Red Watch: No winners in our public spat

Nov 28 2007 by Andy Proudfoot, Liverpool Daily Post

A FEW weeks ago you could have been forgiven for thinking that Rafa Benitez was the antichrist, sent from the deepest recesses of Goodison Park to confuse us with coaching staff speaking strange tongues, plagues of sub-standard defenders and a team of rotating heads.

Now, if the letters, blogs and forums are to be believed, he’s our true saviour, a tactical genius and the man to lead us from the Premier League wilderness.

What has brought about this apparently amazing transformation in the public perception of Rafa’s standing, which has stirred the ‘vast majority’ of fans, notable for their previous quietude, to leap so vehemently to his defence? An astute signing?

A run of victories over top-class opposition?

No, all he’s done is pick a totally unnecessary public fight with the club’s owners, stirring up a storm which could bring the columns of the Anfield temple down around our ears and plunge us into a trophy-less darkness for years to come.

For there’s no good or evil in the conflict he’s provoked; and if not amicably resolved soon, it’ll be the club who suffer for the sins of those involved.

God only knows what persuaded Benitez that the best way to resolve a difference of view over the urgency of acquiring new players was to stage a petulant Press conference where he mimicked the instructions given to him by his co-chairmen much as an infuriating child might do to a beleaguered parent.

Publicly criticising your employers is ill-advised behaviour in any walk of life; just ask Billy Davies at Derby.

To then compound this error by donning a tracksuit for the first time this season at the Newcastle game, again mocking the owners’ instructions to focus on coaching, and continue this theme at the after-match interview, further reveals a side of Rafa’s character which has been illustrated in recent tussles with Steve Heighway and Pako Ayesteran.

Now I yield to none in my admiration for Benitez’s footballing acumen; I continue to believe that he will deliver the holy grail of the Premier League title before too long.

But here he has incited a public spat in which there can be no winners, only losers.

Predictably, those fans who begrudge foreign ownership and naively believe that club owners should fund their manager’s plans unquestioningly and from their own pockets are trying to turn this into a crusade against those businessmen who would ‘meddle’ in the football side of the business.

Talk of protests and boycotts already fills the air, ironically actions which could increase the Americans’ ire and hasten Rafa’s departure.

Either that or they will take their money and run, in my view an even more catastrophic outcome.

Can we, or indeed Benitez, really afford another two years of limbo searching for other owners of equivalent financial standing?

Can we afford to turn our back on a £400m stadium which will generate the income to ensure we can challenge the other ‘Big Three’ on an equal footing?

The truth is we need both Rafa and the co-owners to stand any chance of building sustained success, and taking sides between one or the other is absolutely pointless.

What is needed now is a public reconciliation and the development of a clear understanding of the respective roles of the key figures in this new partnership.

But this must include an appreciation by Benitez that, if there is such a thing as ‘The Liverpool Way’, it doesn’t include running to the Press and stamping your feet when you don’t get your own way. For sure, that way lies the road to hell.