Source: Telegraph
Liverpool's Rafa Benetez will find attack is his best form of defence
“He was not fit enough for a game of that standard,” Sir Alex Ferguson said of Alan Wiley, the referee during his side’s 2-2 draw with Sunderland. Held at home by opposition champions really should be beating? Dreadful performance? Reliant on a late own goal to avoid defeat? Want to avert difficult questions being asked? Simple: create a fuss about something else.
That should not be read as a criticism of the Manchester United manager. It is a tactic which has served him well on those rare occasions when his side fail to live up to their billing, and he can hardly be blamed for the fact that the media lap up his self-fulfilling controversies. And, it should be said, neither Wiley nor several of his colleagues are likely to feature on a Special K advert any time soon. Ferguson simply stated something most of us have thought, at one point or another, and in doing so managed to dampen any brewing storm directed at his team‘s performance.
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He’s not the only one capable of such a sleight of hand. Arsène Wenger’s touchline 'Jesus' after his side’s 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford – a game they lost, rather than one United won – and subsequent FA farrago achieved the same end, as did his, and Robin van Persie’s, strangely inflammatory comments about Emmanuel Adebayor in the aftermath of Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester City. Mark Hughes, a comparative novice at such trickery, managed to avoid answering too many nasty questions when his team lost the Manchester derby by concentrating instead on the amount of injury time Michael Owen was allowed to write himself into Old Trafford folklore. Referees, in essence, provide a useful tool for managers not wishing to discuss their team’s, or their own, shortcomings.
Alone among the managers of the top clubs, Rafa Benítez, of Liverpool, lacks the assured touch to finesse the media to his whim. When the Spaniard, who appears to inspire more loathing in more people than is entirely rational, tries to blame a referee or otherwise switch focus from his or his team‘s flaws, he is accused of failing to address the issues at hand. Quite rightly, too. Yet it is strange that, of those managers at the business end of the league, Benítez is not taken at face value by a suppliant fourth estate. He is dealt with as are Phil Brown, or Gary Megson, or those other coaches struggling against relegation. It is assumed he is making excuses.
No wonder Benítez has given up trying. Instead of diversionary tactics, the Liverpool manager now simply seeks to protect his players, to defend them as much as possible. He is fierce in his support for Lucas – the most derided Brazilian international since Kleberson – and has expressed strident support for the under-fire Jamie Carragher, too. It is an understandable response to the ever-intensifying criticism surrounding his team.
Football is a matter of perspective. I wrote after Liverpool’s defeat at Tottenham that the obituaries for their title challenge, already pouring in as the August sun still shone, were premature, a knee-jerk response from a media desperate to recapture the glory days of May, when the stories write themselves and everything matters. I could argue the same now, by suggesting that subsequent defeats to Aston Villa and Chelsea have left Liverpool, still without their £20 million first-choice midfielder, just six points from the top off the table with 90 left to play for in a season when it seems many more games than usual will be lost by the title contenders.
That is not a popular perspective. Most observers believe those three defeats are indicative that Liverpool’s second-placed finish last season was a fluke, a fluke reliant upon the now-departed Xabi Alonso*, that too much ground has been lost, that Liverpool lack the quality in depth to challenge United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City. The day after defeat at Stamford Bridge, those arguments seem pretty persuasive, especially given Liverpool’s generally lacklustre form against any side of note this season.
Yet Benítez can hardly admit that. Instead, he chooses to stem the tide of condemnation as best he can, insisting that Liverpool look to the next game and the next game alone, praising those players he feels he needs to defend. It is an honourable approach, albeit a futile one. If he wishes to avert the media gaze, he needs to find a distraction. Maybe take a page from Ferguson’s book, and call someone fat? Or impersonate a religious figure, like Wenger? However he does it, he needs to feed his interrogators something.
And it is here that Benítez could truly prosper. Since his players are going to get criticised anyway, why not use it to his advantage? Perhaps it’s time to ask, in public, at what point Albert Riera stopped trying? Or to wonder aloud, again, why Emiliano Insua and Lucas, both inexperienced stand-ins at this stage of their careers, are criticised when Gerrard can play poorly and he is still lionised? Or to admit that his defence have been largely dreadful this season and that, once Daniel Agger is fit, he will be a shoo-in to replace one of Martin Skrtel and Jamie Carragher. Perhaps, off the pitch as well as on it, Liverpool‘s best form of defence is attack.
