Michael Steele/Getty Images

Football has lost its sense of perspective - every result these days is greeted with near hysteria - if a team wins, they are the greatest on earth, if they lose, they are the worst. Nowhere is the hysteria more evident than on the internet (often from people who rarely or never attend actual games). And nowhere is it more often directed than at football managers. In recent years, there have been Arsenal fans demanding Wenger is sacked, Man U fans saying Fergie must go - so it should not be a surprise that after a fairly catastrophic opening to a season that held high hopes, there are Liverpool followers insisting that the answer is to sack Rafael Benitez.

'Catastrophic' is a pretty hysterical word in itself, but it's hard to argue that 5 defeats in 11 league games and 4 points from as many CL games amount to that. Equally, Liverpool's injury list could be described in the same way. Any team would struggle if they suddenly lost Gerrard and Torres, if you throw in Johnson, Aquilani, Agger, Skrtel, and Riera, and the occasional loss of Mascherano and Aurelio, they would probably perform as spasmodically as Liverpool have. Sure, the thinness of the squad has been exposed by the injuries, but the thinness of the squad is due in large part to Benitez having had an annual budget of about £15m since inheriting an average squad. This has meant that some of those he would have liked to keep - Crouch, Bellamy, Garcia, etc. - have had to be sold. When he sold Alonso in the summer after selling Keane in January, we waited for the spending splurge - instead, Liverpool made a profit on transfers this summer because the owners have debts to pay, leaving the squad looking dangerously threadbare.

I am not going to defend everything about Rafa's reign. He can be contrary and stubborn, some of his rotations and selections (Voronin on Wednesday - or just Voronin in general) are hard to fathom and he has allowed himself to be influenced too much by the media cicus around the Premier League, inclding demeaning himself by stooping to the level of Fergie's tired 'mind games'. His record on signings is largely good - Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Alonso, Garcia, Skrtel, Agger, Crouch, Bellamy, Johnson, Arebloa, Aurelio, Insua, Kuyt, the highly promising Aquilani...and the flops have mostly been bargains or cheap gambles. There have been a few cases where he has failed to get the best from evidently decent players - Babel (consistently), Keane, Pennant - but the same could be said of other managers as well. But overall, his record in the transfer market is decent and he has vastly improved on what he inherited.

He's also building for the long term, overhauling the Academy, scouring the globe Wenger-style for decent young players and trying to instil some of the old Liverpool mentality - a club that is well run from top to bottom. In this he is enormously hampered by the clowns who currently own the club, but he is trying hard to get the footballing side right. Tactically, he still has few equals - though Liverpool have often been in the disappointing position this season of losing games where they have won the tactical battle. This has been due in part to key absences, but also loss of form from key individuals at various times - Carragher and Mascherano included. As a team, Liverpool have defended less well this season and their options when Torres is out up front are limited to say the least. But as the CL in previous years and the Man U game this year have shown, Benitez is a very clever coach.

So, the argument goes - he's had 5 years, spent lots of money and all he has to show is a dramatic CL win with his inherited team, a slightly fortunate FA Cup win, a decent CL record (until now) and a second place finish that has not been built on this season. Sack him. Get Mourinho or O'Neill or some other manager whose team won this week.

It's emphatically not the answer.

First, it's not the answer because of what the immediate consequences would be. Big names would very probably walk - Torres, Mascherano and Reina are all on record saying Rafa was a major factor in them joining Liverpool - imagine the risk of him moving elsewhere in Europe and coming in for them, or others seeing a club in turmoil and debt and throwing cash at the owners and unsettled players. And paying off Benitez would leave virtually no transfer budget for a new manager - why would anyone approaching Rafa's calibre and track record want to take the job under those cicumstances?

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?