The warning signs were clear from the opening bell of the season as Liverpool lost at Spurs, recovered with a demolition of Stoke, then lost badly at home to Aston Villa. That match, only the third of the season marked some turning points and massive warning bells should have gone off then and there. That loss and the way it happened signalled that SAF’s dismissal of Liverpool as a potential challenger for the title was right on the mark. After only three games Liverpool had lost as many (2) as they had in the entire previous season, their best ever since the inception of the EPL, finishing second with 86 points. They also led the league in goals scored, were unbeaten at home and won the most points on the road, yet they ended up second. For more on how that happened, read on.
In that match with Villa a Lucas own goal began the debacle and a bad challenge by Gerrard produced the match winner from an Ashley Young penalty conversion. The Reds were booed off the pitch at halftime at Anfield in case you don’t recall. But the markers it set for the season to come were even more important: the loss was the first in 31 games at Anfield and it also marked the first match Liverpool lost when Torres scored at least one goal (their record had been 23 wins, no losses and 5 draws).
The Reds did rally and won their next four in the league before they hit the skids again losing four in a row for the first time in decades (two in the Champions League and two in the league). Yes, that did include the infamous “beachball” incident at Sunderland and perhaps no game was more illustrative of the problems eating away at the team. Recall: the beachball deflected shot from Bent occurred in the 6th minute, yet Liverpool was unable to recover. No team worthy of challenging for the title would fail to recover to get at least a draw in such a case but this Liverpool team could not manage that. Another clang of that warning bell.
After that string they did rally and produced one of the best efforts of the season defeating Man United 2-0 at Anfield. That seemed to lift the spirits but it would be very short lived as they failed to take sustenance from that victory losing their next two (a Carling Cup loss at Arsenal and the very damaging 3-1 defeat to Fulham). Note that loss to Fulham on the final day of October was the 10th EPL game of the season and their 4th loss in the league. Benitez’s primary excuse, the loss of Torres, did not really apply at that stage because the big Spaniard had already scored 10 goals in those first 10 games in the league yet Rafa had managed to lose 4 of them. The warning bell was getting even louder.
At that stage of the campaign Liverpool had already lost two in the Champions League and 4 in the EPL. At the point where many would say it was still “early days” Liverpool’s challenge in both the league and CL was essentially over proving Sir Alex’s dismissal of them as worthy challengers couldn’t have been more accurate.
The month of November would only emphasize that as they’d manage only one league win (at Everton) and two draws at Anfield (Birmingham and Man City). They would also only avoid defeat at Lyon by a late goal from Ryan Babel for a 1-1 draw. December would be no relief either with a scoreless draw at Blackburn and two more losses in the league (Arsenal and Portsmouth) as well as being dumped out of the Champions League with another loss to Fiorentina. And that was before they ran up against the buzz saw from Reading FC in the FA Cup.
Out of contention in the league, out of the League Cup, out of the FA Cup and of course, dumped out of the Champions League too. Liverpool’s season was well and truly over and it had now become a struggle to finish 4th which would also fail and hope for some success in the Europa League which in this season of despair would be yet another failure. The bells had stopped ringing since it was well past the point of warning; the disaster was on big time.
So what really happened to Liverpool after their most successful campaign in the league just one year ago? While there has already been volumes written about this topic few have hit on what I believe is the real answer. It can rightly be answered with just two words: Rafa Benitez.
Six seasons of Rafa have not really improved the prospects for Liverpool. Six seasons of Rafa has brought on their fall from their solid position in what became known as the Big Four to the point that they are now likely to end the current season in 7th. Simply, but obvious to anyone that will look, Rafa’s tenure at Liverpool has destroyed their status as one of the clubs capable of mounting a viable challenge in the EPL or anywhere else for that matter.
As if anyone needed a clear example of how that happened all you needed to see was Rafa withdrawing his most productive offensive weapon, Fernando Torres, from a match where they were in dire need of a goal with nearly 30 minutes to play at St Andrews. Injuries or not in the season of Wayne Rooney no striker in the league had been more productive than Torres (18 goals in 20 appearances at that point for the very tops in strike rate). In Rafa’s scrambled brain it made sense to remove him from the contest if you can imagine that. The look of utter surprise on the face of Gerrard at the move tells you all you need to know. Rafa’s micro-managing at its worst is at the heart of the slide of Liverpool into mediocrity and only the most ardent supporters of Rafa can defend such idiocy. Such lame brained moves negatively impact a key element of any successful sports team: confidence. Confidence not only in him as manager, but in themselves too.
But that is just the most recent, even if one of the most glaring examples of his foolishness. The failure of Liverpool to contend for the title after their most promising EPL season ever last year rests squarely on Rafa’s shoulders. Or it should anyway and he should be gone to end the nonsense once and for all. Must be gone just in case you didn’t get the message.
Rafa’s denigration of the management of the club has also been grounds for dismissal. Frankly speaking no other board in the league would put up with it. Rafa knew he could deflect ownership of the club’s failure from himself because of the fan ire regarding the ownership team. His attacks would be deemed as his joining those fans in that campaign against those hated American owners. The focus would be off his own failure to deliver.
Excuse me? T’is true my friends. Rafa blames them for not supporting him with enough money while the truth is he has spent more than Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea over the last three seasons and you have to ask to what benefit? The reality is only one EPL team spent more in that time: Man City. Yet, after finishing second last season Liverpool are now languishing in 7th in large part because of his lunatic decisions on the sideline and his buying of players that illustrate his waste of resources. In Rafa’s twisted mind that waste represented by his poor decisions on personnel gets turned into a lack of support by the board and he gets away with it.
And what did that spending provide? Mutts like Dossena and Riera and failed experiments like the Robbie Keane fiasco, Aguilani and Maxi Rodriguez add up to over $90 million squandered right there. Aquilani is turning out to be the biggest failure of them all in terms of his value to the team for the over $30 million spent to bring him to Liverpool. What the club faces now is a huge loss just trying to find him a new home and yet Rafa says the blame is not his when it comes to such failures in judging talent. The club stands to lose another $8-10 million just trying to find someone to take Riera off their hands.
And that situation has become an all too familiar scenario for Liverpool under Rafa. Such craziness is now the order of the day and none of them bigger than the Keane fiasco that saw them lose more than $8 million in about six months and to the team about to displace them as a member of the Big Four (Tottenham). The owners didn’t buy these guys, Rafa did, yet he blames them for failing to support him with even more money. No owners with their head screwed on straight would hand this guy even more money after the record of failure of judgement and the resulting losses he has produced.
This is not a new scenario at all for Liverpool however; it runs back in the clubs history to before his tenure to be fair. It didn’t start with Rafa, but his decisions have certainly not improved the team at all and the losses in very big and very real money has been bigger than ever. Yet he gets away with blaming it on the hated owners for not supporting him with even more money. The situation is truly bizarre.
Rafa inherited a club near the top. One that had added two of the top stars in Europe at the time during the summer that he made his move to Liverpool: Fernando Morientes and Gjibril Cisse, two men whose potential impact seemed likely to push the Reds to the top. Add to them a man who had proven his worth in the EPL Milan Baros, and still more in the person of Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch and on paper the experts figured this Liverpool side was poised to dominate the league. Didn’t happen.
All of those players that Rafa soon mirco-managed to the point that they were unproductive as Reds and soon discarded after he destroyed their confidence. None was more unappreciated than Crouch who seemed to be able to put aside the lack of belief in him from Rafa and just rolled on scoring goals whenever he got his chance only to be set aside again by Benitez regardless of how productive he was with his limited opportunities.
Rafa’s penchant to try to explain away his lunatic decisions on the sideline nearly became a standup comedy routine. His “tinkering” with the lineup became a standing joke around the league as he went dozens of games with a changed lineup that was not forced by injury or suspensions, only his selection process itself. Volumes of print were produced on this issue alone as he seemed to juggle the lineup on a whim.
Rafa also knew that the fans revere him because he won the Champions League in 2005 so he could get away with a lot of nonsense. Those same fans seem to dismiss the fact that their appearance in that final was actually based on a failure of match officials crediting a mystery goal to Gerrard in their semifinal match with Chelsea: a goal that never happened. Those same fans also seem to forget that AC Milan blitzed them in the opening half making them look like a pub team and it was a questionable penalty award that got them back in it. Credit to the players that took advantage of that on the pitch, not Rafa Benitez.
Yet it has been Rafa that has made a very lucrative living from that success for several years now despite his nonsense and failure to deliver on his promises to bring the EPL title to Liverpool. Those fans that revere him for his success in the Champions League also seem to dismiss the fact that in that very same season Liverpool finished 5th in the league 37 points behind the winner (Chelsea). Think of what that actually means: Liverpool fell nearly one point farther adrift of the title winner each and every week of the season (38 games, 37 points behind at the end). Instead of being competitive in the league they were going the wrong way and that IS the real bottom line. Rafa hugely benefitted from his players spirited recovery in that final in Istanbul and frankly he still does. It is past time to end that and return to reality on the red side of Mersey.
What both Rafa and the board of Liverpool seem to fail to realize is that success in the league will also bring success on the business side of the ledger. The fact is, that realization has not penetrated the bizarre and scrambled mind of Rafa Benitez and that is not a surprise. After all, his own success and his very survival at Liverpool has been based on that one success in the Champions League.
Another aspect of Rafa’s Liverpool that has become a negative is their record on the home ground at Anfield. That venue was thought of as a fortress for the Reds every bit as daunting as Old Trafford has been under SAF. Under Rafa Anfield has become a far less difficult venue for opponents than it had been. In fact, Liverpool lost their bid for the title last season on their own home ground with 14 points dropped with 7 draws despite going unbeaten there. This season they dropped 15 points at home while the leaders Chelsea lost only 4.
In the past 4 seasons a superb record at home has determined the title winner while at the same time the Reds have lost the grip on that sort of dominance at Anfield. To emphasize the significance of the home record, in the three United titles in a row the second place club finished the season unbeaten at home yet lost the battle for the trophy on their home ground. What’s that? They were unbeaten at home yet lost the chance for the title on their home ground despite being unbeaten there? Yep. The points lost in 7 draws were the difference maker in each of those three seasons (Chelsea did it twice and last season Liverpool). It is an interesting twist that the second placed club ended the campaign with the very same unbeaten record at home (12-7-0) for those three seasons but that is what happened. United’s record this season breaks that string. That said, Anfield is no longer that fortress it once was.
It is clearly long past the time that Rafa has personally benefitted from that CL success while at the same time failing to deliver in the league for six seasons while squandering millions and millions on his poor personnel decisions.
What is needed at the helm at Liverpool is a manager that is truly dedicated to succeeding in the world’s best pro league. A manager that does not diddle with the lineup. A manager that inspires confidence, not one that undermines it. A manager that doesn’t throw away the club’s resources on players that simply are not of the quality required for success in the EPL. A manager that doesn’t fan the flames of discord between the club and its supporters for his own benefit. A manager that inspires his players to give their best which seems beyond Rafa.
That being the case, right now would be a great time to make that happen since Liverpool will not be distracted from that goal by Champions League competition because they won’t be there. The fact that they won’t be there should be placed squarely where it belongs and that is on the shoulders of Rafa Benitez.
