I received an email of a mate recently, basically pissed off about current situation and having to get it out in some way. Have to say, it sums is it up more or less for me: -
Right. I've had enough of this. You will not be surprised that I've got a cob on about something or other, but this is doing my f+++ing head in now.
Cards on the table - Benitez has been poor since the end of last season. The awful start against Spurs was all too predictable because we'd been awful all pre-season and seemed dreadfully underprepared. Results have been too consistently poor to blame on bad luck and injuries. Those players should still be doing much better than they are. He deserves criticism for his management in the last 7 months, but the excellent job he'd done in the preceding 5 years means he should be allowed the opportunity to put it right by getting to the end of the season as a minimum.
Now to the bit which has been properly peeing me off - and for a very long time.
Ever since the Villa home game the knives have been right out and firmly thrust in his back. Sky have led the way with an almost daily series of speculative "reports" on SSN about the latest "crisis" that Benitez faces. Every single pre and post match interview has consisted of Sky, ESPN and ITV getting their reporter to ask a series of ridiculously aggressive and accusatory questions - astonishing when you consider how 99.9% of their interviews are no more than "Are you a little disappointed by that 10-0 home defeat, Harry?" (Sky pre match v Stoke, "Aquilani is on the bench today, Rafa, why isn't a player you paid £20m for starting every game?". Their Sunday Supplement show (Hold The Back Page for old skool Sky-ers like Keogh) has turned into a weekly witch-hunt with the assembled geniuses of the press almost coming to blows in their eagerness to tear him to pieces on telly. They then join their brethren back in Fleet Street and Wapping to compose the pages that form the daily press attack on him too. It's relentless. Every day for months. Absolutely relentless and you know they won't stop until they get him. As much as they'll publicly state that managers get themselves fired through results, the people at Sky and the writers in the press glory in the ability they have to get someone dismissed. They f+++ing love it. Doesn't matter that most of the stuff they say isn't factually correct - if a lie is repeated a thousand times it becomes accepted as the truth.
But it's not necessarily this that pees me off. Benitez is not the first manager of an important team to receive this type of treatment during a bad run - the difference here is that he gets similar treatment during good runs too. In fact, he's had it since he started in 2004. All through his entire Liverpool managerial career he's had so much sniping from Sky and the national press. From "zonal-marking" to "poor transfer record" to "net-spend" they've been all over him. His achievements are glossed over as lucky or just plain not good enough. I could list any number of examples but they just wind me up even more as I think of them (example: 3 years ago he was getting slaughtered for his "mediocre buys" like Crouch and Bellamy - now he gets slaughtered for not keeping them!!). That's the bit that pees me off. It's nothing to do with his managerial record (better than Wenger who had a team that had won the league undefeated when Benitez started) - it's personal and fuelled by the rampant egotism of those individuals at Sky and in the sports press who believe they can hound a manager out of my club - my f+++ing club - regardless of what he does just because they want it to be so. I'm not having it.
It's crap at the moment. Bitterly disappointing after last season. But I'm not joining in with the backstabbers. I want Benitez to stay regardless of what happens on the pitch. I'm not bothered if we end up avoiding relegation by a thread - just as long as we don't sack him this season. I don't care as long as my club has the b+lls to ignore the clamour of the countless number of vultures desperate to see us sack him, desperate to see us in crisis, desperate to see us fail.
This is now more than just a pro or anti Benitez issue - this is about how my club behaves and what it stands for. Managers and players will come and go - the club is what remains in place and what matters to me. I'd rather we show the b+lls to do things OUR way and play in League 2 rather than cave in and do what those bell+nds tell us we "have to do for the sake the club".
No chance. When we want your opinion, we'll ask for it. In the meantime you can f++k right off.
Well I'm not having it. They can kiss my ring.
I did add as a follow up this: -
Have to say that basically I agree with pretty much all of the points made. The most disappointing aspect of the current “witch hunt” is the eagerness with which the likes of Murphy, Whelan and St John have signed up to put the boot in. Well, Whelan has been peddling his agenda for a few years now, and St. John has always been bitter......but that doesn’t excuse them. I don’t agree with abusing ex-players or their opinion, however, it has come to the point where those ex-players also need to think about what the club stands for and remember that it was their privilege to get to wear the red shirt. They always received support when it was needed despite not being the most popular players at the club (I remember that sole “Ronnie Whelan” chanting bloke in the Kop before each home game), and now is the time for them to side with the club and not the media and respect the values the club used to represent.
The only other thing I would add, is that far too many “fans” are happy to repeat those Sly/Fleet Street “truths” as they argue for Benitez’ removal. This again is something abhorrent in the modern game. Even those who can make a genuine case for Benitez to go must see that the media agenda is more of an affront to LFC than anything Benitez can do.
And the summary of the season is about right. We have had some poor luck, but as the saying goes you make your own luck in football. We have been poor, and Benitez does carry the bulk of the responsibility for that along with the senior players. And he does make himself an easy target for the media at times. However, his record at Liverpool – particularly give the restrictions placed on him by cash flow requirements and inept boardroom management – and his previous record of both success and learning and recovering from managerial failures warrant the man being given some latitude (much as Wenger has been at Arsenal).
We are not the same as other clubs, despite the changing world. We are a club with principles (well the fans are anyway) and we should stand by them. Seems the right place to post this.