Benitez to blame for Liverpool's failings this season
By Ahmed Bilal
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Many expected Liverpool to finally claim the Premiership this season after last season’s strong 2nd place finish. But after their latest league defeat, this time to Sunderland, Liverpool have now lost more games this season than during the whole of last season.

As Alan Hansen rightly points out, you can’t win a title before Christmas, but you can certainly lose one.

Liverpool now look as though they have sustained enough damage already to all but end hopes of claiming this season’s title. This is largely due to two factors; Benitez, and (to a lesser extent) the American co-owners Gillett and Hicks.

It is no secret that Liverpool are suffering financial instability thanks in part to Gillett and Hicks, who are struggling to contain the clubs debt and have all but abandoned attempts to build a new stadium. So what of Benitez’s contribution to Liverpool’s failings?

Last summer he tried to offload Xabi Alonso to Juventus in order to fund a deal for Gareth Barry. This obviously unsettled Alonso who’s relationship with Benitez never repaired itself; he has since said that this is the reason he moved to Real Madrid in the summer.

Whilst Barry is a fine player, Xabi Alonso is world class central midfielder who dovetailed fantastically well with Mascherano. Mascherano excelled in his role of putting out fires on the edge of the box before giving the ball to Alonso, who, with uncanny accuracy and speed, would usually find Gerrard. You know the rest.

Alonso was a vital cog in the Liverpool machine; the link between defence and attack. Had Benitez bought Barry and sold Alonso, Liverpool would surely not have had such a fine season as they did in 2008/09. Barry is a mixture of both Mascherano and Alonso; a ball winning midfielder with an eye for a pass – but not of the same level as either.

Liverpool are struggling to create chances this season against the better sides, which surely coincides with the departure of Alonso and the subsequent loss of freedom and service for Gerrard.

This was Benitez’s first major error. Had he not tried to harshly offload and unsettle Alonso he would have had a much better chance of keeping hold of him and improving the squad further. Let’s not forget Mascherano was being courted by Barcelona this summer but chose to stay.

With the money received from Alonso’s sale, roughly £28m, most expected Benitez to buy either a world class like-for-like replacement (Andrea Pirlo was linked with a move away from Milan) or sensibly invest in 2 or 3 players to fill the void and expand the squad.

Instead, Benitez has done neither. Aquilani may turn out to be a fine player but for a footballer educated in Italy it’s certain he’ll have some adapting to do before slotting into the English game. Furthermore, by the time he gets over his well documented injury problems Liverpool may well be too far behind the Premiership leaders.This summer Barry went to Manchester City for £12m and Lee Cattermole, resemblant of a young Gerrard and touted as a future full international, went to Sunderland for just £6m. Why did Benitez not try to buy one of these two, or indeed both? This would have left him with a further £10m to spend on the left back or right winger Liverpool so need.

We hear he did attempt to sign Barry but did he try hard enough? As a player who knows the Premiership inside-out and rarely gets injured, Barry, although probably not as good as Alonso, would seem like a more sensible signing than Aquilani – and certainly less of a gamble. Plus an Englishman would seem preferable considering the new home-grown rulings coming into effect soon.

The problem with Benitez in the last season or two is that he has not bought enough good, sensibly-priced squad players. He seems to have a penchant for below-par foreigners (N’gog, Lucas, Kromkamp, Josemi, Nunez, Mark Gonzalez, Babel, etc. come to mind). While the seemingly sensible buys – Bellamy, Crouch and Keane – were never afforded a proper chance.

Benitez appears to love technically-average workaholics such as Kuyt and Lucas in favour of ‘flair’ players. Whilst a team needs players willing to put a hard shift in, it also needs others capable of unlocking defences. At the moment Benayoun, Gerrard and possibly Riera seem to be the only ones able to supply Torres with a killer ball. As a result, Liverpool’s play is often painfully predictable.

Had Benitez persevered with the likes of Keane, Bellamy or Pennant (who by the way is enjoying a fine start to his career in La Liga), he may have found that his team would have more inspiration going forward.

Let’s not be too harsh; winning La Liga, the Champions League and FA Cup demonstrate that Benitez is undoubtedly a capable tactician and a very good manager. But with the time he has now had in charge of Liverpool it’s evident that there should be a better squad of players in place, putting him in a better position to win that elusive league title which players such as Gerrard, Torres and Carragher so deserve.

Had Benitez kept the likes of Bellamy, Crouch, Alonso and Pennant and had more imagination in the transfer market, Liverpool would undoubtedly be better-placed than they are now.

If Benitez does not win anything this season it will make it 4 years with no trophy, and might be time to move on. Liverpool should appoint a manager who can work within their budget better, replacing the under-performing foreigners with promising youth and established Premiership players – something that Mark Hughes has done at Man City to with some success.

Written by Chris Gilbert. For more articles, visit Soccerlens.
3  Comments
18.11.2009 21:48
agree that Benitez made mistakes, but wont blame his transfer deals alone. i think he cares not for developing players. having been LFC manager for so long, he ought to know to take the other route, should one doesnt work out. now he's rather stuck and must make do with whats available
By  samster
19.11.2009 15:52
i think the only mistake of benitez was that liverpool finished 2nd last year. thery were out tof the title race for a long time ,it was either man utd or chelsea,n sometimes arsenal..but liverpool always struggled..even in 2005 whn they wonthe champions league, they finished 5th in the league,the ucl sucess for benitez was more cordial thanthe league, vbut last year, they finished 2nd, n kop fans had a ray of hope that they can winthe league.thus pressure on benitez started to mount n now is taking a toll on him.
22.11.2009 17:30
Us Man United fans are loving every moment of Liverpool's struggles.Despite losing to them at Anfield 2-0,we are now looking at chasing Chelsea for the title for the 4th successive time while Liverpool are now failing to qualify for the next round of the Champions League,sitting in 3rd place.Should they lose or draw to Hungarian champions,Debreceni,you can now say "Goodnight Irene" to Rafa because more and more of the fans that loved him for winning the Champions League for them in 2005,is about to get the sack.There are about 10 or more reasons as to wat led into Liverpool's failures this season.And they are just the ignition of the fire...
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