Source: Telegraph
Liverpool's decline and fall poses difficult questions for Rafa Benitez to answer
Follow thedailybung on twitter, tweet us your thoughts and we may one day get round to actually replying to them[LNB]THE DAILY BUNG LUNCHTIME HEADLINES [LNB]Jack Wilshere will risk developing a speech impediment by the summer if Schteeve McLaren's FC Twente gets his wish and takes the Arsenal youngster under his wing until the end of the season. [LNB]-- [LNB]With Stoke City often accused of lacking in entertainment value Tony Pulis will move to add a bit of slapstick to proceedings by signing David James on loan, in the process saving him from the train wreck that is Portsmouth these days. [LNB]-- [LNB]And after hearing stories about this nation's capacity for boozing Roberto Mancini was a little disappointed to discover that the pre-match meal at Manchester City is as dry as Ghandi's sandal. 'Food before the match I will sort out calmly,' he said. 'For example you need chicken, pizza, carbohydrates - even a glass of wine, but that's not on the table.' Not yet anyway. [LNB]--- [LNB]WALKING THOROUGH A STORM[LNB]Gabriel Clarke is no Jeremy Paxman. ITV's touchline reporter is as good as any in his field but his modus operandi is more teasing information out of his interviewees through good natured familiarity rather than an attack dog straining at the leash. [LNB]Yet yesterday in the Anfield tunnel, surveying the wreckage of Liverpool's season, he obviously got a sniff of blood in his nostrils and decided, Graham Taylor style, now was the time to go direct. [LNB]Rafa Benitez fronted up for his obligatory chat with the nation's media - something that not all managers consider worth their time - looking a broken man. Cheeks ruddy from the cold, the Spaniard's hefty frame seemed to have collapsed in on itself, making him visibly smaller. [LNB]Carke was, of course, polite and courteous, but there was a notable upping of the tempo as he tried to get Bentiez to fold in a mea culpa. [LNB]It was a world away from Michael Howard's squirming on Newsnight, but Benitez' inquisitor did employ the weapon of repetition as he sought an admission from the Liverpool manager that the buck stopped with him and he'd made a right old dog's dinner of producing a football team to challenge the best in the land, let alone Reading. [LNB]Clarke wanted answers on why Liverpool were so bad that they are out of the title race, Carling Cup, Champions League and now FA Cup before mid-January. [LNB]'Come on,' he stopped a little short of saying, but you sensed his meaning, 'it's your fault isn't it? Eh? Isn't it? Come on, admit it, you're going to get sacked now, aren't you? Aren't you? Say it. Say it now!'[LNB]Benitez's reaction spoke volumes of the malaise that has gripped Anfield in the last six months. [LNB]The Spaniard is a master at blaming everyone else but himself - be it referees, injuries, the Americans doing their best to turn Liverpool in to a circus, Sir Alex Ferguson, the FA...etc...and so on. [LNB]But this time it looked like he'd lost the will to even try and lift, let alone point, a finger in his defence. [LNB]'For three months everyone was talking about me,' he said of his job prospects. 'At the end, as a manager, you have to be disappointed but then move forward and think about Stoke.'[LNB]Churchillian rhetoric it was not. As a call to arms 'thinking about Stoke' is about as rabble rousing as a narcoleptic in a comfortable chair. The words stumbled out of lips vainly trying to form a casual smile. He was muted and suppressing either rage or embarrassment or both. [LNB]Repeatedly referring, mysteriously, to things hat he didn't like that he'd seen, the sense was that the referee and crippling injuries to Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres by half time were not at the forefront of his thoughts, rather the abject display of players that, despite their uniform ordinariness, should still have been more than capable of sorting out a side who could be playing League One football next season and had yet to win a match under their caretaker manger. [LNB]It was almost sad to watch Benitez squirm. Gone was the bombast and certainty of 'facts' and wild injustices visited upon him. Just weary acceptance that he is a man stood in a very deep hole that those around him continue to dig deeper. [LNB]Liverpool were poor last night. As they have been many times this season. And it is a Liverpool that has been constructed by Benitez. His time appears to be running out at Anfield. If the powers that be can actually afford to sack him. [LNB]With doubts over the fitness of Gerrard and Torres adding to the tumult of negativity at the club, Liverpool's fight for a top four finish looks like one they may have to enter in to with one hand tied behind their back. [LNB]Whether Benitez will still be standing at the end of it remains to be seen - though tougher questions that those posed by an ITV newshound will have to be answered if he is. [LNB]--- [LNB]Follow thedailybung on twitter, tweet us your thoughts and we may one day get round to actually replying to them[LNB]
