This was published in November 2009
It seems somewhat inevitable that in most Liverpool debates all roads are leading back to Kenny Dalglish. When he left Anfield citing the stress his job was causing the club was labelled unmanageable.
That same description has been applied to other clubs. Most notably Newcastle. Kenny left St James Park after just 20 months despite coming as close as any of his predecessors to ending a trophy drought lasting almost half a century.
All but one of Dalglish’s successors - Roy Evans - has fallen foul of health problems during their stints in charge with two victims of heart complaints.
Though not the last of The Bootroom benchmark by which all who hold the manager’s post are measured he was certainly the last to be considered successful.
One thing the man widely acclaimed the best player to pull on a red shirt never achieved in the hotseat courtesy of UEFA’s ban on Football League clubs covering his entire spell at the helm was lifting the European Cup.
Though the number of trophies collected under Gerard Houllier’s reign may well be larger in number at six some of the four Rafael Benitez has won along with Champions League finals and semi-finals are the better gauge of progress and performance against the club’s peers.
People looking at Liverpool’s season as far as January tended to deem The Reds either lucky to be top for as long as they were or criticised for not having a better stranglehold over the field.
It is a stark contrast to Sir Alex Ferguson who even with things not going too well was expected to ensure his charges come good. The Old Trafford manager’s record means he and his sides are rarely written off.
Opinions and headlines remain just as negative with most of Wednesday’s back pages hosting at least one disapproving note carrying the baton handed to them from the weekend and Monday’s reports. Matters ballooned quickly as rumours about Rafa’s grip on his post being so tenuous that he could be looking for a new post either as early as tomorrow morning or at least following the trip to Middlesbrough seem to have swept around. Punters placing bets on both those eventualities forced two bookmakers to suspend trade on those particular flutters.
All on the day of a huge match it provided grist to the mill of countless hacks who rather than produce competent or necessarily cogent analysis prefer lazy judgments and stories designed to suggest one paper knows something its rivals do not. Unfortunately so many journalists even the usually good ones are happy to do little more than scratch at the surface and as a result fall short of fully serving their readers.
Take as an example a comment that Rafa would as he had told reporters over a number of days only talk about football in the build up to the Manchester City game. His stated desire to only concentrate on football as the columnists begged him to do just weeks earlier rather than get in a war of words with his board or a fellow manager was painted as a refusal to confirm, deny or quell speculation.
Good timing for all the media with Real Madrid the team many believe Benitez sees himself as destined to manage coming just 72 hours after the game.
The contract and others need to be sorted but is in the middle for drafting. Versions are likely to have been sent across The Atlantic Ocean and back a number of times. There may be provisions relating to any possible sale by the owners but the sticking points could just as easily be based more on linguistic and legal meanings than principles
Terms and conditions need not only be agreeable to all parties. They need to be enforceable.
Coverage is taking this course due to the time limits reporters had indicated expiring and online communities - far more immediate than a daily letters page - waste no time in poking a finger at just how much or more appropriately who little was known in the first place when the many confident predictions turn out to be exactly what they were in the first place - mere speculation.
Liverpool generate huge amounts of interest and for the benefit of future column inches be they in the immediate few days or slightly longer term things can be played out with endless speculation from a host of sources.
Then there the forums and message boards which provide not only a reaction but in some cases another story. They are also a measure publishers can not only count clicks by but price and sell precious advertising.
Up to 60 games a season for the most heavily supported clubs also do their bit.
When compared to Manchester United in almost every department of the field the Red Devils are superior or at worst level pegging when the generally accepted first choice options are put head to head.
However, when reserves below those first XIs are taken in to account resources in the human let alone financial sense are much deeper. Rio Ferdinand cost more than the entire backline Liverpool field no matter what the permutation. In fact the fee Leeds received in July 2002 is £5.36 million more than the estimated fee of all 11 defensive players who have made a single appearance for the club this term.
At the other end of the field Liverpool currently have one £20 million plus striker. United have three plus another attacking player who when he gets his inevitable if not imminent move to the Santiago Bernabeu will have a market value probably twice that sum if not more. Yet Liverpool outscored that same attack until early February and only trail the tally by three.
In midfield The Reds may have been fortunate to nurture a talent who making huge adjustments for the fistful of petrodollars Manchester City were prepared to offer for Kaka would need £50 million or more to draft in. Javier Mascherano cost just over a third of that basic estimate. United have more than treble that number of that worth in the same department.
The background climate and turmoil makes what Rafa Benitez has managed to do within the time he has had an even bigger achievement than may be obvious at first glance.
Owners nobody wants possess a club they never wanted for any altruistic reasons and which they now cannot afford.
An administrative war sees joint custodians at loggerheads with each other while they both fight an individual battle with the chief executive or manager respectively.
One particular owner may have made his peace with the manager and created an uneasy alliance. Even if they appear bedfellows that same person launched a number of lies and attacks post Athens when Rafa called to see the cards they were said to have been holding and found to be bluffing their hands. These incidents only ceased as part of a PR drive with fans.
Critics suggest Liverpool’s league position papered over the cracks for a long time this season.
Maybe they should consider that Rafa has not so much covered cracks as a huge number of chasms in the wall and somehow stopped the whole house from falling down around our ears.
Just like most of the road to Istanbul Liverpool have been punching above their weight for most of the campaign.
Being second now and finishing there or even third if Chelsea manage to get their act together but very close in terms of points to whoever leads the table would be an accurate reflection of the side’s true standing.
The knock-out blow administered to AC Milan may not have been delivered domestically yet but thanks to good guidance The Reds have worked their way up from prize fighter to genuine title contenders even if the shot does not come in 2008-09.
That other similarly impossible challenge for managers Newcastle have unwanted ownership, passionate fans who yearn to challenge but their heydays can largely only read about in history books.
There isn’t one Toon fan who wouldn’t want to swap places with Liverpool. Despite also holding a rich tradition and the advantage of Champions League revenue on top of other funds generated the Magpies now spend their seasons attempting to escape relegation dogfights not competing for major honours.
Unfortunately the fans have been complicit in their club lurching from crisis to crisis with protests and calls for the heads of various managers. The board appeased Sir John Hall’s ‘Geordie nation’ by obliging once the pressure got too much when the club needed stability.
Even Bobby Robson failed to escape the wrath and just as he was in the 1990s with England probably felt hounded out of a job.
The old regime threw in its hand allowing Mike Ashley to take charge once he had negotiated purchase of the Hall family’s holding and now few managers would take a job which should be amongst the most prestigious in the game.
Joe Kinnear has performed well but a manager without a top flight job in almost a decade and a post of any sort for four years would not have been the first choice for anything other than a fire-fighter rather than an appointment for the long term.
Rafael Benitez who has not only delivered progress season after season but secured trophies and has Liverpool on the cusp of being a genuine force in the league will be following that back and white patent in a time when there is no black and white just shades of grey.
Rafa is somehow managing the unmanageable club. If he was to leave for whatever reason the Reds’ ability to challenge would be set back. Those who may have called for it may feel like those Newcastle and England fans - only realise just what we had when he has gone.
