Corpse in question being, of cour(p)se, his Liverpool team. Wednesday night was the lowest ebb of Benitez’s time at the club. Reading are a shocking team with a rookie caretaker manager and they have barely scraped together a win against Championship opposition all season. I could go on about how bad they are but we all know it already.
The truth is that we made them look like a top ten premiership club, and we were completely terrified of playing against them. This is ultimately an indictment of Benitez: he has had an extended period in which to prepare his players, make them feel like the team which finished second in the league last season and thrashed Real Madrid 5-0 on aggregate. But the players look despondent at the moment.
Gerrard, for one, is a player slowly fading into the background. I have no doubt that this is due to injury. Torres is scared to run or exert himself and looks a shadow of the player he was in his first year with us, despite the odd moment of greatness this season. To cap it all off, they are now injured. Who will step forward and take responsibility?
Mascherano was beginning to look decent again before his ref card against rotten bottom club Pompey (who we played a defensive team against and lost 2-0). But he isn’t capable of inspiring a team, he hasn’t got any ability moving forward. Kuyt, so solid and dependable last year, is looking like he’s on the other side of the hill these days. Benayoun is injured. Reina can only do so much from the net. Carra looks increasingly weary, Johnson is injured, our left backs are average, Skrtel and Agger have forgotten how to play, Ngog sadly misses more than he hits.
Aquilani did quite well against Reading I thought, smooth passer, slick when he wants to be, but ultimately not used to playing in our team, in our footballing culture. Which leaves his partner, Lucas, as our main man. And, in all fairness, he’s been our best player this season.
Imagine anybody admitting such a thing a few months ago? But Lucas is tackling, passing and running his way into my good books, much more so than any of the senior players.
The problem is that, when everybody else was playing well last year, Lucas looked average. Now that the chips are down, he’s showing himself to be our battler from Brazil, able to combine hard work with good form. But it is a horrible thing to think that Lucas is carrying our team. He isn’t creative or dynamic enough to hold such a mantle. Yet Rafa is turning to him to sort things out; the non-appearance of Aquilani was surely in part down to Benitez’s fear that leaving Lucas out of the team would remove its core and upset the balance. We’ve gone from the beating heart of our team being Alonso, who dominated games and got the team to play football, to it being Lucas Leiva, a solid defensive midfielder who salvages tricky situations. That says it all really.
Rafa is calm in a storm, but I think these days he’s almost becoming oblivious to the thunder clouds overhead. Has he ever had to take a team out of such a crisis of identity, of confidence? No, certainly not. And his managerial abilities – tactical, logical, insightful – are not what we need right now. I’ve been a staunch supporter of his ever since his arrival and I still don’t want to see him sacked. But he is being tested now – is he a truly, truly great manager, capable of inspiring his team’s victories for once instead of ‘masterminding’ them? Can he change tack and adapt to the dire situation in which he finds himself or is he determined to revel in his stubbornness, his belief in his own methods, his determination that if he carries on doing ‘the right things’ and ‘working hard’, everything will come good?
Because it surely won’t. The problems the team are having are not all his fault – God knows I’ve slated the board and the players enough times in the past. But his fault or not, the situation remains as it is, and his job now, for which he is paid a lot of money, is to make sad, bad players play like happy, good ones. And we’ll see where we are in the summer.
The fact Lucas is seen by you and some others as being our best player this season sums up the season. We have been a disaster from day one and Lucas is not good enough to hold down a first team spot in a top club.
The fact he is at Anfield highlights how poor our team has been.
Bye Bye Rafa. Thanks for the memories, but LFC was a giant before you arrived and will be a giant long after.
Didn’t bother reading your crap article as stopped after first paragraph. As a Reading fan I take offence to you saying Reading are shocking. We have played badly all too often this season but are certainly capable of playing well as we did in the first 45 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes of extra time.
Cup shocks happen but more often than not they occur when the underdog defends for their lives & score themselves hugely against the run of play. In this instance the embarrassment is that Reading were by far the better team who created the majority of clear cut chances. The penalty was poetic justice in regard to what Reading deserved but in any case hard though it may be to take especially as it’s so rare for an away side to get a decisive judgement call from a referee at Anfield, the penalty decision was fair & just.
Rafa’s post match interview was pathetic with him totally evasive & intimating issues with the referee who in truth had a pretty decent game whilst not intimidated by the venue as the majority of referees usually are.
I thought Mr Wenger was stubborn with his refusal to spend big in the transfer market & add physical strength to the skilful passing game we have at Arsenal but at least he has a plan & superb style of football.
Rafa takes stubbornness to a new level by refusing to walk the plank. He has had no clear plan or playing style. It has been ‘lottery football’ based mostly on smashing balls into the box & hoping a ricochet will provide a chance or hoping Torres & for the most part Gerrard will save the day. You cannot expect Gerrard to forever bail Liverpool out & the oodles of luck Benitez has previously enjoyed during his reign had to come to an end at some point.
Still as is the form with Liverpool fans, you will no doubt blame the ‘Yanks’ !!
Those of you who do want Rafa to go appear to want the sentimental return of ‘King Kenny’ !!
Are you sure ??? ………. Liverpool need to rebuild their team & so to it is bizarre to call for the man who walked away from the job when previously the ageing team needed rebuilding in the early 90’s & left Graeme Souness to take the stick when that process was not an immediate success !!
Liverpool should not make the same mistake, as the did by sacking Bientez. As the did to Mr Souness Pinky and Perky should sell up and go or honour thier promise, and invest enough money to complete with Man. utd. and Chelsea
what should be done is the yanks to sell to a RICH owner and get rid of Rafa and the USELESS players like Lucas and Ngog to west ham or villa
and bring back KING KENNY
bad season so far but we still have time to come good gerrard for him and what he can do poor/ torres fair/ kyut fair/poor. carra worries to much abouts the rest straining his own game good/ massa good when his there good/ johnson poor /insuna yard to slow fair/ renia good/lucas a poor player getting better poor/agger fair/benayoun up and down season so far fair/ and when you look at that how can you blame raffa if they dont want to play for him what can he do and lets face it we are only 4 points behind 4th and wve been really bad sometimes this season so what does that makes the rest in the prem this seasons far from over and we can only get better and forget about king kenny some of the best football was under evans with the kids and he didnt have a penny to spend so lets kick on and do what we do best back what we love l.f.c 4 life
look ,liverpool are having a bad run …we all know this its not really a surprise we spent 200 million and we still rely on just two players…i liked benitez but im getting really concerned that he might be ruining liverpool for years to come …i thing he should go!!!!! lfc 4 eva
Good article! I agree that Lucas has been invaluable during this poor spell and considering this and his age I find it hard to believe people think he is useless and doesn’t have a place at LFC. I think we need to grind out some results and the confidence will start to flow back into the team. I think the return of Riera on the left of midfield is also promising and a potential source of goals. Clearly we must look to the transfer window for a potent attacking option though and I think Rafa’s real judge of character will be determined by who he can bring in to bang in the goals and salvage the season.
Good Article. Lucas was never a defensive midfielder in Brazil, he played further up the pitch. Believe he has performed better this season than previous. Some people have been hugely critical of him, which i think is totally unfair. Criticism should be reserved for he who plays him out of position.
Reading deserved they win, they weren’t shocking we were. In both legs both teams should they were on a par.
We dont need to throw lot of money at the club to compete with the likes of Utd & Chelsea. Thats complete nonsense. What we need is a manager who knows what he is doing. Look at Arsene Wenger has achieved at Arsenal. Guus Hiddink came into Chelsea at a difficult time and turned them around. Chelsea finsihed below us in the league last year, spent less and are performing better than us.
Money aint the answer. Would you trust Rafa with any more money considering his track record? Majority of the pkayers brought in haven’t either been at a level good enough for us or not been able to fulfill there promise. Players like Morientes & Bellamy have shown their quality once they left. Surely it’s the manager who cant get the best out of his players.
Before we sink in mediocrity, lets depart with our 2nd rate manager and get someone who can get a team to play the beautiful game.
He may have won the Spanish title with valencia, but that was with Hector Cuper’s team. He’s now been able to build to team his own team at LFC, the quality shows. Hes got none so have we.
Fed up scouser!!
am born to be a LFC supporter..benetiz done very well,but y is ti still d game so bored?seems like the players easily crack,blur and no spirit.
i only comment this..’focus’.Aim high but no focus means nothing.Sure we will lose and keep on losing if we don’t get back on track.As easy as that.
keep on +ve and make a change. Keep supporting and move on bad or good time.
am born to be a LFC supporter..benetiz done very well,but y is it still d game so bored?seems like the players easily crack,blur and no spirit.
i only comment this..’focus’.Aim high but no focus means nothing.Sure we will lose and keep on losing if we don’t get back on track.As easy as that.
keep on +ve and make a change. Keep supporting and move on bad or good time.
Rafa may be a very good coach, but he certainly ain’t world top 5 material . If that is what Gillett and Hicks think then Liverpool is in even more trouble than we think. Even more worrying is Gillett’s view that Liverpools demise began with the ‘beach-ball’ goal that cause our boys to become surounded by a thick cloud of doom. He also blames the injuries to Gerrard , Torres and Benayoun for our poor record which to be fair, is a valid point to a certain extent. The problem is that there are far too many average players in our line-up, let alone squad. Benitez is the one who has bought some real howlers and despite his winging he was the one who also replaced most of the quality players he did purchase with donkeys. Surely, even soccer dummies like Hicks and Gillett should recognize this, please God!
Rafa has done for us what shankly did !
Please check, I have proposed to replace Eafa with Hiddink since 3 months ago. Forget to become the champ for this season because it it impoossible. It will be better to give the rest of the time to Hiddink for preparing a best team for next season.
Please check, I have proposed to replace Rafa with Hiddink since 3 months ago. Forget to become the champ for this season because it is impoossible. It will be better to give the rest of the time to Hiddink for preparing a best team for next season
we just sold Buchtman German under-17 star for £100,000. disgraceful. however he will learn more at Fulham than he would ever of at Liverpool under bentiez.
Listen you lot!! Stop your bloody moaning.There is one love and it is a big red love.THE PHOENIX WILL RISE FROM THE ASHES ONCE MORE!!!!!
Remember;Rafa in 2005.
I rest my case
angus
We need to make more use of Ryan Babbel.He has that attacking edge we need,Aquilani is a great player and could really do damage.With Kuyt and Babbel infront and players like Aquilani and Stevie G supporting them we will be a force to be reckoned with.On a defensive note Kyrgiakos has proven to be a mighty shield.WE HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE GREAT AGAIN SO LET THE PHOENIX RISE AND TORCH OUR ADVERSARIES!!!!!!!
ok so weve started to turn the corner, clean sheets and our best attacking players are getting back into the team.
so much for the negative rafa haters above!
and its always helpful when someone manages to post something legible and in english !
keep up the good work !
YNWA
What will it take to beg King Kenny to return to the front to inspire once more? He no doubt loves the club and I’m certain it hurts him to see LFC waste away… I appreciate all Rafa has done thus far but the team needs inspiration and passion, not tactics (not to mention conservative tactics at that).
“Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.” I can’t help that feel that at this point, Rafa can only aim for the ceiling fan.
With 9 games to go, at least we need to finish the season with dignity. Not scrapping it out in midfield and praying for El Nino to stir up a miracle.