Liverpool 2-1 Blackburn: Rafael Benitez the Klingon Twists the Knife on Big Sam

The Klingon's have a saying: Revenge is a dish best served cold. After years of thinking that Rafael Benitez was an emotionless Vulcan, it would appear that he is actually a first cousin of Worf...

Mere moments after Liverpool vanquished Blackburn 2-1 at Anfield, Rafa, from the House of Anfield, couldn't wait to stick the "betleH" into Big Sam and twist. Of course, his comments were a direct reaction to Allardyce's claims that Benitez had turned Liverpool into an expensive version of Bolton.

Liverpool won the bad-tempered affair after Steven Gerrard and a returning Fernando Torres scored on either side of a Keith Andrews penalty. In between the goals there was precious little football on show, and the two teams' animosity towards each other seems to have been born in their manager's minds.

At one stage, Gerrard and El Hadji Diouf had to be separated by stewards after their verbal exchange became heated as the two teams went off for half time.

Meanwhile, the two managers could not even bring themselves to look at each other.

The relationship between the duo has always been strained, but now it is absolutely poisonous.

Blackburn, for its part, received five yellow cards during the game, and was lucky not to see Chimbonda and Nzonzi get red after two awful challenges. But Sam defended his team's discipline by saying that the referee had been swayed by the Anfield crowd.

Allardyce pointed out that Liverpool had committed 25 fouls without being punished with a card, while Blackburn had only made 10 fouls.

“If we had possessed a goal scorer, we would have won,” he said. “It is not often you come to Liverpool and create more chances than them but we don’t have a goal scorer and they have Gerrard and Torres.”

Rafa, for his part, was pretty unrepentant and left his most vicious comments 'til last.

“It doesn’t matter, we won,” was Benitez’s retort when that was put to him about Liverpool's current style of play.

“We prefer to play football. If they play the way they play under this manager, it is difficult but it is their decision. When you have won you don’t have to think about how you played...”

“We have four or five players bleeding because of studs,” said Benitez. “We can win on the pitch but some people have to talk before and after the game because they find it difficult to do a football job. I am sure he is a model for football all around the world. I am sure Barcelona are thinking about copying their style of football.”

Ouch...

Look out for their next bout in 2011...