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No matter how hard to you try to foresee how other people will interpret your work, there will always be surprises in their reactions. Having seen a few conclusions drawn from my most recent piece, I just wanted to clarify a couple of points.

First of all, I have just been speaking to a journalist who said it might read as a “briefing” against the players via Benítez; perhaps in the way I suggested people like Henry Winter might be taking instruction from Gerrard or Carragher when slating Rafa.

This was definitely not so.

This was a case of me taking one piece of information I had been given by a reliable source, along with comments made by Carragher’s dad (which I hadn’t previously heard, but other people I checked with had), on top of those of Danny Murphy a few months back and Carragher himself in the Sunday Times, and then questioning the problems facing a great player nearing the end of his career at the club he loves.

I was putting forward some theories and educated guesses. I sympathised with his predicament in several senses. Equally, I believe in the ultimate power of the manager. And that was the point of the article.

Some people have been taking what I said as a sure sign of mutiny, or that Rafa has “lost the dressing room” (my favourite Carragher quote is that he’s yet to know a manager who’s had the dressing room). As far as I know, this is not the case at all. But obviously there are a lot of very fed up people around the club right now, from players to staff to fans. It’s been a horrid season. And that we’re all fed up shows that we care.

(Despite how bad it’s been, we’re still in with a shout of a trophy, and “only” 6th, although realistically 7th, in the league; lest we forget 1993, when we were out of all competitions early on, and 16th at this stage. Not that seasons under Souness should be a benchmark, of course, but even so, this remains a bad season after an excellent one…)

Having sounded out a few people since publishing the piece, I want to make it known that Carragher’s dad – who I only know by reputation – really is a law unto himself!

But personally speaking, I would like to have seen Gerrard and Carragher speak out in defence of the manager this season – I’m not saying that they are against Rafa, but it seems they are not as supportive as other big-name players. I made this point in yesterday’s piece, but it’s a case of reading between the lines than anything else.

Also, I have no idea if Benítez wants to sell Carragher or sees him as a problem. Honestly. It wasn’t a call to get rid of the players.

But equally, I’m fascinated by the idea of whether he could even get away with dropping him, or Gerrard, even if he wanted to. Ruud Gullit’s P45 was in place as soon as he dropped Alan Shearer at Newcastle.

Almost any decision Benítez makes gets attacked in the press. He was slated on ESPN for refusing to guarantee three points against Pompey, yet was roundly slated for guaranteeing 4th. If he’s bullish, he’s labelled arrogant; if he’s evasive, he’s ‘negative’.

I am not a journalist in the traditional sense. I am certainly not an investigative journalist. And yet I have been approached by people with information this season, and then lost sleep over what to do with that information. This is not my comfort zone.

It happened after I met Rafa in October – a great experience, but sometimes you don’t want to see everything behind the great curtain. It happened when someone approached me to say that a senior football television personality referred to Rafa as a ‘fat Spanish waiter’ and were far from neutral and fair when talking on air about him. And it’s happened again this past week.

I wrote the piece when on a serious downer, like a lot of Reds on Tuesday morning. I stand by it, but I do want to guard against some of the reaction to it.

In part, I was sick of the criticism always coming back to Benítez, and the players coming out of it without any apparent responsibility. It’s probably the worst game I’ve ever seen Steven Gerrard play, after several other poor showings in 2009/10, yet he seems bulletproof because he’s been so brilliant in the past. Well, he deserves to be cut some slack for past glories, but equally, he has to be called to question when giving away so passes (13 times he conceded possession) and losing more tackles than he won.

(Aquilani made as many successful tackles in less than 30 minutes, and all 19 of his passes found a red shirt. And he actually looked like he wanted to be out there. It was the first time that he looked 100% up to speed, so that was a positive, but of course, it just leads to criticism of why he didn’t start the game.)

As I mentioned, everyone got their fair share of praise for Istanbul; but when things go wrong, the manager becomes the default target. He has overall responsibility, and he always has to take his share of the blame. But everyone is in this together, and that’s crucial.

I remain irked by the fact that after the Villa game – the 3rd of the season – Rafa said to the press that the senior players need to take responsibility. It was no more direct or harshly worded than that.

But the way Henry Winter attacked Rafa’s actions made me wary. Can’t a manager even slightly admonish his players in public any more? Has player power moved so far away from the days when Shankly could run his team how he saw fit, without worrying about treading on egos?

(Again, as with Carragher’s dad, I don’t know if these players do brief Winter; someone I’ve spoken to who knows him says his views are purely his own. I do know that it doesn’t look good, however, when people with connections to players criticise that player’s boss.)

At the time, Carragher had started the season poorly, Mascherano’s head was in the clouds over Barcelona and his country’s footballing nightmares, and Gerrard had just had the news of a civil lawsuit over the bar-room incident. In that game, Gerrard gave away a really daft penalty. Torres also wasn’t fit and sharp. To this day, even though Carragher and Mascherano have improved radically, Reina remains the only senior player to show constant commitment on the field and near-perfect performances.

While some junior players also started the season poorly, they are the junior players for a reason; younger, less experienced, and on far lower wages. They don’t get the headlines, the videos in their honour, the personal awards. A manager has to be more protective of his youngest players, because they are the most vulnerable.

I just want everyone pulling in the same direction. And that’s very difficult to achieve at any club when things aren’t going as well as expected, and with everyone coming under increased scrutiny. It’s not easy when different parties are at different stages of their careers.

Everyone wants what’s best for LFC – I don’t doubt that – but opinions as to how that happens are bound to differ. Most of the time this is healthy, but it can get a little out of whack in times of stress.

For me, however, it all comes back to last summer. Alonso leaving was clearly a blow to a lot of the players, but then again, Gerrard had wanted his best friend, Gareth Barry, to join the club a year earlier when the rift between Benítez and Alonso arose. Presumably Barry wasn’t going to play left-back?

But last summer, Benítez was thrown a curve-ball, to use American parlance.

He thought he had a certain budget. Halfway through the summer, that budget was slashed. It’s a bit like getting halfway around the supermarket, and thinking you’ve still got money for milk, bread and other essentials, only to be told you have to “checkout” now.

Only half of the rebuilding was complete, with more players desperately needed. His plans had to be radically altered. As a result, the squad was too thin. Rather than invest to improve, three transfer windows saw a zero net-spend. It sent out the wrong message to all concerned. Voronin was not recalled because he was gonna solve every problem; he was brought back because there was no money to buy an experienced striker, and N’Gog and Nemeth were both too young and inexperienced.

Then came the first few games. The team started sluggishly. Injuries were picked up. A defensive crisis arose, affecting set-piece situations. Late goals were conceded in games that should have been won. Confidence plummeted. There was a spell of really bizarre refereeing. Injuries to key attacking players then occurred. Aquilani took longer to get over an ankle operation than had been advised. Goals dried up. Confidence was further hit. By this time, a negative momentum is consuming everything in its path.

All the while, everyone has played under immense pressure and scrutiny since that opening week. I swear, there was less pressure challenging for the title than there has been a year later, and 2008/o9 was exhausting enough as it was. Perhaps last season exhausted the players, too.

I don’t know if, given time, Benítez can fulfil every fan’s wish. I’m not clairvoyant. I feel he can once again do an excellent job, as he has in the past, but there are no guarantees; just as there are none with a new boss.

But until the club is back on a firm financial footing, and owned by people who want the best for Liverpool FC, it’s going to be a crap-shoot as to what any manager can do. I’d absolutely love to see Benítez fielding teams containing Gerrard and Carragher over the coming years, and challenging for trophies, but none of these is going to be happy, or fulfilled, if the club is spending all its money paying off debts that weren’t supposed to even be there, and then expected to work miracles.

The lack of funding undercuts everything so far as the ambition of these ‘winners’ is concerned. It’s not just the lack of money, but the lack of stability.

This is why I’m backing Spirit of Shankly. That doesn’t mean I agree with their every last view, or condone every course of action they take. But I grew up believing in the power of the union. I also grew up with Liverpool being famed as the most well-run club in the country, if not the world. And while we cannot live in the past, we can hope for certain standards to be maintained.


This is a free article from The Tomkins Times - "the most intelligent guide to LFC around" (Independent on Sunday)

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