will have settled in and his will not be a forced hand.
That is Benitez’s strength, some call it arrogance and an unwillingness to adapt, but he refuses to be pushed into making short term decisions, it might cost results short term, but long term he has a plan, for instance Crouch arrives starts up front and is played constantly for 14 games before scoring his debut goal, slated for playing him, benitez stood firm, he becomes a regular for England and people now bemoan Benitez for not playing him regularly, whilst Crouch is chomping at the bit, Benitez knows it is a strength, Kuyt scored 15 goals in his first season, and then has problems this season hitting the net, so Benitez plays him regularly just like he did with Crouch, but people are still concerned with game after game with no goal from Kuyt, noone has learned anything. Kuyt WILL start scoring, it is logical, and even recently Rafa was quoted at saying that he will score sooner rather than later, forgetting the Barnsley result in the short term, Kuyt scored.
Only Rafa himself knows his methods, but there is a definite pattern to his logic AND as long as everyone is looking at Liverpools weaknesses, Benitez is psychologically winning the war, you don’t reveal your hand before you have to so through his endurance, he hopes he will be successful with his strengths, strengths so easily pushed aside by those who want instant success or a story to print. This season in his eyes is affordable to bed in his squad, try out different methods and so very obviously confuse people to the point where they think we are so vulnerable they will be scraping us off the floor. Remember Ferguson finishing fifteenth and the fans baying for his blood?? and then following it up with a romp to the title the following season??
Perfect time to deliver the ultimate counter punch, this is the mighty Liverpool FC, five times European Cup Winner, England’s most decorated club. I doubt if for one instance, even though it be lost on a few fans and the entirety of English football, it has EVER been lost on Benitez. It was the prestige that brought him here in the first place, and his job was to restore us INSIDE THE TERMS of his contract. If his ideals are not being met i’m sure he will be the first to let us know, but lets just see what happens to LFC next season, give him this season to mix his ingredients, the proof will be in the pudding. If Djimi Traore can be walking around with a CL Medal in his back pocket, anything is surely possible!! YNWA.
It is certainly a confused picture at Anfield, but Rafa’s success in the Champions League speaks for itself.
I hope he survives the current turmoil because I think he is good for the game in England.