Sack the bored
Pat Dolan – The Star mail: [email protected]
When it comes to Rafa Benitez, my message is simple – “Sack the Bored”.
I’m not talking about those clueless Yanks who cling on to power along with Rick Parry at the expense of the club’s ambition.
No, I’m talking about those nasty Rafa bashers who are just so plain boring, boring, boring
There have been a lot of comments around this weekend after Liverpool staged their remarkable comeback against Portsmouth.
Incredibly it put Liverpool top of the Premier League on Saturday evening. If you have the privilege of analysing football and potentially influencing opinion, you have a moral responsibility to be fair.
When I picked up one of the Sunday papers, when it came to reporting Liverpool’s fight back at Pompey, everything continued along the lines of ‘Liverpool in Crisis’ theme. It was a fairytale – a disgusting manipulation of the truth.
If this is a crisis for a football club that hasn’t won the league title for nearly 20 years, then my name is Hans Christian Andersen.
Recent headlines have included lots of ‘Rafas lost the plot’ rants, with words and phrases such as meltdown, crazy days, Reds are a Joke featuring prominently.
These are all agendas driven and they were all exposed as a myth by the character of Benitez’s team on Saturday evening.
This is a manager who doesn’t even have full control of who he brings in and out of Anfield.
He works for people who sometimes don’t even go to the games and who promised the fans a new stadium which would provide the revenue to compete with Manchester United and develop Liverpool and their brand in a global sense.
They have failed spectacularly and Rafa continually cops it for their sins.
Just take the Robbie Keane situation. The headlines told us how on Keanes return to Tottenham he ‘stuck the boot in’. The strongest term he used was that it was ‘baffling’. Another cheap headline to grab attention, and another distortion of the truth.
Ian Rush was a legend when he played for Liverpool but exactly what does he know about management? Fans can be gullible and when they hear an ex-favourite such as Rushie speak they are going to listen – even when he is talking tripe. So let’s analyse what Rushie told us.
When it came to team selection he told us that when he was in Italy he played in a game where he scored four goals. He was then taken off when he felt if he had stayed on he would have scored a couple more.
The next game Juve lost 1-0 and Rushie’s conclusion was that they lost the game and he didn’t score because he had lost confidence having only scored four in the previous game and not six. You couldn’t make it up!
Some of the ex player brigade at Liverpool make a good living out of criticising Rafa but they do a disservice to the fans and it’s a slur and stain on the great service they gave the club on the pitch.
Robbie Keane showed immense dignity in dealing with questions from journalists looking for the next Benitez attack. The sale of Keane will not define Liverpool’s season because even the player admitted that the move did not work out.
Keane made 21 starts for Liverpool and the bottom line is he didn’t score enough goals. Keane is a good player but he wasn’t good enough for Liverpool. His goal return is irrefutable evidence of that. In the last two matches at home to Chelsea and away to Portsmouth post-Keane, Liverpool have got six precious points.
Yet if you picked up the paper during this period, Rafa Benitez selling the striker was the football equivalent of shooting Bambi. Keane was sold for economic reasons – that’s the way life is at Anfield. And the reason that Liverpool cashed in was because the Americans needed the money. Come the next window, Keane’s price would have come down. That’s why he had to go when he did.
One thing not reported in the thousands of column inches devoted to the Keane sale is one undeniable fact – it was Keane’s choice to go. Keane was protected by his contract. He could have stayed, fought for his place, looked to have improved form and score some goals that would have seen his boyhood heroes miraculously snatch the title.
He chose to leave and go back to Spurs. In the modern game, every transfer is the player’s choice. That truth does not suit the agenda of the football pundits.
Benitez is the prince of Anfield and whilst Alex Ferguson concentrates on one thing – nurturing the empire he has been given so much support to build – Benitez has been fighting on so many different levels.
Undermined from within, attacked by the British press who hate the idea of a little Spaniard putting manners on them, he has sorted out a dressing room that was in disarray after the Gerard Houllier implosion.
And yet they crank up the pressure, Benitez just goes into overdrive. He has the courage of a lion and Liverpool fans who want to bring the club that SHankly built back to the glory days should get down on their hands and knees and thank him for being prepared to Walk Alone for the cause.
It is an abomination that pundits try and tell the football public that Liverpool should win the league. Manchester United are far stronger. Each season Benitez has made Liverpool stronger. That’s called building. It’s called management.
He has two top players because of the clubs transfer policy, a club history that has suffocated some of his predecessors and yet they are still in there fighting. Anyone can listen to the pundits who categorise Liverpool as a team in crisis. But the truth is that as long as the Reds have the great man at the helm, they have hope.
Benitez, take a bow. And shame on you who run from the truth of his greatness
Pat Dolan – The Star mail: [email protected]
When it comes to Rafa Benitez, my message is simple – “Sack the Bored”.
I’m not talking about those clueless Yanks who cling on to power along with Rick Parry at the expense of the club’s ambition.
No, I’m talking about those nasty Rafa bashers who are just so plain boring, boring, boring
There have been a lot of comments around this weekend after Liverpool staged their remarkable comeback against Portsmouth.
Incredibly it put Liverpool top of the Premier League on Saturday evening. If you have the privilege of analysing football and potentially influencing opinion, you have a moral responsibility to be fair.
When I picked up one of the Sunday papers, when it came to reporting Liverpool’s fight back at Pompey, everything continued along the lines of ‘Liverpool in Crisis’ theme. It was a fairytale – a disgusting manipulation of the truth.
If this is a crisis for a football club that hasn’t won the league title for nearly 20 years, then my name is Hans Christian Andersen.
Recent headlines have included lots of ‘Rafas lost the plot’ rants, with words and phrases such as meltdown, crazy days, Reds are a Joke featuring prominently.
These are all agendas driven and they were all exposed as a myth by the character of Benitez’s team on Saturday evening.
This is a manager who doesn’t even have full control of who he brings in and out of Anfield.
He works for people who sometimes don’t even go to the games and who promised the fans a new stadium which would provide the revenue to compete with Manchester United and develop Liverpool and their brand in a global sense.
They have failed spectacularly and Rafa continually cops it for their sins.
Just take the Robbie Keane situation. The headlines told us how on Keanes return to Tottenham he ‘stuck the boot in’. The strongest term he used was that it was ‘baffling’. Another cheap headline to grab attention, and another distortion of the truth.
Ian Rush was a legend when he played for Liverpool but exactly what does he know about management? Fans can be gullible and when they hear an ex-favourite such as Rushie speak they are going to listen – even when he is talking tripe. So let’s analyse what Rushie told us.
When it came to team selection he told us that when he was in Italy he played in a game where he scored four goals. He was then taken off when he felt if he had stayed on he would have scored a couple more.
The next game Juve lost 1-0 and Rushie’s conclusion was that they lost the game and he didn’t score because he had lost confidence having only scored four in the previous game and not six. You couldn’t make it up!
Some of the ex player brigade at Liverpool make a good living out of criticising Rafa but they do a disservice to the fans and it’s a slur and stain on the great service they gave the club on the pitch.
Robbie Keane showed immense dignity in dealing with questions from journalists looking for the next Benitez attack. The sale of Keane will not define Liverpool’s season because even the player admitted that the move did not work out.
Keane made 21 starts for Liverpool and the bottom line is he didn’t score enough goals. Keane is a good player but he wasn’t good enough for Liverpool. His goal return is irrefutable evidence of that. In the last two matches at home to Chelsea and away to Portsmouth post-Keane, Liverpool have got six precious points.
Yet if you picked up the paper during this period, Rafa Benitez selling the striker was the football equivalent of shooting Bambi. Keane was sold for economic reasons – that’s the way life is at Anfield. And the reason that Liverpool cashed in was because the Americans needed the money. Come the next window, Keane’s price would have come down. That’s why he had to go when he did.
One thing not reported in the thousands of column inches devoted to the Keane sale is one undeniable fact – it was Keane’s choice to go. Keane was protected by his contract. He could have stayed, fought for his place, looked to have improved form and score some goals that would have seen his boyhood heroes miraculously snatch the title.
He chose to leave and go back to Spurs. In the modern game, every transfer is the player’s choice. That truth does not suit the agenda of the football pundits.
Benitez is the prince of Anfield and whilst Alex Ferguson concentrates on one thing – nurturing the empire he has been given so much support to build – Benitez has been fighting on so many different levels.
Undermined from within, attacked by the British press who hate the idea of a little Spaniard putting manners on them, he has sorted out a dressing room that was in disarray after the Gerard Houllier implosion.
And yet they crank up the pressure, Benitez just goes into overdrive. He has the courage of a lion and Liverpool fans who want to bring the club that SHankly built back to the glory days should get down on their hands and knees and thank him for being prepared to Walk Alone for the cause.
It is an abomination that pundits try and tell the football public that Liverpool should win the league. Manchester United are far stronger. Each season Benitez has made Liverpool stronger. That’s called building. It’s called management.
He has two top players because of the clubs transfer policy, a club history that has suffocated some of his predecessors and yet they are still in there fighting. Anyone can listen to the pundits who categorise Liverpool as a team in crisis. But the truth is that as long as the Reds have the great man at the helm, they have hope.
Benitez, take a bow. And shame on you who run from the truth of his greatness
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