Steven Gerrard Was 'Embarrassed' for Rafa Benitez After Infamous 'Facts' Rant

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has revealed he was embarrassed for Rafa Benitez after his old boss' infamous "facts" rant.

Liverpool were sitting top of the table in January 2009 when Benitez used his weekly press conference to direct an incredible tirade at then-Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson and the apparent misdeeds he was supposedly getting away with.

“Rafa sat down with his usual half-smile. It looked likely to be a normal press conference, but then he reached into his pocket for a piece of paper," Gerrard recalls in his new autobiography, My Story, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail. He continues:

"

He spread it out on the table and began to read out one ‘fact’ after another. Rafa kept saying ‘fact... fact... fact...’ and I could not believe what I was hearing. I was grabbing the couch, digging my fingers into the arms, feeling embarrassed for him.

Rafa went off on a ramble about how Manchester United and ‘Mr Ferguson’ had not been properly punished for various misdemeanours. He listed dates and incidents and concluded that ‘Mr Ferguson is the only manager in the league that cannot be punished for these things.'

He then railed against the fixture list and the timing of matches being skewed in United’s favour. Rafa was sounding muddled and bitter and paranoid. He was humiliating himself. It was a disaster. I couldn’t understand Rafa’s thinking in wanting to take on Ferguson, a master of mind games, when we were sitting so calmly on top of the table early into a new year.

"

Gerrard goes on to reveal how when he went away with England, the Manchester United players told him how Ferguson had been laughing at Benitez, saying "I’ve got him. I’ve got him."

[h/t Liverpool Echo]