Source: Daily_Mail
Martin Samuel: Rafa, you are lucky to have won more than Souness
Graeme Souness, as Rafael Benitez pointed out, did not have a great record as Liverpool manager. There was one season when Liverpoollooked potential title winners, but that challenge quickly fizzled outand, for the most part, he filled the squad with ordinary players, andwon the FA Cup.[LNB]Notice any similarities? Take away an incredible first yearculminating in Istanbul in arguably the greatest comeback in thehistory of club football and Benitez's record is not really all thatdifferent over the last four years. [LNB]These are altered times and thewealth gap generated by the Champions League has largely cemented anelite four in place, but the circumstances are broadly alike. There wasan FA Cup win, a procession of mediocre signings and, right now,Liverpool lie seventh, a position all too familiar to those whoremember the Souness years (he came sixth in his two full seasons atthe club).[LNB] Sensitive flower: Benitez has bristled over every criticism[LNB]A team who have won three matches in 15 can no longer be said to be experiencing a blip. The 2-0 win over Manchester Unitedin October: that was the blip. That was the result that is still hardto explain. Liverpool have lost more matches in the Premier League thanStoke City this season and have the same number of points as Birmingham City.So statistically, there was nothing in the least surprising in defeatby a weakened Arsenal team yesterday. Liverpool are living off a name,a reputation for invincibility, particularly in the big games atAnfield. They surrendered that in the Champions League this season, andnow in the domestic championship, too.[LNB]Indeed, in the present climate, the less Benitez seeks comparisonwith the Souness era, the better. The period from April 1991 to January1994 is not recalled with fondness at Anfield, and understandably so,but Souness did not work for Liverpool at a time when losers couldenter the European Cup. And that is a big difference.[LNB] More from Martin Samuel... MARTIN SAMUEL: What did you do when the ice was melting, Daddy?10/12/09 Martin Samuel: Giggs is the only star to pass my test of genius08/12/09 Martin Samuel: David Beckham must rule our World Cup bid for 201806/12/09 MARTIN SAMUEL: Good news, what can possibly go wrong for England?05/12/09 MARTIN SAMUEL: Lazy coppers are the real social menace04/12/09 EXCLUSIVE: Karren Brady on why England MUST host 2018 World Cup01/12/09 MARTIN SAMUEL: Jose Mourinho facing big trouble in little Inter01/12/09 Martin Samuel: Sorry Arsene, your Arsenal boys are just roadkill29/11/09 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Failure was a lot easier to come by under the old rules ofengagement. There was no thrilling battle for fourth place, as is beingplayed out now. No popping of champagne corks at trawling in 21 pointsbehind the league leaders, as Benitez did in 2006-07. Benitez finished37 points off the pace in his first year, but won the European Cup.That route was not open to Souness. [LNB]Back then, the Champions' Cup livedup to its name. In Souness's first season he only took over in April,mind you Liverpool came second in the old First Division, butqualified for the UEFA Cup, a tricky tournament, full of ambitious,thrusting wannabes, not the moribund Thursday-night snore fest itbecame. Liverpool were removed by Genoa at the quarter-final stage.[LNB]So Souness had his chance and did not take it. Benitez got his withan inferior Liverpool team in the 2004-05 Champions League campaign,defeated AC Milan against all odds, and greatness was assured. YetLiverpool only finished fourth under Gerard Houllier the previousseason and in Souness's day that would not necessarily have guaranteedEuropean qualification, at any level. And no Champions League final, noRafa the genius.[LNB]Benitez is sensitive right now. He sees Souness as his inferior, incoaching terms rightly so, and resents his criticism. Yet bristlingdefensively at every remark smacks of a man who knows his problems aremounting. Earlier this month he had a dig at Jamie Redknapp, claiminghe was looking to undermine Liverpool for the benefit of his father,Harry, the manager of Tottenham Hotspur. Redknapp, like Souness, gavean honest opinion, which is what he was required to do.[LNB] Tough times: Souness winces in the Selhurst Park during his stint as Liverpool boss[LNB]And face it, Liverpool are not losing because of what is being said in television studios. They are losing because they sold Xabi Alonso and five years of frantic transfer traffic has left a pedestrian squad, emboldened by a sprinkling of exceptional individuals.[LNB]Souness assembled an ordinary group, too, but at least he left Liverpool with Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler on the horizon. What is there to look forward to currently? A summer of speculation around Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres unless circumstances improve.[LNB]For all his faults as a manager, Souness still won three league championships and seven national cups across three countries. He was not a fool. More importantly, he was a wonderful midfield player for Liverpool and if they had more like him now, they wouldn't have taken fewer points from eight home league games than Blackburn Rovers. In short, he is entitled to his view, just as Benitez is to his spiky response.[LNB]Always providing, of course, that in more reflective moments, he acknowledges that a lot of successful modern coaches would find the plaudits less forthcoming if they had been working at a time when first was first and second was nowhere; let alone fourth.[LNB] Zola is no man for this crisisThe last time a manager of West Ham United travelled to Bolton Wanderers needing a big result, he got one and the sack two days later. That was three years ago this month when Alan Pardew walked on to a 4-0 thumping. By the next time West Ham played, Alan Curbishley was in charge for a match with Manchester United.[LNB]West Ham face Bolton away tomorrow night and while there is no appetite for getting rid of Gianfranco Zola now, it is plain that the club's atrocious run cannot continue indefinitely. Nice is different than good, as Stephen Sondheim pithily observed in the song I Know Things Now, and just because Zola is a decent man who likes his team to play fine football and was a wonderful performer during his playing days with Chelsea, it does not mean that he is the man for this crisis, however much most wish him success.[LNB]Walking a tightrope: Zola[LNB]Sacking Pardew was an easy call. He was unpopular with many fans and, beyond Upton Park, the decision barely drew a ripple of resistance. To remove Zola, who has been working in extraordinarily trying circumstances and is a very popular figure throughout the game, would by comparison attract widespread criticism and accusations of boardroom panic. It is an unavoidable fact, though, that West Ham are in a parlous state and relegation would be a calamity.[LNB] Everybody likes Zola. Everybody wishes him well. He is one of the heroes of the Premier League era and this was reflected in his salary of £1.9m per year, which was paid to a manager in his first major job in English football. Zola's assistant Steve Clarke is on roughly £1m to lend experience. In different circumstances, this investment may have paid a handsome return. The job, however, is no longer as advertised.[LNB]Zola knew he had to cut his cloth to straitened times at Upton Park, but he could not have envisaged the present crisis. Faced with the threat of more sales, more bargain-bucket arrivals and responsibility falling on ever younger members of the squad, there is nothing in West Ham's recent form to suggest he is matching the challenge of this season. If no team are too good to go down, then no manager is too lovable to be held to account. West Ham's results must improve soon, or a tough decision may have to be made: a club can afford a raft of negative headlines more than they can demotion to the Championship.[LNB] And while we're at it...Sir Alex Ferguson admitted thinking Mark Hughes would never make a manager. This was interpreted as a sly dig, more evidence of the rivalry between the bosses of the Manchester clubs. [LNB]In all likelihood, it was a sincere appraisal. [LNB]Terry Venables, who worked with Hughes at Barcelona, says the same thing. Another guy who showed absolutely no interest in studying the game while a player? George Graham.[LNB] Ledley King wants a new contract with Tottenham Hotspur. Harry Redknapp, his manager, favours a pay-as-you-play deal, due to his chronic injury problems.[LNB] Daniel Levy, the chairman, is not sure about any of it. And, yes, it is easy to have sympathy for an injured player, certainly one as talented and loyal as King, but as West Ham United ponder the wisdom of awarding Dean Ashton a five-year deal which surely scuppers any hope the club have of pursuing compensation claims now he has been forced into retirement the benevolent approach is not always wisest.[LNB] Africa's no differentThere is a scene in the Nicolas Roeg film, The Man Who Fell To Earth, in which the alien, Thomas Jerome Newton, played by David Bowie, undergoes a series of inhumane government tests. Despite his pleas, x-rays permanently affix the contact lenses in his disguise to his eyes. Resigned to his fate of being for ever stranded on Earth, he is wearily philosophical. 'We'd have probably done the same to you, if you'd come round to our place,' he tells the scientists.[LNB]And so it is with the 2010 World Cup. For years, decent souls in the West have agonised at the way commercial interests have ruthlessly exploited the African region until now we discover, via ticket rip-offs, exorbitant hotel and airline rates designed to fleece English supporters and minimum four-day packages when only a single night is required, that given the chance, people from diverse continents are not so instinctively different after all.[LNB] With Jim Magilton unlikely to return as Queens Park Rangers manager, it would appear Flavio Briatore will soon be deciding on his seventh new coach at Loftus Road, despite being banned indefinitely from another sport, Formula 1. [LNB]For all the fine talk from Lord Mawhinney, and Briatore's involvement in fixing Grand Prix races, the Italian has still not failed the Football League's fit-and-proper-persons test. [LNB] Managerial merry-go-round: Magilton looks to have occupied the Loftus Road hotseat for just six months[LNB]Notts County, meanwhile, has been bought for £1, although from whom nobody is quite sure as the League never got completely to the bottom of the ownership issues surrounding Munto Finance, Qadbak or the various families and individuals said to be in on the deal.[LNB] Mawhinney, who is soon to step down, is fond of painting himself as the great progressive, but what he leaves behind would appear to be as successfully reformed as 19th-century Dodge City.[LNB] The only thing more unedifying than the procession of groupies claiming to have got it on with Tiger Woods, is the inevitable round of talk-show confessionals that we will endure at some future date, as his advisers attempt to rebuild the brand, more than the golfer. Tiger meets Oprah. Tiger meets Barbara Walters. Tiger meets Piers Morgan. Spare us that, at least, please.[LNB] It would be interesting to know how many players have to fail a drugs test for UEFA to hold the team responsible. Not one, because otherwise Wales would have progressed from a European Championship qualifier with Russia in 2003, after Egor Titov gave a positive sample. [LNB]And not two, because CSKA Moscow will be in the Champions League draw on Friday, despite positive tests for Sergei Ignashevich and Alexei Berezutsky in the game with Manchester United. [LNB]Dwain Chambers acted alone but he cost Great Britain's 4x100metre sprinters a gold medal at the 2002 European Championships, because his actions were considered to have benefited the whole group. Yet football, a pure team game, hides behind the cult of the individual when under suspicion. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that nobody takes its stance on drugs seriously.[LNB] [LNB]
