The truth Behind Rafa's departure from Liverpool
Rafael Benitez - the former manager of the Liverpool Football club - over the past few transfer windows has raged on the concept of having to sell his players before he could go and buy. As a result, he is totally justified with his rage, given the fact that he guided the Merseyside club to their best ever premier league finish when they came second in the seasons prior to the last one. The feat gave Liverpool fans a reason to believe that they can be genuine title contenders. In those critical circumstances, Benitez made one bad error in selling Xabi Alonso and compounded the problem by signing Aberto Aquilani as his replacement. A sublime talent in the middle of the park with a doubt, Aberto was recovering from an ankle surgery that had kept him out from the entire season. The player needed to give Liverpool’s title credentials a boost but how could he do that when he couldn’t even manage to play the full 90 minutes on a football pitch.
Crippled by the staggering paucity of funds, Rafael Benitez’s will to fight, the will to guide Liverpool to glory and the will to restore the golden days back to Anfield lead the manager to burst out into agony. He refused to be silenced, refused to budge to the financial strains, and in turn, restraining his relations with the club’s boardroom. The relations between the manager and the management continued to run a downward spiral to a point where he was left with no support; not even from the players.
Liverpool could not go into a new season with the same anomalies and a supremely malfunctioning power corridor in place. With no signs of the Americans willing to sell the club, Rafa was becoming increasingly isolated.
If you look at it, the total value of Liverpool’s squad is far superior to the one Rafa inherited from Gerrard Houllier. Perhaps, this was the sole reason that has kept drastic actions against Gillet and Hicks by the Royal Bank of Scotland at bay. But Rafa took charge of a champions league outfit from Houllier and perhaps with it a ticket to his finest hour in football management - the victory over the Milan giants the following year, that to this day guarantees allegiance among many supporters. However his successor will be given a Europa league spot and a team that could even struggle to match Liverpool’s last season’s seventh place finish. It is a possibility if their talismanic and inspirational captain, Steven Gerrard and Godly skilful striker Fernando Torres decide that they have had enough of false promises and hopes and turn the exit outside Anfield into a revolving turnstile.
Prior to the bitter swallow that Benitez was presented with, there were speculations that the club board was forced to act by a threatened dressing room revolt if the manager had stayed. Gerrard, Torres and others have questioned Benitez’s management following a miserable campaign. But who hasn’t? What is more relevant to the future of these superstars at Anfield, so many of whom are angry for their names to be dragged in the midst of this affair? Is the club headed in the right direction with its current strategy and capability to strengthen the squad in order to compete for top domestic and European honours again?
Benitez wanted to hear the same assurances in his most recent meetings with Martin Broughton. However, the Liverpool chairman was unable to grant the guarantees, either because of the financial constraints at the club, player revolt or unhappy owners. The newly appointed chairman was left facing a delusional manager with severe financial constraints and an entangled Anfield hierarchy – someone had to give up. And the fact that it was the manager that every true Liverpool fan loved and not the American owners who are the root cause of the mire at the club, is a source of immense pain, disappointment, anguish and frustration for the manager as well as the fans.
The Benitez haters have finally got what they wanted but at what price? A managerial shortlist that includes Dave Oleary, Mark Hughes, Jo Kinnear, Jurgen Klinsmann and Martin O’neil is all that Liverpool has at the moment. Fans have thanked Rafa for all the memories that he gave to the Liverpool fans, for making them dare to believe again, for Istanbul, for making Liverpool’s European Cup runs an expectations and not a bonus, for putting Liverpool at the top of the perch in Europe, for the best title challenge in over 20 years, for Fernando Torres, For Xabi Alonso , for Luis Garcia, for Pepe Reina, for Javier Mascherano, for standing up to Ferguson’s bullying and for standing up against pundits and the biased media and for putting four goals past Manchester United in their own backyard – all these achievements have turned the club around. While the new owners of Liverpool were unable to give Rafa the opportunity to walk through the storm and emerge with a head held high, the manager can still be proud and hold you by remembering his own words “remember you will never walk alone”.
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