United row rumbles on as Rafa Benitez questions David Gill...

Jan 12 2009 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

Benitez dismissed the notion that Friday’s outburst had been a factor in Liverpool’s lifeless performance at the Britannia Stadium at the weekend.

“It didn’t make any difference for the team,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you talk in a Press conference. We were at the top of the table, we wanted to win and it doesn’t matter if you have a Press conference. For the players it was the same situation.

“The only thing was that Mr Ferguson was talking too much about Liverpool and for a long time so I think it was the right moment to say enough is enough and a lot of people think the facts I put on the table were right.”

The FA will review Benitez’s attack on Ferguson before deciding whether to take any action against him, a brief statement saying the comments will be analysed “in their full context” in the coming week. But the Liverpool manager is unrepentant, and said: “I do not have to justify anything. I was looking for some facts that everyone knows but no-one wants to say.

“I have a lot of respect for him because he is a great manager but he was talking too much about Liverpool so he has to stop.”

Benitez will undergo a third operation this week on his kidney stone complaint.

“I’m worried about my health so I just talk to Sammy (Lee) and (Mauricio) Pellegrino about the training sessions and then I have to go home and relax by watching the telly,” he said.

“But I didn’t speak to anyone at the club about it. I wasn’t expecting Mr Ferguson to talk about us so much. It is a situation that he has created.”

Meanwhile, Jamie Carragher has backed Benitez for his attack on United.

He said: “It was very entertaining and very funny. Everything that he said were facts, weren’t they?”