Rafa Benitez Won't Be Saved by Europa League Success

A European match at Anfield between Benfica and Liverpool should be a huge fixture. Both clubs have played in seven previous European Cup/Champions League finals, with Liverpool winining on five occasions and Benfica two.

A 2-1 home win for Benfica leaves the second leg perfectly poised, with Liverpool having grabbed a vital away goal. It should be the sort of European night which Liverpool supporters relish, and were it in the Champions League it would be.

It is not the Champions League, though, it is the Europa League, a competition for teams who are either not good enough to get into the Champions League, or not good enough to stay in it. No matter how good a performance Liverpool put in, supporters will know that this mouth-watering match with so many historical connotations is not taking place in the right competition.

In 1993 on a glorious night at Anfield Liverpool overcame a 2-0 first leg deficit to defeat Auxerre 3-0 in the UEFA Cup, as the Europa League was then known. It was the kind of European performance with which Liverpool have become associated, but back then the competition meant something, as did the now-defunct European Cup Winners Cup. At the time only the Champions were allowed entry into the European Cup, the competition which would later become the Champions League, so winning any of the three European competitions was a major achievement.

Now that the rules have been tweaked in an attempt to ensure that the big teams can qualify for the Champions League year in year out, the Europa League is no longer the prize the UEFA Cup once was. When I was a child if the football team I played for got knocked out of the cup in the first round, we went into something called the consolation cup. This is what the Europa League is—the consolation cup of Europe.

The Europa League is fine for teams like Fulham, for whom European football is still regarded as highly elusive and slightly exotic luxury, but for a team of Liverpool's stature European football is an absolute necessity and participation in the competition is is an embarrassment.

So even if Liverpool do turn on the style and overturn the first leg deficit, it should not be cause for celebration on Anfield. Liverpool belong in the top four of the Premiership, and they belong in the later stages of the Champions League.

That Liverpool are no longer amongst the best 16 teams in Europe or the top four teams in England is a disgrace that Benitez must bear ultimate responsibility for. Where has it gone wrong for Liverpool? I have never been a fan of Benitez's cold and analytical approach to the game, but I think Liverpool have floundered upon his failure to build a competitive squad.

With their best 11 players on the pitch they are still a top four side, but they are desperately short of strength in depth. Fernando Torres has always been fragile, but Benitez knows this and has had ample time to recruit adequate cover. Instead Liverpool are left with just David Ngog, an unproven striker with only a handful of goals to his name.

Benitez signed Robbie Keane for £19 million and then either played him out of position or not at all before selling him back to Tottenham for substantially less just six months later.

His judgement was again called into question in the summer, when he allowed the peerless Xabi Alonso (who he had inexplicably tried to replace with Gareth Barry a year earlier) to join Real Madrid. He then attempted to replace him with Alberto Aquilani, a midfielder carrying a serious injury, which Benitez must have known would mean he would miss almost half the season.

The consequences of this series of injudicious decisions by Benitez could be catastrophic for the club with which his name has become synonymous. Whether either Fernando Torres or Steven Gerrard will be prepared to endure a season out of the Champions League remains to be seen. There will be no shortage of takers should either lose patience with Benitez's project.

Without Gerrard and Torres Liverpool look like a distinctly average side for whom regaining Champions League status will be no easy task. Whether Benitez should be entrusted with the money raised from their respective sales, should they occur, will be a serious dilemma for Liverpool's feuding American owners.

In March 2009 Benitez signed a contract extension worth in the region of £20 million and dismissing him could cost the club a considerable chunk of this money. Given supporters' frustrations at Liverpool's current lack of clout in the transfer market, the club's owners may well be unwilling to write off such a large sum of money which could instead be used to strengthen the squad.

It is a dilemma Liverpool owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks will have to face. The breakdown in communications between the two may work in Benitez's favour. If the owners cannot even have a cordial conversation, they are unlikely to be able to make such a monumental decision as deciding to relieve Liverpool's long-serving manager of his duties.

Should Benitez be allowed to spend the summer transfer budget, plus any money potentially generated by the potential sales of Gerrard and Torres?

His supporters will point to the signings of Jose Reina, Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso, and Fernando Torres. His detractors will see Fernando Morientes, Mark Gonzalez, Andriy Voronin, Antonio Nunez, Jan Kromkamp, Philipp Degen, Gabriel Paletta, Andreas Dossena, and Mauricio Pellegrino as evidence that perhaps Benitez should not be handed the keys to Liverpool's transfer chest.

Liverpool stand at a precipice. If Torres and Gerrard remain and the right calibre of players are recruited over the summer, this season could prove little more than an aberration. If the deficiencies within the squad are not adequately addressed than Liverpool's absence from the European elite could prove to be extensive.