There is no doubt in my mind that squad depth has been a determining force in the direction of Liverpool’s season. You only have to look at the backline against Chelsea yesterday to see that some of the problems this campaign stem directly from this issue. A defensive midfield player in Javier Mascherano at right back, a centre back in Daniel Agger playing at left back and a 30 year old former Rangers defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos alongside Jamie Carragher at centre-half.
Rafa Benitez was adamant in where the blame should lie for such failings in squad strength:
“Always in the past two years the manager here has been taking responsibility for everything. The reality is that, if you compare with other teams in terms of money, power and the option you have in the market, so you can analyse carefully and then you have answers. The fans are very clever, they know what is going on. It is very clear that things are like this now and still we have to carry on going forward. Next season we have to do almost everything perfect and, if we make one or two mistakes, we don’t have the possibility to react so it is more difficult for us.”
Lack of investment according to Benitez means that injuries to key players are catastrophic to the team’s chances in the league and that everything in this area must be “perfect” for the team to succeed. Last season this was luckily the case, but this campaign Rafa and the team have not been so fortunate with injuries and results. So does Rafa have a point regarding investment determining squad depth? In some respects he does if we look at the players that have gone in and out from Merseyside over the last few years. Net spend in the last two seasons has been way below what is expected of a top four club and one of the best examples of this is in central defence.
Sotirios Kyrgiakos was signed for £1.5million last summer to replace the colossus that was Sami Hyypia. The Greek has done quite admirably this season as his replacement but he isn’t a long term replacement which is required, and something that would cost in excess of £10million. There is no £30m on a Rio Ferdinand to spend like Sir Alex Ferguson has done at Manchester United. Then we must look in other positions, when Xabi Alonso was sold for £30million, why was only a small fraction spent on the initial fee for Alberto Aquilani? Where did the money go after Robbie Keane was sold back to Spurs? These are all legitimate questions and questions which back up Rafa Benitez’s side of his case against the owners.
Despite all of this, Rafa must take some of the blame though for the club’s current failings, they are after all his players at the club currently with the exception of Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard. The lack of depth in some positions is not entirely down to the owners, especially in the full back areas and striking positions. We currently have Glen Johnson and Philipp Degen as our two right backs, and although Johnson has had his injuries, the presence of Degen in the squad is questionable. After the sale of the much superior, if injury hampered Steven Finnan, Benitez brought in Degen and Rafa has subsequently used him sparingly, using Mascherano or Jamie Carragher in his position rather than him on a number of occasions. At left back, certainly the injuries to Fabio Aurelio and Emiliano Insua have been unfortunate, but you have to remember Insua was third choice left back at the start of the season and has now become a regular starter despite his shortcomings. It is certainly a position that the club has gone backwards in after Rafa replace John Arne Riise with the hapless Andrea Dossena.
So tha lack of strength in depth has been both down to the board AND the manager. The two at times have also intertwined in the cases of our midfield and striker problems. Due to the lack of investment, Benitez attempted to buy both Robbie Keane and Gareth Barry while being forced to offload a player to fund one of his signings. The unfortunate victim was Xabi Alonso but due to the incompetence of Rick Parry, the entire episode was mishandled and none of the deals were sorted in the right order. According to Benitez:
“The plan was for Barry to play on the left and feed the ball to Robbie Keane, who would play up front with Fernando Torres. This blueprint had to be scrapped. The collateral damage was Keane, who signed from Tottenham Hotspur before the Barry deal had been done. When we wanted to sign Barry, we were sure we were signing a good player with a very good mentality and the quality to play in the Premier League. The priority was Barry, then Keane.”
So the signing of primary target Barry never went ahead, leaving us with an unhappy Alonso and a misfit in Keane. The sale of both Keane and Alonso, two strong players in their own right, were not replaced due to a lack of funding. The money from the sales of rejects Voronin and Dossena also never found their way into the transfer kitty. Incompetence at boardroom level with mistakes by the manager had led to a weakened team. Wrong purchases combined with false promises on funding to find us in this position. It led to a bizarre situation this campaign when Liverpool only had two strikers in Fernando Torres and David Ngog after Andrey Voronin was sold in January. It is certainly not the case that we have always lacked in the striking department; Peter Crouch, Michael Owen, Craig Bellamy, Fernando Morientes, Robbie Keane and Dirk Kuyt have all been options at the club at one time or another. Some were mistakes, some wanted to go and in the case of Kuyt, they were moved to different positions, but we have gone backwards in this area in terms of strength too.
Rafa has signed 77 players in his 6 year stay at the club, and although a massive overhaul was needed after the Houllier era, the amount is still way in excess of what it should have been. The turnaround of players has been lightning quick at times. A lot of it can be attributed to having to “wheel and deal” due to a lack of funds, other times Rafa has made mistakes. It is up to you to decide who is more at fault, the manager or the board.
I agree with you about the debt on our club which shouldn’t be there and surely harms us. But the everyday running cost you mention must come from somewhere, too, right. So, would you like to see our club saddled with even more debt because Rafa would like to spend another 20m on a player who may then sit on the bench and be considered by him as too weak to even play the lousiest of opposition, or let contracts run down because you can’t afford the fees for contract extensions (btw I guess none of us has ever had a job where we received signing on fees for contract extensions. Why doesn’t anybody blame the players for their greed?), or let Rafa renew a whole lot of contracts and hope he spends the money he’s got left wisely. Laurel and Hardy did the latter, and Rafa wasn’t exactly very successful.
It’s all fair and good blaming the owners and I am with you on that one, but to still see the saviour in Rafael Benítez is beyond believe. He is trying to manipulate everyone around him, including the supporters, and I am surprised at just how successful he still is in doing so. I for one am convinced that the personal at his disposal at the specific times would have been qualified enough to beat the likes of Portsmouth and Wigan (for example). The number of defeats this season speaks for itself. I don’t know why we still need to argue about this. Ah well, it’s all the owners faults because Rafa can do no wrong. What are you? Sheep? If so, that’s exactly what Rafa wants you to be. And it is not only the number of defeats, it’s the way the team has been playing, the way Rafa has set them up. Trying not to lose rather than trying to win. I don’t need no media to tell me these things as they are obvious from watching the games. Somehow nick a goal and then try to defend it, no matter how low profile the opposition are. These tactics didn’t work at all and Rafa was to stubborn to change them. I don’t know why we played positive football last season, because it was completely out of context given the other five seasons we have witnessed with our Spanish manager. If all of this is really the Liverpool way for you, well then, go on and defend Rafa. In my opinion we need new owners AND a new manager plus probably a few new coaches. The only one I trust out of the staff sitting in the dugout week in, week out is Sammy Lee, but he probably isn’t up to managing our club.
Anteater, you’re angry. I can here you running around your house slamming doors. You have gone off topic, and your hatred of Rafa is clear. I believe you are allowing this to cloud your judgement.
Like you, I and others have our own opinions, and, I for one am supporting Rafa because I believe in him. Now, you can think what you like, but I hope he stays and turns this club around. I have watched other clubs change managers, and it’s not always for the better.
Rafa is a good coach, that’s why top teams in Europe would covet him. Rafa has put a structure in place for the reserves that will pay dividends if we are patient. Jose Segura the academy technical manager was responsible for developing Messi, Iniesta and Xavi at Barcelona. I believe with new owners and a little luck things can turn around rapidly. Don’t loose the faith, we all get frustrated with this team and Rafa at times.
hey anteater you talk about wages spent. What, when Chelsea, Man u and City buy players for £30 million plus, do they not give them wages. Wow, Rooney, Ballack and the likes of Adebayor are playing for free. Please think before posting. We’re not the sheep mate. We are the ones not listening to the insidious media. This article is contradictory. First it says Rafa did not get money he was promised then it says Rafa is to blame for not having players in certain positions. Unbelievable. Who’s the sheep?
Roy beno, I’m not a member of SOS. Surely you guys along with other fans are looking to do something to demonstrate to Rafa and more importantly the board that we are desperate to keep him. If there is a demo I’m defiantely coming. As a club we are at a crossroad and I believe if we lose Rafa then its goodbye silvareware for many years.
Having a read through at the bought and solds, we have had a huge turnover of players, lots of them having moved for “1st team football or sold for a quick profit, crouch being one who is now playing on a rotational basis at tottenham who are presently in fourth. bellemy who is rotating at city in 5th and then there is the likes of arbeloa sold for 3.5m, i dont know about you guys but i’d rather have 3.5m less and not have to play mascherano at right back even if it was only for a years backup , anyone else here feel that had rafas man management been a bit better we may not be relying on reserve and academy players to fill in when our only 1st team striker and right back are injured. dont get me wrong i think the yanks have hamstrung benitez over the last few years but i dont think he’s helped. plenty of teams out there have more than 1 first team players in a position hapily competing to play on a weekly basis, ours jump ship& are pushed or are sold to balance the books. both the reasons we are in 7th.
I am agreeing with Anteater here. I have been a supporter for 28 years now and the pride I had in Liverpool was not only for the trophies that were won but in the style they were won too. Apart from the last 10 games of last season when we had nothing to lose, the style we play is not what we should expect and throughout Rafa’s reign we have won just 2 major trophies…1 European cup and 1 FA Cup. Both needed some magic from Stevie G to win.
In terms of net spend, what relevance does that have to matters? The fact is that he has had the opportunity to spend GBP40 million per season on players. Instead of focusing on quality signings, Rafa has gone for quantity. That is why we are where we are. Rather than buy 10 players each off season he should have bought 3 or 4 better quality players for the same price. That is how clubs are built. Look at Manure…they do not make wholesale buys each year. They simply buy 2 or 3 new players to compliment what they have. Having a stable squad is paramount to success and is a reason the top 4 are where they are.
Spurs have spent similar amounts to us but look at their squad compared to ours? They have 2 top players for every position and they have been forced to sell their top players along the way like Berbatov, Carrick and Keane. Yet their managers spent their money wisely. Same at United. Chelsea have hardly changed their squad since Mourinho’s days. It’s about stability and adding quality each season whilst selling those that don’t fit. We have too unstable a squad and a manager who constantly wants to spend more. For me, he is entirely to blame for where we are.
As for the owners…yes they are awful too but they have become easy scapegoats. They do not have a say in how the team plays or who plays in it. They simply control the purse strings, but as has been proven Rafa has had GBP40 million each season to spend. That is a sizable chunk of change to buy top quality replacements. Rafa obviously thought Aquilani was a good replacement for Xabi so spent GBP22 million on him. That is not a cheap player by any means. That should mean proven quality. GBP18 million on Johnson as a replacement for Arbeloa…again not a small amount. Those were the only 2 1st team players we lost in the close season and replacements were bought. Whose fault is it that the replacements have not had the same impact? You can’t blame the board for that. That has to be the manager’s fault.
The debt is purely the only thing we can blame the owners for. Yes, it could mean an extra GBP20 mill for Rafa to spend, but do you think he would buy one extra top quality player or 5 GBP4 mill players to see which one possibly worked out? I’m afraid his tranfer policy is all wrong and is the reason we need someone else in there. I’m sorry but that is just the way I see it. As someone else said on here, we need a complete overhaul. New owners, new manager, new mentality. Let’s get back to the glory years where the style was tought on the pitch and the players came through learning to play with that style.
this is where we’re at folks
LFC chairman must deal with those causing the
damage
Posted on May 6th, 2010 by Anfield Road
By Tom Wilson and Jim Boardman
On Saturday a senior Liverpool official made it perfectly clear that there was absolutely nothing to read from the fact that Reds boss Rafa Benítez was yet to meet new chairman Martin Broughton. He claimed it was all part of some plot to paint a false picture of disharmony at Anfield. He got on great with Rafa and Rafa was happy.
Even now it’s difficult to work out how he thought anyone would fall for that. Or why he seems to tell different stories to different people. People compare notes, compare what he’s told them, then shake their heads.
On Saturday the senior official said that there had been one meeting planned. It would have been ahead of the first-leg of the Europa League semi against Atlético Madrid, but volcanic ash put paid to that idea. When the call came out for the squad to meet up at Runcorn station, the meeting was unsurprisingly called off.
Obviously the new chairman is quite different to the last man to have the job all to himself. David Moores used to travel on the team bus with the squad; Martin Broughton doesn’t come across as someone who would feel comfortable slumming it across Europe in first class with the players.
According to the senior Liverpool official on Saturday, no other meeting had been scheduled so far. The first opportunity following the journey to Madrid would probably have been tied in with the return leg a week later, but with Rafa unavailable until after midnight it was decided, the senior official said, that there was no time for the chairman to meet the manager. Presumably the chairman – who of course has other responsibilities away from Liverpool FC – was unable to pop round to Melwood the following morning.
That following morning, the Friday, had been the day before the senior official was explaining why there hadn’t yet been a meeting. And at almost the exact time as the senior Liverpool official was explaining why there hadn’t been a meeting so far, the club’s official site was making it clear that the next opportunity for a meeting was also going to be missed.
Liverpool’s last home game of the season was the following day, the Sunday, against the team Martin Broughton has supported all his life, Chelsea. Broughton had presumably set off home early on Friday morning after watching the Atlético game, and he told the official site he wouldn’t be coming back up for that Chelsea match. He wasn’t even going to be in the city for the game, he didn’t want to be seen to celebrate any Chelsea goals. “The only sensible thing is for me to stay at home and watch it on the television,” he said.
So he wasn’t exactly making himself available for a meeting with Rafa, which in itself isn’t really a major issue. He’d cleared off before Rafa was available on the Thursday night, he didn’t stick around on Friday to meet then and he didn’t come back up on Saturday in preparation for the Sunday match, so no chance of squeezing a meeting in there.
Rafa did want to talk to him, but there clearly hadn’t been time. It was frustrating but understandable. Surely a meeting would be held before the week was out, with no game for Liverpool Rafa would have more room in his own diary to match up with Broughton’s no-doubt hectic schedule.
But then came the story on the BBC website, and other BBC outlets, soon to spread like wildfire around the rest of the media.
“Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez has cancelled two scheduled face-to-face meetings with the club’s new chairman, Martin Broughton,” wrote David Bond, the BBC’s replacement for Mihir Bose as Sports Editor.
Bond had the same title at the Telegraph before joining the BBC, but will be best remembered by Liverpool fans from his time as the paper’s Chief Sports Reporter. From knowing full details of Gillett and Hick’s refinancing deal with RBS before it was announced, to publishing emails DIC and Amanda Staveley had been sent by Hicks, Bond was clearly getting information from people inside and outside the club during that very turbulent period.
So who would be talking to him now? Whoever it was wanted to add more weight to the campaign to see Rafa hounded out of the club. “It is understood that he [Benítez] pulled out of talks with Broughton last week and another the week before,” wrote Bond.
As has just been explained, Rafa did not cancel any meetings with Broughton, and whatever any fan thinks of Benítez, or where his future should be, the fact that someone from Liverpool is trying to smear the manager should set alarm bells ringing loud and clear.
This is about far more than Rafael Benítez. This is just the latest in a long line of examples of the press being briefed about Rafa in a way that certainly wasn’t designed to be supportive of the manager. What other lies are being peddled?
Even Bond seemed to be unsure of exactly what the story was, writing: “It is not clear why Benitez cancelled the meetings with Broughton, although the last two weeks have been affected by preparations for Liverpool’s Europa League semi-final meetings with Atletico Madrid. The first week in particular was heavily disrupted as Benitez’s team were forced to make the long journey to the Spanish capital by road and rail after flights were grounded by ash from the Icelandic volcano.”
Benítez didn’t cancel the meetings, but if he had it was probably slightly more important he got on that train at Runcorn than staying back to meet Broughton. Even Rafa can’t be blamed for the volcanic ash. So why would someone at Anfield feed the BBC this “story”?
There aren’t too many candidates for the source of this latest leak. Bond said it came from a Liverpool board member: “There is some surprise inside the Anfield boardroom at the timing of Benitez’s call on Tuesday for an urgent meeting with Broughton to discuss the future.”
Bond was one of the first reporters to interview Martin Broughton after his appointment, so perhaps he is a candidate for this story being fed to the press. But Broughton wasn’t at the club when the earliest briefings against Rafa began, to other members of the press. Of course it’s always possible that somebody else told Broughton that Rafa had cancelled the meetings. Someone wary of Rafa actually getting to meet the chairman, and telling the chairman exactly what has been going on.
One subtle hint that somebody was talking out of turn came in one of the infamous Henry Winter columns. In November he wrote: “The impressive managing director, Christian Purslow, is not the type for knee-jerk reactions. But it is known around Anfield that Purslow has talked to Benítez about his style of management, notably his cold detachment from the players.”
So back in November someone from the club was telling Henry Winter that Benítez had been given a dressing-down by Purslow, that Benítez was being told how to manage his players, essentially being told how to do his job. And it’s as obvious as it looks exactly who it was that impressed this information on Winter.
That wasn’t all that Winter learned from his new source: “Liverpool can afford to sack Benítez,” wrote Winter. “Compensation would be less than £5 million under the ‘mitigating the loss’ principle if he found employment.” Which perhaps should now have Winter scratching his head as to why impressive people would be on the phone to him angrily criticising the manager instead of just sacking him.
And it’s not as if Winter wasn’t afforded the opportunity to ask that question. No prizes for guessing which senior Liverpool official spent a good part of the bank holiday weekend frantically phoning around trying to get his side, or one of his sides, of the story over. It was almost as if he was frightened that the truth might come out. And Winter had a chance to challenge this particular Liverpool board member on where his stories didn’t really add up. But some reporters would rather just take the information they’re fed and repeat it, hoping there’s plenty more where that came from, than question what they are being told.
Having managed to get so many column inches out of the politicking of a certain LFC board member, Winter completely missed the irony of his opening paragraph: “If Rafael Benítez truly respects Liverpool Football Club he’ll leave Anfield today. The players have lost the faith, the boardroom is unimpressed with the politicking and the supporters are suffering, albeit in silence.”
When the truth does come out about a certain LFC board member and his efforts to keep the truth from the supporters, perhaps that silence will be broken. And maybe that silence needs to be broken. Maybe the efforts to keep the attention on Benítez to take it away from the failings of the Managing Director and the owners he worked for need to be emphasised a little more. And that might just be a bit messy – but what’s new? That’s how it’s been at Anfield for some time. “If he stays, the inevitable long goodbye becomes indescribably messy, distressing for all concerned and demeaning to a club of Liverpool’s great history. This is not a warning for Benítez, this is a fact,” wrote Winter. The same fact applies, but much more strongly, to the club’s temporary MD.
Bill Shankly was the man who made Liverpool great, the man who brought so much of that “great history” to the club. Nobody knows what he would have made of Benitez; chances are he would have seen good and bad in him and he could well have been saying Rafa’s time was up by now. But it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what he would have thought of the club’s owners. And it takes even less imagination to work out what he would have thought of Christian Purslow. And less still what he would have thought of the tactics employed by the club’s current custodian to force Rafa out.
Shanks would also have torn a strip off Henry Winter had he ever been unfortunate enough to cross his path. Winter wrote of Rafa: “He’s got a centre-back at left-back and a holding midfielder at right-back.” With the only two left-backs at the club injured, what else was Rafa meant to do? One thing Rafa tried was putting the right-back at left-back, which was why the holding midfielder played at right-back on the Thursday. By the Sunday the right-back was injured too, which is why the centre-back went to left-back, and the holding midfielder stayed at right-back. This isn’t a string of excuses; it’s just some simple facts. Liverpool have to make do and mend.
Christian Purlsow’s arrival coincided with spending on transfers that, going off the fees available in public, went from being “net spend” to “net profit”. Liverpool brought more in than went out last year. That’s the calendar year 2009.
When Winter used the phrase “How embarrassing,” in his article it surely should have been to describe his own willingness to stick up so transparently for his source in the Liverpool boardroom. And really his article didn’t deserve much more time than that, as went into some kind of rant out of sympathy to his new friend on the board at Anfield.
That new friend should have the balls to stand up in public and say what he’s saying privately to the press, if he truly believes it and feels it would stand up to scrutiny. But he knows that, despite claims to the contrary, most Liverpool fans either want Benítez to stay or only want him to leave because they feel he’s been worn down by the unnecessary pressures of the past few years. The vast majority of fans will always consider Benítez a hero, whatever happens.
And that is what frightens the board member. He knows that sooner or later the manager will blow him up for what he’s done. He knows that more and more people are starting to see through him. And he knows that if he sacks the manager he’ll never be forgiven.
Liverpool’s new chairman was appointed in a non-executive role. The senior Liverpool official constantly points out that the new chairman was appointed in that way, and that he has no control over the actual running of the club, that he’s merely there to sell the club.
But the senior Liverpool official fails to mention something very important about the role of a non-executive director. According to the government-commissioned Higgs report, non-executive directors “are responsible for… where necessary removing, senior management.”
Surely a senior Liverpool official briefing the press against the club’s manager, over such a sustained period, is grounds for his removal. His decision to bad-mouth the club’s owners, however accurate it might be, is hardly the best way to attract £100m of investment. And that was his major objective when appointed. Perhaps he wanted to delay the partial sale to prolong his own career as Mr Liverpool, to help build up that empire. Is this not also grounds for removal? To discuss transfer targets – even if they are his own, not the manager’s – with the press is also grounds for removal. The list goes on.
And that, Martin Broughton, is where you come in. You need to get to the bottom of this mess and you need to get to the bottom of it fast.
It’s not just your reputation that depends on it