Liverpool manager Rafael BenÃtez must leave now or risk tainting the club’s proud history
If Rafael BenÃtez truly respects Liverpool Football Club he'll leave Anfield today. The players have lost the faith, the boardroom is unimpressed with the politicking and the supporters are suffering, albeit in silence.
By Henry Winter
Published: 8:00AM BST 04 May 2010
End game: Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez must come to terms with another trophy-less year at Anfield Photo: If BenÃtez exits quickly, accepting Juventus's generous offer, he goes with some dignity. If he stays, the inevitable long goodbye becomes indescribably messy, distressing for all concerned and demeaning to a club of Liverpool's great history. This is not a warning for BenÃtez, this is a fact.
He's lucky. The Kop's refusal to call for his head, in the wake of a disastrous season and four trophy-less years, speaks handsomely of their substance and loyalty. At any other major club, probably barring Arsenal, restless natives would have been chanting for the manager's removal.
BenÃtez now meets Liverpool's new chairman, Martin Broughton, to discuss transfer budgets but why should the board trust him with the club's cash? His track record is too inconsistent. They give him money for a table and he comes back with a lampshade. He's got a centre-back at left-back and a holding midfielder at right-back. Liverpool's squad is an exercise in mismanagement.
Over the past six years, BenÃtez has been provided with £230,476,000, not forgetting a rich bequest in Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, yet his bench against Atletico Madrid last Thursday read: Diego Cavalieri, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, David Ngog, Philipp Degen, Nabil El Zhar, Daniel Ayala and Daniel Pacheco. Their entries in football's Who's Who do not run to many lines. Combined.
How embarrassing. This is Liverpool, five-times winners of the European Cup and joint record-holders of 18 League championships, the club of Shankly and Paisley, Toshack and Keegan, Dalglish and Souness, Fowler and Owen, yet with largely a bunch of unknowns on the bench. How the mighty are falling.
BenÃtez's cheerleaders claim his achievements at Anfield are actually remarkable given the board has restricted his budget over the past two seasons. They point to injuries and mention the more alluring wages on offer elsewhere.
Good try. Roy Hodgson prospers at Fulham on a fraction of BenÃtez's resources and none of the annoying scheming. Arsène Wenger spends far less than BenÃtez and has a far better eye for young talent.
Any inspection of BenÃtez's £230 million outlay must highlight successes such as Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres. Not all were guaranteed to do well yet they have grown under BenÃtez. Even with Lucas, Kyrgiakos, Ryan Babel and Emiliano Insua on the books, Liverpool's squad are valued at around £250 million.
Yet Liverpool's board could legitimately ask BenÃtez his views on Hodgson's team-building skills and just who is that leading Fulham out in the Europa League final in Hamburg next week?
Why it's Danny Murphy, just the type of strong character and intelligent midfielder Liverpool crave, a popular player shown the door by BenÃtez in the first of his summer clear-outs/trolley dashes. Murphy or Lucas? Discuss. But not for long.
All managers sell players they shouldn't but BenÃtez has dropped some real clangers. How Liverpool could do with a committed left-back like Stephen Warnock, whose heart was almost broken when let go by BenÃtez.
Warnock, now knocking on England's door, could have spared Liverpool those awkward moments when Andrea Dossena or Insua was at left-back. Dear old Dossena. Recruited for £7 million in July 2008, he endured a hapless stay, being humiliated by Leeds United's Robert Snodgrass among others, and was offloaded for £4.3 million to Napoli 18 months later.
Dossena's fellow recruits in the class of 2008 were Cavalieri, Ngog, Robbie Keane and Albert Riera at a cost of £39 million and none proved worth it.
Quantity as much as quality has been BenÃtez's hallmark in the transfer market.
He has brought in 77 players, a tally that prompted Ian St John to remark wryly over the weekend that "maybe Rafa's setting up his own league''.
Whatever happened to BenÃtez's likely lads such as Miki Roque, Krisztian Nemeth, Astrit Ajdarevic, Antonio Barragan, Besian Idriza, Mikel San Jose Dominguez and Antonio Nunez?
The haemorrhaging of money on fees, let alone wages, is a concern. Jermaine Pennant arrived for £6.7 million and went on a free. Fernando Morientes cost £6.3 million and exited for £3 million.
Keane hardly had time to unpack his bags after his £19 million signing before being shipped out for £16 million, lacking suitability to the manager's new 4-2-3-1 system. BenÃtez has been given enough money. He's just not given his buying enough thought. Time to go. If anyone can fix BenÃtez up with flights to Turin it's Broughton.
