By Robert Carry
You have to wonder about Liverpool fans.
Their club has had another trophyless season, suffered one of its worst league finishes in decades, won’t be playing in the Champions League next season and is in debt to the tune of £350 million. Do they think to blame the man in charge? Well, apparently not.
According to a poll carried out on fan site IrishKop.com, the majority of Irish Liverpool fans want Rafa Benitez to remain at the club’s helm – despite the fact that he has played a central role in leading them to the edge of the abyss.
57.61 per cent of voters were in favour of Rafa keeping his job. More worrying still was the fact that just 35.87 per cent said they want to see a new manager brought in with the remainder saying they ‘didn’t know’.
Rafa has been poor in a number of areas – not least in the transfer market. Since Benitez took over for the 2004/05 season, he hasn’t been shy about splashing the cash. He spent £25,550,000 in his first season, £36,900,000, in his second, £44,800,000 in his third, £22,500,000 in 07/08, £40,300,000 last season and an another £40,000,000 on his latest disaster of a campaign. That’s a total of £210,50,000. You could buy every house in Meath with that kind of money.
Aquilani
Of course, shelling out wads of cash isn’t always a bad thing – if you get something worth having for your money. Aquilani however, cost £20 million. £5,600,000 was paid for Mohamed Sissoko. Was Ryan Babel worth £11,500,000? And £5,000,000 for Benayoun?
And what about the Robbie Keane debacle? The Tallaght striker was brought in for £20,300,000 from Spurs and then sold straight back to them for £12,000,000. This meant that Liverpool paid 8,000,000-plus for the 28 appearances Keane made for the club.
The quality of the in-coming traffic wasn’t the only problem – the players going in the other direction were often better than what was signed. Michael Owen was allowed to walk away at the peak of his powers while Rafa sold Craig Bellamy for 7,500,000. Stephen Warnock, who has just been included in the England World Cup squad, was sold for just £1,500,000 – probably a tenth of what he’s worth today.
Rafa let another England player walk out of the club in Peter Crouch – this time for £9,000,000. Also deemed not good enough was Danny Murphy, who four seasons later is still playing well – and is now competing for a Fulham team shooting for a European title.
You get the impression that many Liverpool fans are supporting Benitez on the back of what he has done for the club in previous seasons and to an extent, that loyalty is admirable. Benitez’s loyalty however, is far more suspect.
Rafa started resting players for league games ahead of matches in the Europa League when their chances of getting into the Champions League were still alive. A disgusted Torres was brought off in ties that were pivotal to Liverpool’s bid to sneak into fourth place in what was a clear demonstration of where Rafa’s priorities were. It looked a lot like he was thinking about his next job and didn’t care too much what state the club was in when he was gone. He wanted a Europa Cup win on his CV and to hell with what happened to the ‘Pool when he was brought elsewhere.
I have little doubt the rest of the club saw what he was at, but if they were to get rid of Rafa it meant shelling out the best part of £20,000,000 to him and his staff. Benitez therefore, could crap all over his team’s league chances, go all out for his career-boosting Europa Cup win and piss off his employers in the process – which in turn would have the effect of earning him 20 mil.
Legend
JOE.ie spoke to Liverpool legend Ronnie Whelan recently and he was of the opinion that Rafa should have been sent packing long ago. He felt that the clever thing to do would have been to ditch Benitez after Liverpool’s defeat to Fulham. They still would have had to pay him off, but with a new manager they could have still qualified for the Champion’s League. Now they have to pay him off but without the Champions League money. It’s an analysis which is hard to disagree with.
Benitez has been largely able to cover his weaknesses by the heroics of Stephen Gerrard and Fernando Torres. Now however, Liverpool is in serious danger of losing the family silverware in the transfer window and with their mounting debts and lack of Champion’s League revenue likely to severely limit purchases, the only way looks to be further down.
Rafa Benitez is doing what may yet turn out to be irreparable damage to the most successful club English football has ever produced. It’s astonishing that its fans are continuing to support him while he does so.
All stats come from www.soccerbase.com
