Owners only doing duty by seeking Rafa’s replacement

Jan 24 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

Owners only doing duty by seeking Rafa’s replacement

TOM and George appear to have made a right Kop-up of things during their time at Anfield. The feud with Rafael Benitez, problems with the new ground and their courting of Jurgen Klinnsmann have come together to make Messers Hicks and Gillett the object of fans’ wrath.

Yesterday’s damning survey of fans’ opinion in the Daily Post can leave no-one in any doubt about the strength of feeling against them. But in truth the American owners have been caught between Rafa and a hard place since the summer.

At the depths of the relationship breakdown between the owners and their manager it seemed that anything was possible and that tomorrow could be the day when Benitez became the ‘ex-Liverpool manager’.

Is it then not only reasonable but necessary that the owners considered a back-up plan? Anything else would have been a dereliction of duty.

It is important to understand the nature of the chairman-manager relationship.

The fans might love Benitez, but the owners need to be more dispassionate. It is not like being husband and wife, when it is frowned upon to look around for another bride while still with the current one.

Instead it is more akin to the status of a husband and his children’s nanny. If he thought that the nanny might quit tomorrow, it’s perfectly reasonable to see who else is available to avoid being left holding the baby.

Hicks and Gillett have to consider the ‘what if’ to avoid being left rudderless, although the manner in which the soap opera has been acted out will have disappointed everyone.

But I’m quite sure it wouldn’t have played out this way if Liverpool were showing the form of title contenders.

Back in August there was an expectation that the Big Four would become the Big Three. But it was meant to be Arsenal that fell away.

Instead, Tuesday night’s blip aside, the Gunners have been firing on all cylinders, and it is Liverpool who have consistently failed to deliver.

Behind the smokescreen of Mascherano’s transfer fee, managerial back-up plans and businessmen seeking profit is the reality that once again Liverpool’s expensively-assembled squad aren’t performing as expected.

That, and not the nationality or approach of the owners, is what should really be frustrating the fans.