from th eirish sunday independent
its on a few other sites but in case you missed it..
Sunday January 14th 2007
Dion Fanning
AS a guiding principle, a manager who has as much interest in the Carling Cup as the Jade Goody family have in the collected works of Terence Rattigan won't go far wrong.
Yet Rafael Benitez has spent the week under pressure after his decision to find out how good his second-string side were in a match of no meaning brought the answers he may have suspected.
It brought the hungry pack out again, asking the kind of questions they must surely tire of one day. "Does Rafael Benitez understand the English mentality?" "Why doesn't he play his best team?" and "When will he play Steven Gerrard in his best position?"
Of course, they've dropped the last recently as Gerrard has been playing in what they call "his favoured central midfield position." But in the two matches against the Arsenal where he played in central midfield, he had what are, in the accepted written formation, "strangely quiet" games. These strangely quiet games keep happening and yet they are always reported as 'strange'. Not 'common' or 'disappointing again' but 'strange'.
At the forefront of the "Gerrard must be played where he insists he's most effective" campaign has been Sky's Andy Gray, who, in an internet column last week, put the question; "When Liverpool players sit down with their grandkids in years to come, will they want to show them a big box of medals or boast that they finished fourth three years in-a-row? I think we all know the answer to that one." Indeed.
Just suppose Liverpool had won on Tuesday night and gone on to claim the Carling Cup in 2007 - beating, say, Wycombe Wanderers in the final. Which story from the past few years would the grandchildren of this Liverpool side want to hear? The uneventful tale of a trip to Cardiff sandwiched between a two-legged glamour game against Barcelona or maybe, just maybe, the story of the most remarkable European Cup run of all-time and their victory, against all expectation, in the quarter-final, semi-final and then in Istanbul?
Things won't be what they used to be if the grandchildren want to hear about the Carling Cup, especially with Djimi Traore's grandkids down the road boasting with some incredulity that their doddering grandfather - as sturdy on his feet as he's always been - once won the European Cup.
Domestic trophies, it was repeated last week, insulate against the sack, but winning the last two domestic competitions - the Community Shield and the FA Cup - hasn't protected Benitez from calls for his dismissal.
The only shame was that Benitez felt the pressure after the 6-3 defeat and decided to blame the board for not being swift and extravagant enough in their transfer dealings. When you have lost out on Nemanja Vidic and Daniel Alves in the past 12 months thanks to your employers' tardiness, it is perhaps understandable, but Benitez would have been better off holding to his private conviction that the cup was meaningless and allowing the press to write what they like.
Those who have conducted the fundamentally cretinous campaign that Gerrard should be playing in the centre of midfield despite the best evidence, i.e. his performances against the best teams while playing in that position, should hesitate before deciding to have another swipe, especially over defeat in a competition desperate for patrons.
One reporter began her report on the Liverpool match with the words: "If Rafael Benitez needed confirmation of the benefits that winning the Carling Cup can bestow, he had only to look up into the directors' box at Anfield last night. There, his face burnished by a recent dose of Dubai sun, sat Steve McClaren, whose capture of the trophy at Middlesbrough went a long way towards securing him the England manager's job." Again, there is only one appropriate response: Indeed.
Benitez could have played the game last week, keeping the moronic Sky pundits happy and placating a media which appears to despise him for refusing to value their opinion. But he must be respected for refusing to play their game when it was the easier option.
Benitez again raised the bar, perhaps to an impossible height. Instead of taking the facile routeThe most dangerous thing for Liverpool is that Benitez may be too weak to sell Steven Gerrard
to success with a victory in the Carling Cup (a favoured path for his predecessor), Liverpool will now have to beat Barcelona or display the type of form which saw Benitez's Valencia win the first of their Spanish titles (it was around this time that his side became known as 'The Crushing Machine'). The most dangerous thing for Liverpool is that Benitez may now be too weak to conduct what may be the most decisive action of his management: the selling of Steven Gerrard.
The writers who once insisted that Gerard Houllier be given more time, during which he would have terminally affected the club, are now among those administering the beating to Benitez. There are many differences between the two managers - one was bad, the other is whatever the opposite of piss-poor and spoofing is.
But Houllier played their game. He cherished the reporters, he cared about them; he thought the post-match interview was the most important 60 seconds of the week. He called them on the telephone.
Benitez is different. He couldn't give a f**k
its on a few other sites but in case you missed it..
Sunday January 14th 2007
Dion Fanning
AS a guiding principle, a manager who has as much interest in the Carling Cup as the Jade Goody family have in the collected works of Terence Rattigan won't go far wrong.
Yet Rafael Benitez has spent the week under pressure after his decision to find out how good his second-string side were in a match of no meaning brought the answers he may have suspected.
It brought the hungry pack out again, asking the kind of questions they must surely tire of one day. "Does Rafael Benitez understand the English mentality?" "Why doesn't he play his best team?" and "When will he play Steven Gerrard in his best position?"
Of course, they've dropped the last recently as Gerrard has been playing in what they call "his favoured central midfield position." But in the two matches against the Arsenal where he played in central midfield, he had what are, in the accepted written formation, "strangely quiet" games. These strangely quiet games keep happening and yet they are always reported as 'strange'. Not 'common' or 'disappointing again' but 'strange'.
At the forefront of the "Gerrard must be played where he insists he's most effective" campaign has been Sky's Andy Gray, who, in an internet column last week, put the question; "When Liverpool players sit down with their grandkids in years to come, will they want to show them a big box of medals or boast that they finished fourth three years in-a-row? I think we all know the answer to that one." Indeed.
Just suppose Liverpool had won on Tuesday night and gone on to claim the Carling Cup in 2007 - beating, say, Wycombe Wanderers in the final. Which story from the past few years would the grandchildren of this Liverpool side want to hear? The uneventful tale of a trip to Cardiff sandwiched between a two-legged glamour game against Barcelona or maybe, just maybe, the story of the most remarkable European Cup run of all-time and their victory, against all expectation, in the quarter-final, semi-final and then in Istanbul?
Things won't be what they used to be if the grandchildren want to hear about the Carling Cup, especially with Djimi Traore's grandkids down the road boasting with some incredulity that their doddering grandfather - as sturdy on his feet as he's always been - once won the European Cup.
Domestic trophies, it was repeated last week, insulate against the sack, but winning the last two domestic competitions - the Community Shield and the FA Cup - hasn't protected Benitez from calls for his dismissal.
The only shame was that Benitez felt the pressure after the 6-3 defeat and decided to blame the board for not being swift and extravagant enough in their transfer dealings. When you have lost out on Nemanja Vidic and Daniel Alves in the past 12 months thanks to your employers' tardiness, it is perhaps understandable, but Benitez would have been better off holding to his private conviction that the cup was meaningless and allowing the press to write what they like.
Those who have conducted the fundamentally cretinous campaign that Gerrard should be playing in the centre of midfield despite the best evidence, i.e. his performances against the best teams while playing in that position, should hesitate before deciding to have another swipe, especially over defeat in a competition desperate for patrons.
One reporter began her report on the Liverpool match with the words: "If Rafael Benitez needed confirmation of the benefits that winning the Carling Cup can bestow, he had only to look up into the directors' box at Anfield last night. There, his face burnished by a recent dose of Dubai sun, sat Steve McClaren, whose capture of the trophy at Middlesbrough went a long way towards securing him the England manager's job." Again, there is only one appropriate response: Indeed.
Benitez could have played the game last week, keeping the moronic Sky pundits happy and placating a media which appears to despise him for refusing to value their opinion. But he must be respected for refusing to play their game when it was the easier option.
Benitez again raised the bar, perhaps to an impossible height. Instead of taking the facile routeThe most dangerous thing for Liverpool is that Benitez may be too weak to sell Steven Gerrard
to success with a victory in the Carling Cup (a favoured path for his predecessor), Liverpool will now have to beat Barcelona or display the type of form which saw Benitez's Valencia win the first of their Spanish titles (it was around this time that his side became known as 'The Crushing Machine'). The most dangerous thing for Liverpool is that Benitez may now be too weak to conduct what may be the most decisive action of his management: the selling of Steven Gerrard.
The writers who once insisted that Gerard Houllier be given more time, during which he would have terminally affected the club, are now among those administering the beating to Benitez. There are many differences between the two managers - one was bad, the other is whatever the opposite of piss-poor and spoofing is.
But Houllier played their game. He cherished the reporters, he cared about them; he thought the post-match interview was the most important 60 seconds of the week. He called them on the telephone.
Benitez is different. He couldn't give a f**k
Rafa
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