Here's more bad news for a Tottenham board again squirming with embarrassment — surely they appreciate the indignity of a manager's dismissal spreading through the crowd at a match he is supposed to be supervising — and it concerns the director-of-football system they keep trying to operate. The Spanish are going off the idea. Or so Rafa Benitez, the only Spanish manager in the Premier League pending Juande Ramos's arrival at White Hart Lane, was saying on Friday. ''Some people in Spain are starting to think we might be better off with the English idea of the manager being in charge of everything," mused Benitez. He was not being mischievous — although Liverpool's manager must have enjoyed the respite from questions about his own future that, in truth, appear a little ludicrous just five months after he steered the club to a second Champions League final in three seasons.
It is, of course, the Champions League that has cast Benitez in an unflattering light. Defeat by Besiktas in Turkey last week leaves Liverpool with a mountainous requirement — three wins in as many matches, perhaps — if they are to qualify for the knockout stages. How Spurs must crave such a crisis! They got to within a communal stomach upset — a pre-match huddle over the porcelain — of the Champions League under Martin Jol, but malign bacteria constitute no excuse in football and, once Tottenham officials had been spotted courting Ramos in Seville a few weeks ago, the performances that had brought an unwelcome early-season taste of the relegation zone could only go from bad to worse; Jol was doomed.
Not that Ramos is likely to bring about a swift and radical improvement. Not unless his interpreter, too, has a football brain (more like the young Jose Mourinho, from whom Sir Bobby Robson benefited in Lisbon, Oporto and Barcelona, than Gus Poyet). Benitez sighed. ''When you think about Juande," he said, with feeling born of experience, ''you have to consider the problem of speaking a new language. It's very difficult."
Benitez developed ''a good relationship" with Ramos when Seville were trying to sign Josemi from Liverpool (the defender went to Villarreal) and observed: ''He's done a good job at Sevilla, a fantastic job." At least until the UEFA Cup holders slipped below halfway in La Liga this season. Unlike Liverpool, however, they look well placed to reach the next round of the Champions League and Benitez added: ''I think they were progressing. But really I don't like to talk about Juande and English football when he's still with Sevilla. If he did come here, he'd do well because he's a good manager. But Martin Jol is also a good manager. For me, Tottenham were trying to play good football and I felt he was trying to build something important."
Maybe the most encouraging indication Benitez — himself a UEFA Cup (and Spanish championship) winner at Valencia before he came to Liverpool and lifted Europe's top prize — could give Spurs was that they had a better chance of building a creative partnership between their director of football, currently Damien Comolli, and the manager this time. Jol, you may recall, became manager after the sacking of Jacques Santini, who had spent a couple of excruciating months in the job. Notionally the Dutchman was Santini's assistant, but he seemed closer to the then director of football, his compatriot Frank Arnesen. Jol and Arnesen might have made a decent team — but Chelsea lured Arnesen away. Comolli, a Frenchman, was the replacement and he and Jol were never hand-in-glove; when Jol wanted a left-sided player, Comolli would go out and buy him a centre forward. Now — unless the Tottenham board are about to be revealed as even dafter than we thought — the presumption must be that Comolli approves of Ramos and vice versa.
When I put this to Benitez and asked if it got close to the Continental ideal, he concurred — albeit in that slightly hesitant manner of his, which could never appear more appropriate than in discussing the affairs of the first British club to try a stock-market flotation (even that was to prove a dubious move).
Asked how he felt about the departures of Jol and, from Bolton, the former Liverpool stalwart Sammy Lee, he replied: ''I was surprised. I thought people in England had more patience." A quality Benitez implied would come naturally to Liverpool as they strive to win the English championship after a drought that is in its 17th season, even if Americans now own the club.
In the way of Arsene Wenger, who brings Arsenal to Anfield today with hopes of increasing the gap between the clubs to nine points, Benitez has a plan that entails large-scale youth development — Liverpool's coaches work with teenagers from every corner of Europe, and beyond, as well as the local catchment area — but admitted this too would take time. Meanwhile, though, his glass was half-full: "If we can beat Arsenal — and I am confident we can — we will be only three points behind. Even now we are in a better position than last season.
"We can still win the championship because it's a long season and all the contenders will have good and bad spells. At present Arsenal are playing well and everybody is talking about them as favourites. But all of the top clubs have a chance. Don't rule out Chelsea. They are not saying much at the moment. But they are progressing. And they have very good players."
Benitez deflected my hypothesis that Liverpool might steal a march on Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea by relieving themselves of the burden of further participation in the Champions League. ''We will qualify," he said, so there was no point in talking about it. Yes, it was obvious: ''If all the players were fit, we would have more chance if we played less games. But..." He smiled. ''I don't accept what you are saying."
Nor did he agree that the squad-rotation policy being blamed for Liverpool's patchy form since a 6-0 victory over Derby County — in the absence of Claudio Ranieri, Benitez has become the new Tinkerman — was being followed with exceptional rigour. ''Analyse the number of changes and substitutions made by Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho over the past two season and you'll see that it's more or less the same. If we win, rotation will be fantastic. If we lose, the criticism will continue."
Benitez was amusing on the subject of pundits — his predecessor, Gerard Houllier, often used to groan about the number of former Liverpool players, led by Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, who work in the media — and said: ''I don't listen. I'll explain to you how I work. I prepare for a game by watching four or five DVDs the analysis department have given to me. I watch without volume, fast-forwarding to the bits I need. So there can be 20 commentators and I don't hear them. I don't want to, because I'm working. And, when I've made a final DVD of the clips I've chosen for the players to see, I play that without volume too, because I want the players to focus. Everyone in football has an opinion. But I prefer to rely on my opinions and the opinions of my staff and players."
Any difference of opinion with Steven Gerrard over the captain's substitution during the Everton match had been resolved in Istanbul, he said. ''I spoke to Stevie after the Everton game and he was disappointed because he didn't want to come off. But he's intelligent enough to know what I do is for the good of the team. And you could see his reaction in Istanbul — he was maybe our best player. I was talking to him beforehand about two or three things I wanted him to do for us and he did them very well. And scored a good goal. So that was good for him and his confidence." There was no sense that Gerrard had to play in the central role he likes regardless of the team's needs; he had even offered to adapt at Goodison.
Before too long the midfield will be strengthened by Xabi Alonso, who suffered a foot injury on Spain duty immediately after the Derby County extravaganza — Liverpool's decline since is not entirely coincidental — and Benitez is also looking forward to Dan Agger's return to a defence in which Jamie Carragher has been looking jaded and Sami Hyypia past his best. ''When we have fresh legs and the international breaks are over, we will get better."
The benefit of being Champions League regulars is that you get a better class of crisis. None of the three clubs who have broken into the elite over the past decade — Leeds, Newcastle and Everton — remain and only Everton have avoided perturbing debt.
''I think the gap is the same in all countries," said Benitez. ''Because the top teams have more money. It costs a lot to catch up here because the top teams have been investing in their squads for years. A team in the middle of the table could spend £100 million and still not be there. If you want to bridge the gap, one way to do it is to buy a couple of players cheap, then sell one at a profit and buy a couple more and so on. But for that you need a very good scouting department and enough time, up to five years, to complete the job." To give the Tottenham board their due, they understand that. Except the last bit.
When someone asked Benitez if the pressure of expectation, as transmitted by the media, was worse at Liverpool than Valencia, he delivered a firm ''No" and grinned at us. Because we were nicer than the Spanish press? Rubbing a thumb and index finger together, he implied that, while some of us might relish the exercise of power without responsibility (in fact the press performed splendidly in its reporting of Spurs' latest fiasco), sacked managers laugh all the way to the bank. So I shed no tears for Jol. But I do think the customers at White Hart Lane deserve better.
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