Rafael Benitez and Liverpool

This is breaking a golden rule of Journalsim but I’m not entirely sure where this post is going to go.

I’m sure we’ll see.

I love Rafael Benitez.

The man is a legend. He was extremely successful with Valencia, winning a couple of league titles against the might of Real Madrid and Barcelona as well as a UEFA Cup.

He then came to Liverpool and won the Champions League in his first season, the FA Cup the year after, lost in the final of the Champions League the year after that and finished 2nd (oh, so close) to Manchester United last year.

I know there have been no trophies for a while, but his stature is undiminished in my eyes.

There have always been doubters.

I had a chat with a guy about 18 months ago who challenged me to, “Name one player from the team now who would’ve got into the Istanbul team apart from Torres.”

Phew! At least he admitted that Torres was at least slightly better than Milan Baros!

I proceeded to compare Reina with Dudek, Kuyt with Kewell, Traore with…anyone!

The Istanbul line up went like this: Dudek, Finnan, Traore, Hyypia, Carragher, Garcia, Riise, Alonso, Gerrard, Kewell, Baros. Smicer, Cisse and Hamaan, who should’ve started, all came on and the bench featured such genius’ as Biscan and Josemi.

That team was from the end of Benitez’s first season, after adding Alonso and Garcia, as well as Cisse though he was a Houllier buy, and getting rid of Michael Owen. It is a terribly poor team and an equally poor squad.

Despite the fact that we won the Champions League that season, we relied on Neil Mellor during  the festive period and Salif Diao made appearances in a red shirt!

Atrocious.

Benitez has improved the first team by ten, twenty nay, a hundred fold.

It is still not quite good enough, especially after losing Alonso (who, may I add, Benitez tried to sell last summer after two terrible seasons; I barely remember a voice of discontent, and Barry was being hailed as the new hero) but we have got Aquilani who should hopefully be immense and added Johnson.

This whole debate moved me to analyse FourFourTwo ’s list of the ‘100 Best Players in the World’ more closely.

Though the list is arguable, indeed it is compiled to provoke debate, they put Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres at 7 and 6 respectively.

To have 2 players in the top ten is comparable with the great teams in Europe. Real Madrid have Kaka and Ronaldo at 8 and 2 while Barcelona have Xavi and Iniesta at 3 (a tie? Idiots) and Messi at number 1.

All fair enough. Torres was at 3 last year but was injured for much of last season while Gerrard moved from number ten. I personally think that both are better than David Villa at 5 and Xavi but that is personal opinion.

But when you look at the entire top 100, which is harder to argue against as most of the players deserve their place somewhere in here, Liverpool fare terribly. Of the other teams who have a top ten player, Real Madrid have the most in the whole list with eleven, Barcelona and Inter Milan have 9 each and Manchester United have 7.

Liverpool have only 4 players in the list, Reina and Mascherano are the others, while Valencia have only 2.

That is where Liverpol fall down.

Chelsea have no players in the top ten, but have 8 in the top fifty and eleven over all.

Their team strength and squad depth are what makes them so good.

Again, it could be argued that Aquilani could be in the top 100, and perhaps he will be next year, and I genuinely think that Glen Johnson has done enough to enter the list.

Comparisons are often made between the spending of the big clubs since Benitez, and therefore Mourinho, came into the Premier League.

However, that comparison is futile and, in fact, silly. Why? Because Chelsea have unlimited funds, Arsene Wenger is the best transfer dealer in the world, and most importantly, Alex Ferguson had the best part of 20 years to mould and shape an entire corporation into his likeness before Benitez entered the scene.

Benitez was starting from scratch- OK not quite, Gerrard and Carragher were a good platform.

Benitez was starting from crap—undeniable, remember the Istanbul team and Traore—a very important point.

I don’t think I could put it quite as well as Paul Tomkins did in his liverpoolfc.tv column in March. Please read it separately as it is exceptionally illuminating and completely true.

So, back to Rafael Benitez right now.

Will he get sacked?

Maybe.

But that would be stupid. We would spend at least £25M sacking and hiring managers, and whoever came in would have to do the same job as Benitez will if given the chance.

And don’t cry and say “he’s had five years/enough chances” because the job is this—carry on building.

Carry on building the team and the squad. There is nothing else for it.

I believe that, if Benitez is kept and the boardroom antics stop, Liverpool will win the league and Benitez will have built a platform, similar to that built by Ferguson at United, for a dynasty to rise from.

Or a “bastion of invincibility” as someone else said!

Remember, Ferguson took over United in November ‘86 and didn’t win his first league title till May ‘93.

That’s seven seasons!

Rafael Benitez is only in his sixth.

Plenty of time left for a League Title.