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Ryan Babel has broken his silence on life under Rafael Benitez by claiming the former Liverpool manager stopped him from taking part in additional training.
Benitez fined Babel two weeks' wages, believed to be £60,000, last season following an outburst on Twitter over his omission from the squad that travelled to Stoke City in January but resisted any temptations to offload the maligned Holland international in the transfer window.
Babel turned to Twitter again as he lifted the lid on his three years under the Spaniard, now at Inter Milan, and alleged that sessions at the club's Melwood base were not entirely rigorous and pleaded with his then manager to undertake additional training but was forbidden.
The winger, who has made just 10 appearances for Liverpool in all competitions this season, also revealed that he would train in secret in a bid to continue his development at Anfield but was ordered by Sammy Lee, Benitez's assistant, to stop practising.
He said: "I wasn't allowed to train extra under our former manager, even when I wasn't involved.
"I begged lots of times but it was simply not allowed and during the season you don't train very hard because you have lots games, so most sessions we had were without sweating.
"But if I wanted to do some extra, which I asked for every single day, I didn't have permission.
"It was confusing of course because of course you want to get better. I even tried to train extra by doing it secretly, but the assistant manager came to tell me to stop.
"And I had to get used to that because at Ajax we were staying for up to two hours longer on the pitch by ourselves. That was an amazing time with [Klaas-Jan] Huntelaar, [Wesley] Sneijder and Edgar Davids
Ryan Babel has broken his silence on life under Rafael Benitez by claiming the former Liverpool manager stopped him from taking part in additional training.
Benitez fined Babel two weeks' wages, believed to be £60,000, last season following an outburst on Twitter over his omission from the squad that travelled to Stoke City in January but resisted any temptations to offload the maligned Holland international in the transfer window.
Babel turned to Twitter again as he lifted the lid on his three years under the Spaniard, now at Inter Milan, and alleged that sessions at the club's Melwood base were not entirely rigorous and pleaded with his then manager to undertake additional training but was forbidden.
The winger, who has made just 10 appearances for Liverpool in all competitions this season, also revealed that he would train in secret in a bid to continue his development at Anfield but was ordered by Sammy Lee, Benitez's assistant, to stop practising.
He said: "I wasn't allowed to train extra under our former manager, even when I wasn't involved.
"I begged lots of times but it was simply not allowed and during the season you don't train very hard because you have lots games, so most sessions we had were without sweating.
"But if I wanted to do some extra, which I asked for every single day, I didn't have permission.
"It was confusing of course because of course you want to get better. I even tried to train extra by doing it secretly, but the assistant manager came to tell me to stop.
"And I had to get used to that because at Ajax we were staying for up to two hours longer on the pitch by ourselves. That was an amazing time with [Klaas-Jan] Huntelaar, [Wesley] Sneijder and Edgar Davids
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