It's 4.20AM and I can't sleep.
To be fair, only a small part of that's due to the way I'm feeling at the moment about my beautiful club. I thought we were the ones having the party in our house, but after things wound down and I decided to crash out at about 3, I realised the flat upstairs were having a much bigger one right above my room, seemingly involving some kind of cross between WWE Smackdown and the running of the bulls. As I lay there tossing and turning in the halflight I couldn't help my mind from wandering on to Liverpool FC's current plight and things got worse when I thought browsing this place on my iphone might distract me from the din above.
I'm not sure I'm eloquent enough when sober and well rested to get out all the million thoughts running around in my head, and I know the earliest that any of this will be read is in about 4 hours time but I still felt drawn to try to write some of what I've been thinking about down.
Firstly I will state my position on the issue being discussed in this thread. I am at the moment still staunchly in Benitez's camp. I think there's something in my blood that makes me the loyal type, loyal at least to those who have proved worthy of my loyalty and done right by me in the past, I'm also the stoic type. In Istanbul, as the half time whistle went I looked over to my mate and said
"Don't worry, cos when we come back out in the second half and win this thing it'll be the best final in the history of the European Cup!"
I honestly believed that deep down at that time, and I don't say this to pretend that I'm some kind of footballing mastermind - I'm currently about 7th out of 10 in a premier league tippping competition we're running this season - but to illustrate that I tend to react to adversity by pinning my hopes on the fact that belief alone can get you through sometimes reminding myself that when those hopeless, lost stiuations do turn in your favour there is no better feeling in the world.
Benitez has my faith at the moment but I'm not going to start defending him against all of the criticisms that are levelled at him in this thread (and many others), in fact I agree with a lot of them. My most fundamental problem with Benitez is really one of principle, basically I think he's a hypocrite. You see Benitez believes himself to be the most pragmatic of managers, able to make pressure decisions with a cool head without letting his emotions get in the way. The problem is, Benitez is also a proud stubborn bastard and for me the two just can't go together. The ultimate act of pragmatism is surely to have the balls to say
"I was wrong."
To have the courage to change your mind, to look at the black and white of a situation and say however much I thought that decision was right before the game and however much I thought it through, the lack of 3 points proves that I was wrong. Benitez usually shirks from that and decides that luck or money or the ref or whatever went against him and bury his head in the sand so as to not have to question himself.
The rotation thing also grates with me, not the fact that Benitez rotates mind, I don't necessarily agree with all his team selections but I think the overall policy has done us no more harm than good and that it can work in our favour, my problem is that he isn't honest about his application of it.
If the point of rotation is to provide competition for places then how can you justify playing Riise as often as he does at the moment when Arbeloa and Finnnan or Aurelio are fit. More startling still is his insistence on hardly rotating Kuyt out of the team at all recently despite him having a stinker of a season but appearing to do this because of some personal vendetta against Crouch. And what the fuck can Voronin have done in training in the last week to convince the gaffer that he deserved the nod. No, benitez does have his favourites alright and he goes along the lines of his preference rather than those of cold hard pragmatism as often as not. No more clear-cut an example of that has there been than starting Kuyt alone up front against Milan in Athens. I agreed with the formation but Kuyt was clearly not the player for that job and had hardly ever practised the role while Crouch had excelled at it the previous season.
Anyway, I said I'm still in Benitez's camp and that's because I believe crucially that he is at least the equal of any other manager currently employed or unemployed and has the added bonus of being a good honourable man with a regard for Liverpool traditions and the drive to ulimately succeed in bringing us success. He also has flashes of absolute unparalelled genius which seem to come at the very most important moments and have given me some of the finest memories of my footballing life.
There's no doubt in my mind that our on field performances this year - really in the last couple of months - would be a lot better were it not for the uncertainty and tesion going on behind the scenes. I am giving Rafa the benefit of the doubt on this one as I trust his abilities and motives more than I trust those of anyone else at a senior position within the club. I'm aware that all managers have to deal with pressure from above, especially when underperforming but I also think that this pressure rarely improves their performance.
The extra level of pressure that the football media in this country now exherts is overwhelming. There's no regulation and very little proffesional pride preventing journalists from publishing completely fabricated stories but even worse than that, I genuinely believe that now the media actually have the power to bring about the very bullshit they decide to spout. Think about it, manager has a few shite results, the board don't think twice about sacking him but then a few newspaper stories come along criticizing him and maybe one or other of those stories mentions a possible replacement basically based on who likely WOULD be in the running if said manager got the boot. The hacks, not being arsed to actually research better stories continue this tirade for a few weeks and some people, being the sheep that they are and reading of the managers they "might get" decide to jump on the bandwagon and throw a few tabloid arguments round the pub/forum. Before you know it there's enough snowballed animosity against the manager for the odd boo to ring around the ground (anyone booing ones own team should be hung in my opinion) and all of a sudden you have "Fans Turn on Manager" headlines and the board start to worry and put pressure on the manager making things worse until he's sacked. Think about it, what other benchmark of fan opinion to the board have than the media opinion?
I was trying to think tonight what my absolute best case would be for the next couple of weeks and I happened upon an idea which is growing on me every minute. I think, whover owns the club when the dust has settled on the latest round of takeover speculation would see the best return in fotballing performance terms if they made it clear that despite recent performances Rafa was backed to the hilt for at least one year, with a guarantee on his job, that no amount of speculation would change that and that even if the club was in the bottom half of the table the manager would be given that time before any further review was taken. an absolute open and shut "He's staying."
The thing is, we all know Benitez can keep us in the top four and that he isn't going to suddenly make us relegation fodder. Who knows what another man might do in his stead at the moment? The stability this would create and the inability of the press to write credible stories speculating on Rafa's departure would give us the impotece to go forwards and hopefully the fans would get behind the team and stop thinking that it's our god-given right to be at the top of the league.
Personally I've made myself a promise this season, I'm going back to basics. I'm not going to focus on our inability to compete for the league at all. I'm going back to supporting the team just for the sake of the game we're playing. Looking at the table every five minutes is at best depressing, but crucially it won't push us any higher. There are other winnable competitions and despite my 5 trips to the new Wembeley so far I've said since it's opening that what that stadium needs is 50,000 marauding scousers down there to cement the place as the new home of English football. We are not going to win the league this year but I am determined to enjoy supporting my club again anyway after the last few weeks.
