http://liverpool.rivals.net/default.asp?sid=890&p=2&stid=8411614Rafa Benitez A pivotal season?
By Liverpudlian
Date: 17/5/2006
As our many internationals head off to join up with their world cup squads, we can all be pretty satisfied with our second full season under Rafael Benitez.
O.K. so we could not follow up our exploits in Istanbul with a nostalgic trip back to Paris, yet we still put a trophy in the cabinet courtesy of yet another classic final but it was imperative that we reduced the unacceptable points gap to Chelsea & the clubs above us if we are to challenge for the title in 2006/7.
As our many internationals head off to join up with their world cup squads, we can all be pretty satisfied with our second full season under Rafael Benitez. O.K. so we could not follow up our exploits in Istanbul with a nostalgic trip back to Paris, yet we still put a trophy in the cabinet courtesy of yet another classic final but it was imperative that we reduced the unacceptable points gap to Chelsea & the clubs above us if we are to challenge for the title in 2006/7.
Our protracted calendar for 2005/6 started way back in July with our entry in to the Champions league at the first qualifying stage. This situation, you will recall, was brought about by the ridiculous "early" endorsement of Everton as the fourth qualifier, thereby forcing UEFA into an embarrassing exercise in diplomacy in order allow the participation of five clubs from one country by enabling the subsequent winners of their prestige competition to defend the trophy. As stated in an earlier article, our friends at the football league may consider that they acted very shrewdly in manoeuvring themselves into a win - win situation, regardless of who won the fight for 4th place and our progress towards Istanbul but Blatter, Johanssen & co. are very powerful men and may well, some time down the line, give English football cause to regret at being backed into a corner by "messers" Barwick & Davies.
The whole bloody mess was subsequently & farcically exacerbated by our illustrious neighbours staggering achievement in securing elimination from both European competitions in record time. So after all the posturing, the Rafael Benitez T shirts & the celebration videos, they contrived to get back out of Europe "quicker than Easyjet". Spectacularly out of his depth in this company, David Moyes survived the backlash from his own "fans" and presided over a near cataclysmic drop in form domestically before guiding the blues back to predictable mid-table mediocrity. The restating of the rules means that, forever, Everton will be the only team to be nominated for the Champions League ahead of the holders: surely a certainty for a Trivial Pursuit question in time for when they next have a good season in another twenty years time. (n.b. is this the real meaning of 1=20?)
So what of England's other participants in the Champions League? Well, almost inevitably, with our country immunity withdrawn, Chelsea were given the chance of revenge for last seasons semi when we were drawn together in the group stages. Yet again, their ungracious manager could not beat his Spanish counterpart and in relegating Chelsea to second place in the group, left the door open for the Barcelona draw that duly arrived. Amidst all the bleating about the Garcia goal, everyone associated with Stamford Bridge conveniently & consistently forgets the incidents against Barca and in particular the 4th goal scored by Terry with the goalkeeper clearly impeded. Ronaldinho & co. relished the chance of a re-match & duly took their revenge.
In the premiership, once they got off to a good start, Chelsea never looked anything other than champions and deservedly beat us home and away, although the score line was harsh at Anfield. In both games we started well but conceded the first goal against the run of play & we all know that Chelsea are at their strongest against a team chasing a deficit. Consequently, they were able to pick us off due to the players at their disposal that can hit you on the break. Their strength in depth gives them the edge over a season but we have shown that on the big occasions we can beat them and this was reinforced by our win at Old Trafford.
Perhaps for the first time in living memory, a Liverpool team went into such a match with support from practically the entire country. Unfortunately, Jose Mourinho again demonstrated a total lack of humility & sportsmanship in avoiding shaking hands with Rafa the end of the game : his lack of class symbolising everything that is wrong with Chelsea at the moment. If you can lose (and win ) with style, then respect will follow. Unfortunately, these are qualities that do not sit well with Jose and consequently his novelty value now resembles something akin to liability status, whilst his club have very quickly become the team everyone loves to hate. The predictable aftermath saw the referee blamed for every decision that went against them but you cannot dispute that John Terry challenged Luis with his studs showing and this has invariably been viewed as a foul in the past. Furthermore, the same player's use of John Arne Riise to gain leverage for his header seemed a straight forward free kick with Terry himself appearing to accept the verdict immediately. As usual, Mourinho blamed everyone but himself, but at the end of the day we have again beaten them in a major semi final and there can be no doubt that our tactics were better overall.
Let me state here and now that, in the main, I do not have major issues with Chelsea or indeed, the money invested into the club by Abramovich, though you have to say that without this income, Mourinho and Kenyon would not be there, never mind the £300 million worth of players. No, if nothing else, the exorbitant fees paid out have at least gone into the coffers of football clubs as opposed to those roubles revolving in the business circles of world finance. It has also led to a raising of the bar in terms of quality in the premiership and has broken the strangle hold enjoyed by United and Arsenal. What does annoy me is the continuous attempts, on & off the pitch, to bend the rules, the arrogance throughout the club & the failure to accept, by their fans, that their success is purely down to a disproportionate investment of cash over a very short period of time. Sure, ourselves, United and to a lesser extent Arsenal have, indeed, spent heavily on players but those monies were a) over decades and b) earned from football. If, as has been intimated, comrade Roman had anchored his boats outside White Hart Lane four years ago, would these same arrogant "lahndoners" now be following a Mourinho-managed Tottenham? I would suggest this could well be the case whilst insisting, of course, they'd been fans for "years."
The down side of the transfer policy at the bridge is the example of Shaun Wright Phillips. Here is a lad who was a certainty to go to the world cup twelve months ago but now sees Lennon and Walcott getting on the plane whilst he has lost his way at the wrong club. Bought just to stop others recruiting him, his experience, like those of others there, will hopefully benefit all other clubs over the next few years as good young talent will think twice before joining the "Chels".
United and Arsenal experienced vastly contrasting fortunes in Europe with Fergie's rebuilding exercise resulting in abject failure in finishing bottom of their group but their exit served only to inspire them to a run of form domestically that saw them claim runners up spot whilst the gunners struggled in the league before predictably overtaking a wilting Tottenham to claim fourth place.In a manner amazingly similar to our performance last year, Arsenal survived very indifferent domestic form, particularly away from home, to go all the way to the final in Europe. The coincidences even extended to a major influence in the club leaving for the "apparent" greener grass elsewhere - forPatrick Viera read Michael Owen and they have defied all the critics with a level of performance to take them to the greatest final in club football. Good luck to them. You have to hold your hands up to Arsene Wenger who steadfastly kept faith in his youngsters who have repaid him beyond all reasonable expectations, especially bearing in mind their form prior to Xmas & the importance of leaving Highbury on a high. Can you imagine their worst-case scenario, with a Henry-less Arsenal kicking off the new season in the UEFA cup at a half empty, brand new, Emirates stadium? No, let's give credit where it's due, only the most biased fan would argue that, when on form, Arsenal are second only to Barcelona in playing attractive attacking football, something we all like to see.
It was galling that we could not overhaul United to get the runners up spot but a defining moment was our defeat at OT when we could not transform midfield domination into goals due to the lack of quality up front and we succumbed to that last minute sucker punch. They consequently took their chance to establish a points lead over us during that period when we could not score and even our late run of consecutive wins was not enough to overhaul them with the 3 points gained from Rio's late header proving to be the eventual difference between 2nd and 3rd place.
At the start of the season, though, if we had been offered third place, 9 points behind Chelsea, 1 behind United & Arsenal well behind us in fourth you would have grabbed it. Our season has been a massive improvement on last year and we are, at last, showing the consistency for a concerted challenge on the title. The overall difference was down to the defeats home and away to Chelsea, and the dropped points at OT and Highbury. Those losses to our major rivals are the fine margins between winners & losers but significantly in each of those games we just did not have the quality in front of goal to pull off the win when it really counted.
Fernando Morientes, Djibril Cisse, Peter Crouch & Robbie Fowler are good players but they do not possess the quality to score the goals consistently at the very highest level.
In every other department we are strong. Pepe Reina has had a great season and with Jerzy available as a very able back up, we were able to loan Scott Carson out to Sheffield Wednesday where he played a major role in staving off relegation for them.
Defensively, Steve Finnan has restated his credentials as the best right back in the country, whilst Jamie was, well, Jamie and Sami was exceptional after many had written him off last year. JAR is another who had a good season after being written off in some quarters & as usual with a player who is taken for granted, only when he was out injured (along with Momo) did we realise his worth & we had our worst spell of the season. It was no coincidence that their subsequent return brought about our late surge in form with some memorable Riise goals featuring along the way.
The prospective signing of Fabio Aurelio will give JAR some competition that, alas, Djimi and Steve do not provide. It would be no surprise to see one or both of these lads move on, faced with improved competition from new arrivals & our promising youth set up with Barragan, amongst others, looking set to feature next year. Daniel Agger will look to start afresh next season after an indifferent introduction but will face competition from Gabriel Paletta but the news, if true, that Jan Kromkamp has not settled at the club is disappointing after some encouraging early performances.
The strength of our team lies in our midfield, with a captain who is now arguably the most complete midfield player in world football and he endorsed this at Cardiff. Add to this the passing of Xabi Alonso, who is a mix of Ronnie Whelan and Jan Molby rolled into one plus the stamina & ball winning skills of Momo Sissoko and you have a trio as good as anything around in football today. Supplementing these we had either the improved Harry Kewell, the enigmatic Luis Garci or the steady influence of Didi Hamann and all served us well. The unlucky Bolo can surely play a part next year, but the futures for Chris, Bruno, Salif, Florent, Anthony & Neil are surely at other clubs now.
So who can we get to take us to the next step in order to consistently challenge at home & abroad. Players who will give you something special, add variety and that quality to set up or score the goal at Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford or the Camp Nou which ultimately make us champions and not also rans. I will volunteer three names that I believe would add flair, excitement and above all the attacking options that make the difference between challengers and winners. I have no inside knowledge or contacts within the club. I do not know what our transfer budget is or who will be leaving in the summer. I will just offer you three names, all of whom are different ages, are exciting attacking players, offer different options in attack and all are South Americans. They would transform the club on & off the pitch and elevate our profile in that part of the globe to the status we currently enjoy in Spain.
Firstly, there will be an enormous restructuring at Real Madrid this summer and one player who is likely to move on is Ronaldo. Up until the time his protégé Ronaldinho arrived on the scene at the last world cup, here is a man who was acknowledged as the best footballer in the world. Stories emanating from Madrid indicate he has been unsettled for some time now but I believe that at 29 here is a player who could be a revelation for us. Sure there seems to be fitness & weight issues here but if we can ensure he still has the appetite to succeed, under our coaching regime I believe we can bring out the level of performance that he still shows for his country & we could get a world beater here for the next 2/3 years for perhaps a very low transfer fee albeit he would command very high wages. Can you imagine the excitement that this signing would create on Merseyside? A Brazilian world cup winner and former world player of the year leading our attack? Almost for the first time since Johnny Barnes, we would have a player who can pick up the ball anywhere inside the opponents half, take on and beat a man and would always need to be watched by 2 or 3 defenders. His ability to take the play to the opposition is exactly what we have not got at the moment. Furthermore, while they were marking him, how much space would this create for the likes of Steven Gerrard?
Worth a gamble if the price is right? I think so.
One player who would not be a gamble is Pablo Aimar. Here is a player who ran the show for Rafa at Valencia and allegedly would love to be reunited with his old boss.
If we decided to play 4-5-1, he would be ideal in the role just behind the front man, adding the guile we sometimes lack around the box plus the ability to see & play the short killer pass inside the defender. A perfect foil for Stevie, Xabi & Momo, imagine what options this would give us in the middle of the park supplemented by Didi, Luis, Harry & Bolo. Providing the key to unlock the tightest defences with the proven ability to do it on the world stage, I believe he would be an obvious & brilliant addition to our squad and still to hit his peak at 26.
My last suggestion is the young star from Independiente, Sergio Aguerro. At 17 this kid has already played at the top level in Argentina for two seasons. Yes, this would be gamble but when you look at Messi, Rooney and to a lesser extent Walcott you see that other clubs are prepared to pay big money for the best prospects so why not us? If the gamble pays off then you have a true world superstar in your midst & I believe we now have the strength in depth to take chance here. Yes, he is very young and it would be unlike Liverpool to pay so much for a teenager but we will never have the millions of Real Madrid or Chelsea and be able to buy players for 20, 30 or even 40 million pounds but what if this lad continues to improve and becomes the equal of Messi or Rooney by the time he got to 20? How galling would this be if he went to Bayern or Atletico Madrid and not us? From all accounts the lad even supports us and with his mate Paletta already signed up I believe this is a gamble worth taking.
So there you are. 3 more latin Americans to add to Mark Gonzalez, Paletta & hopefully, Fabio Aurelio and what a cosmopolitan outfit we would have then. Extravagant, certainly. Realistic targets, why not? All are probably available at, say, £10 million each but in terms attacking talent with skill & flair, these are the sort of players who would fill any ground & get you up out of your seat. In fact, come to think of it, aren't they just the type of footballer our chief executive said we would buy a couple of years ago when we landed El Hadji Diouf?
To get to the next level & win the premiership, world-class attackers are needed because we cannot replicate the mistakes made by Gerard Houllier in 2002 by bringing in the wrong players. Widely touted British options such as Bellamy, Bent, Defoe and Pennant are, in my view, just not good enough, cannot compare with Ballack & Shevchenko and are no better than what we have. To challenge the best we have got to bring in the best. We cannot continue to rely on our midfield and Stevie in particular to carry us through. Ask yourself how good we would be with the calibre of players I have proposed playing up front.
We have a team work ethic that is second to none with a spirit that refuses to accept defeat and are now firmly in place as the entertainers & darlings of televised football with our ability to defy the odds and win classic cup ties but we must move on now, lose our tag as just a good cup side and win the important one. We have made enormous progress under Rafael Benitez but the next step will be the hardest and can only be achieved by bringing in the very best players. If we do not back the manager with really big money, the impetus gained over this pivotal season will be wasted.
Over to you Mr Moores & Mr Parry?
Exciting times to be a red.
Liverpudlian
