WALK ALONE? YOU MUST NEVER DO THAT, BENITEZ
IN THE attic at home, there is a copy of the Liverpool Echo from May 1, 1965.
Ee-aye-Addio the Reds have won the Cup, declares the headline.
That was when the FA Cup didn't mean something. It meant everything. Long before it was strangled by greed's iron grip.
It was a landmark moment for Liverpool FC. Football fashionistas might find it hard to comprehend but it had taken Liverpool 73 years to win the FA Cup.
But then again, that's history.
History might make a convenient line in a taunting chant but few pay any attention to it.
Some football fans might be bewildered to discover that Liverpool FC had an eight-year spell in the second division.
That for 72 years, the team never wore an all-red strip.
That they once went 24 seasons between winning championships.
If you know your history, for all 18 of their league titles, for all seven of their FA Cups, for all five of their European Cups, Liverpool do not have an unequivocal right to be successful.
Foes
It's a casual, common perception that Liverpool should be challenging for Premier League supremacy.
But this is an era of a commercial superpower who can afford to service a monstrous debt and a club that has benefited from unprecedented generosity from an individual benefactor.
Manchester United and Chelsea are formidable foes. Deep down and grudgingly, Liverpool fans probably accept this. Which is one of the reasons they give Rafa Benitez an easy time.
Today, those supporters have got one hell of a dilemma. Who to jeer? There's those pesky Yanks, of course. But probably best to save a whistle or two for Wayne Rooney. Or for Gary Neville - not so much a hate figure as a tradition. And then, of course, there is Michael Owen.
Owen will celebrate if he scores this afternoon. His commitment has always been to himself. He is guaranteed a rough ride. Unlike Benitez.
This is a manager who has long been luxuriating in a loyalty unique in the game. A loyalty from supporters that was born out of Bill Shankly's history-changing reign and fostered by Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish, Evans, even Houllier.
Only on Friday, Rafa - mindful of the mini uprising when he withdrew Yossi Benayoun - was massaging fans' feelings with some feeble flannel. They're better than United's, he said. They won't get me the sack, he meant.
It would take a monumental effort for any Liverpool boss to lose the crowd. But not to lose a dressing-room. If he ever had it.
Rafa's problems lie within. His squad has begun to look a disparate bunch, drained of confidence, dreading their manager's next bizarre substitution.
As instruction chases the tail of another instruction, they look to the bench not for inspiration but in bewilderment. His reputation as a tactician has not yet been holed below the water-line. His man-management skills seem to be sinking fast.
When Benitez looks across the dug-out, he will see someone who strikes fear into cocky, rich, talented young men.
But who has a bond with his players - a bond forged by Ferguson's human touch.
When United played Arsenal this season, Sir Alex described Darren Fletcher as being the best player on the park by some distance.
He was nothing of the sort. But Fletcher will have woken up as the tallest man on the planet, willing to butt brick walls for his manager.
Praise has to be eked out of Benitez. Man-management doesn't just involve public utterances. It's about realising the impact decisions have on people.
Eccentric
When Owen was available on a free transfer - and made it privately clear that he would crawl to Anfield - what sort of boost would it have given to Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher had Benitez made a move?
A much-needed one.
What sort of message does it send when a foreign player such as Xabi Alonso steeps himself in the ethos and traditions of the club only for it to be made clear he is expendable? Or when Robbie Keane - a boyhood fan - is given only the briefest of opportunities to prove his worth?
The message is that Rafa's increasingly eccentric way is the only way. It is a cold isolation that has not gone unnoticed by Gerrard and Fernando Torres. Perhaps light-heartedly, they have touched on his detachment. But you sense it has bothered them. And that should be a warning sign.
It won't bother Benitez.
Because in his decisions, in his judgments, in his pronouncements, he seems determined to walk alone.
And as those tens of thousands of loyal fans could tell him . . . at Anfield, you should never do that.
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This article has 4 comments
owen is a still a liability with this fitness. it would have been a massive gamble for a potential bench warmer. id grudingly like to see him do well for utd, because id like to see him back in an england top. they have the back up in strikers to carry owen.
its no surprise our trouble started with selling keane last season. we never saw that money again, where did it go? we only paid 8 million for johnson. we have only pain an installment of of 6 upfront for aquilani. so where is the money to bolster the squad. for that we had to sell alonso.
say what you like about his man management. its all nonsense, its only become an issue since we started this season. the media are looking for something to jump on bash benitez bandwagons.
its the money plain and simple. the board has constantly undermined the manager at board level and publicly. im not saying benitez is entirely at fault, it was a mistake to try and sell alonso to juve that backfired. to be honest after the previous season he had, you couldnt blame him. what a kick up the ass though. he produced his best season in a red shirt that year and got a transfer to madrid.
By dan.. Posted October 25 2009 at 1:47 PM.
I live in US and I am a liverpool, I find Benitez very arrogant and stubborn, why would he not sign owen back? he is English and can get you a couple of Goals, instead of NGOG, why sell Keane and Alonso? because the Manager is arrogant and cant work with them,he got Rick Perry fired, cause he cant work with one by himself, he needs to go
By J DA.. Posted October 25 2009 at 11:55 AM.
absolutely spot on, his lack of man management skills will be his downfall. Against Lyon when he took yossi off the game was crying out for babel to come on, instead he brought that donkey voronin on, seems to me that once you fall out of favour with Benitez there is no route back. He is definitely losing the fans, take that from a season ticket holder who has been going since King Kenny was playing....
By Craig.. Posted October 25 2009 at 11:39 AM.
Dunney,
I think the Keane saga cost them the best chance of a title since the year they wore white suits - and funny enough, with two of their best ever players, is this TEAM fit to lace the boots of a team with Stan Collymore and David James in?
Don't focus on the dough, Rafa didn't inherit a team that suffered from a lack of investment.
His trouble is not that he has been too stubborn, but that he has not been stubborn enough - he's gone all attacking, scored lots of goals and found that he is not keeping the clean sheets......
By Damien.. Posted October 24 2009 at 11:03 PM.