Kop war

[Dunny]

REDS DIRECTORS CAN'T MOVE ON RAFA

Fans have turned against Benitez

</IMG> BENITEZ: Under pressure but under contract






By Chris Bascombe, 16/01/2010
RAFA BENITEZ last night claimed he remains Liverpool manager because of the backing of the fans.


But after another miserable afternoon for his struggling side, even the most loyal of Benitez's supporters on The Kop are starting to lose faith in their boss.

A Sport Of The World poll, which has been running since the Reds' disastrous FA Cup defeat by Championship strugglers Reading on Wednesday - shows a staggering 73 per cent of fans who voted want Benitez booted out now.

Our poll also has former Chelsea bosses Guus Hiddink and Jose Mourinho as favourites to succeed him. And after yesterday's 1-1 draw at Stoke, the home fans taunted the Spaniard with chants of: "You're getting sacked in the morning."

Another cheeky supporter even had a giant banner depicting Benitez's name on a P45 form. Until now, Rafa has always enjoyed strong backing from fans but increasingly it's only the on-going support of Texan co-owner Tom Hicks that means Benitez has until the end of the season to save his job.

Rob Huth's late equaliser, after Sotirios Kyrgiakos's opener for the Reds, wrecked Benitez's hopes of ending one of the worst weeks of his reign on a slightly upbeat note.

The draw leaves Liverpool four points behind Spurs in the race for fourth place and a slot in next season's Champions League.

Benitez insisted his players were "fantastic" and is certain he still has the backing of the Kop.

"I decided to stay here because of the fans," he said. "In football, sometimes things go against you. We have these problems but the only way to change things is to keep going and keep working hard.

"The most positive thing for me is the players were trying from beginning to end. They were working really hard, so it's difficult.

"We'll improve if we continue working in this way. The main thing was to show character."

"I'm really pleased with the performance against a difficult team. In a tough game we did almost everything to win.

"If you asked me before the game if I'd take a point, I'd say it's not bad, but after winning for 89 minutes I felt we could have got the three points."
Disliked

Co-owner George Gillett wants to review Benitez's position immediately, but Hicks is standing by the five-year contract given to the manager last year.


BENITEZ: Gillett feels he was railroaded on deal

Like Benitez, Hicks is sure the fans remain feverishly resistant to a change of manager, which is why he's become the chief supporter of the perennially under-siege Spanish manager ever since the ill-fated plot to oust him two years ago.

It was Gillett who inspired that campaign, backed enthusiastically and unanimously by the rest of the board at the time, only for it to backfire horribly when the talks with Jurgen Klinsmann were exposed.

Gillett is disliked by the supporters as much as Hicks and has been ostracised and outmanoeuvred by his 'partner' ever since, to the point where it's difficult to assess precisely what influence, if any, he has at Liverpool.

He's been overruled on virtually every key decision, from the change of architects on the mythical Stanley Park stadium, the length of the manager's contract, the position of ex-chief executive Rick Parry and whether new managing director Christian Purslow's role should be transitional or permanent.

Gillett and Hicks are barely on speaking terms. Faced with some of the most pivotal decisions in their history, the directors are in a state of paralysis.

There hasn't been a board meeting at Anfield for two years so the duo are not even in a position to discuss the crisis, let alone agree on who should manage their team now or in the future.

A Kop source told Sport of the World: "George Gillett believes the warnings about giving the manager a new five-year deal last season have proven true. He feels he was railroaded into making that decision and the team is now suffering because of it.

"At the very least, he believes the board should be having a healthy debate about the manager's position but it's evident Liverpool have backed themselves into a corner by publicly insisting it's not even up for discussion."

[Dunny]

Buyer needs £1bn for Anfield takeover to succeed



Jonathan Northcroft

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gSiteLife.Recommend("ExternalResource", "6991136","http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article6991136.ece");Recommend?








div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;} THE ENTRANCE to Liverpool’s Melwood training ground is almost always open during working hours, with just a couple of gateman to keep out the public. On Friday a 10ft steel barrier was drawn across but the only punters it offered protection from were a bloke and his girlfriend who stood politely telling journalists they had to knock against the metal if they wanted to get inside. Liverpool’s fans are still at the jeering rather than rioting stage. Walking on is what they signed up for. They cannot just say to bad times, in the manner of Tom Hicks Jr: “Blow me, f***face. Go to hell. I’m sick of you.”
Yesterday’s draw against Stoke plunged their football club further into the morass, but though dissent against Rafael Benitez is growing, the affectionate response on the message boards towards his humorous performance at his Friday press conference shows he still knows how to play to his audience. Liverpool’s owners, Tom Hicks Sr and George Gillett, remain the focus of their ire. If the Americans sold up, as fans implore them to, it would be the most popular exit from Merseyside since the M62. The chances of it happening, however, remain remote.
The price of buying out the Americans and bringing Liverpool back, on and off the pitch, to the standard of a world-class club, was revealed this week to be in the region of £1billion. Hicks and Gillett continue to cast around for a new investor to buy a 25% stake in their club, on offer for £100m. That values Liverpool at £400m and in a local newspaper interview on Wednesday the chief executive, Christian Purslow, branded building a new stadium as “the key” to Liverpool being able to contend with other leading clubs.
The admission underlines that leaving Anfield must now be considered a necessity rather than optional for any would-be buyer and the cost of a new stadium is estimated as being another £400m. Chelsea, in the first 12 months of Roman Abramovich, spent a net £210m on transfers and in the same span under Sheikh Mansour, Manchester City’s transfer investment was £180m. It is fair to say, therefore, the tariff for revamping a squad such as Liverpool’s back to standard would exceed £100m. Then there is the question of whether replacing Benitez is desirable. If a new owner deemed so, the manager would require the remainder of his contract, worth £4m per year and running until summer 2014, to be honoured and a sizeable part of his entourage would inevitably need paying off, too. And how much would that cost? Benitez has at least 20 backroom staff, of whom nine followed him to England from Spanish football, 17 were Benitez’s appointees and 13 arrived in the past year.
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• Benitez thwarted again by late goal

• Affection for Benitez begins to seep away

• Defiant Benitez battles on at Anfield

Who is going give fans their wish and run Hicks and Gillett out of town at that price? “In the current market, finance for football club buyouts is brutally hard to come by and there are no investors out there saying, ‘I’m desperate to lend to the football sector’,” said leading football financial consultant Harry Philp. “The cost of buying Liverpool and building a new stadium is £800m before you start on players. Given Arsenal, who already have the Emirates, are worth £800m, that doesn’t seem great value.
“Twenty-five per cent of Liverpool is on offer but I don’t see why anyone would buy that minority stake. You’d pay £100m into getting one quarter of a dysfunctional football club and your money would go straight to the bank, to service Hicks and Gillett’s debt.
“The prospect of investment is made even slimmer by the presence of the sheikhs at Manchester City. It’s that much harder to buy a club and compete when faced with such a rich competitor. Three or four years ago, I was working with American investors and they all asked, ‘What happens if another Abramovich appears, and there’s another Chelsea in the Premier League to dislocate the transfer market?’ These people were savvy, the owners of NBA and NFL franchises, and they just couldn’t live with that risk. You’d have to say, with City, their worst fears have come true.”
A source in the football finance sector, who has dealt with Hicks and Gillett and has knowledge of their search for Middle Eastern money, said: “Christian Purslow has been talking for weeks about being close to finding £100m but it’s yet to materialise and I’d be shocked if it comes from the Middle East. Hicks and Gillett have kept on and on going to the region and sending people there, and getting no interest. They just don’t seem to understand the word ‘No’.
“They can talk about interest from investors but who in their right mind would want to part with £100m for a minority stake in that set-up? Any serious businessperson would be after a controlling stake.”
WHY THE REMEDY COSTS SO MUCH
COST OF CLUB £400m
NEW STADIUM £400m
SQUAD OVERHAUL £100m+
MANAGERIAL SWITCH £40m
TOTAL SPEND £940m+

[Dunny]

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, high on his plinth outside the North Stafford hotel, looked suitably miserable as the rain lashed down.


Well, the founding father of Stoke pottery had been stuck there since 1865.

Rafa Benitez wasn't looking much happier, either. And it only SEEMS he's been at Anfield as long.
An afternoon spent battling the robotic musclemen of Stoke City in the dispiriting gloom of a mist-shrouded Staffordshire industrial estate is no one's idea of fun.

Least of all Javier Mascherano.

Had Liverpool managed to escape from the Britannia Stadium with all three points after the midweek humiliation by Reading, a rare smile might have crossed his lips.

Then, of course, Liverpool shipped yet another late goal, saw Dirk Kuyt put his header against a post in added time and moaned that two penalty shouts had gone against them.

As Mascherano trooped off, he had the look of a man wondering what the hell he was doing spending his afternoons in a Bodmin Moor pea-souper more suited to the Hound of the Baskervilles.

And alongside certain players - the helpless, hopeless Emiliano Insua, Philipp Degen and David Ngog among them - who would have struggled to have got into the very same Reading side who ejected Liverpool from the FA Cup . . .

When he might have been with Messi, Ibrahimovic, Xavi and Iniesta at the Nou Camp.

Once upon a time there were few players anywhere good enough to get into the Liverpool side.

Once upon a time you knew the Reds' line-up off by heart.

Now you look at them and scratch your head.

The only recognisable thing about some of them is their total failure to match up in any respect to the identikit once required of a Liverpool player.

This is all down to Benitez. He hasn't exactly been strapped for cash, either, after spending £200m.

Now you have the spectacle of Liverpool, five times champions of Europe and 18 times champions of England, reduced to fielding the confidence-shot Insua, a player in Degen whose only league appearance this season saw him sent off at Fulham while, in the absence of the injured Torres (again), it falls to an out-of-his-depth greenhorn like Ngog to try and bale them out.

Mascherano would have also been musing, along with the rest of us, just how Liverpool could have done with former strikers like Peter Crouch, Craig Bellamy or Robbie Keane on a day like this.

How Kuyt, scorer of 71 goals in 101 league games with Feyenoord, has scraped together just 32 in 125 at Anfield.

How the huge promise with which Ryan Babel arrived at Anfield has mysteriously evaporated and how Benitez has squandered £20m on the injury-prone Alberto Aquilani, who didn't even make Saturday's starting line-up.

Up in the stands, Steven Gerrard stared through the gloom as Benitez made his way down the tunnel to face the next inquest with the sound of Stoke fans screaming "You're getting sacked in the morning" ringing in his ears.

He wouldn't be, of course, as the Liverpool hierarchy seem hell-bent on the Spaniard soldiering on.



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Then, again, defeat against Spurs at Anfield on Wednesday night - and maybe, a goal or two from Crouch or Keane - and the whole "Rafa Out" process will start again.

If Benitez was knackered, he didn't particularly show it.

Considering everything, he appears in miraculous condition, buoyed, no doubt, by the support of Liverpool fans who continued to chant his name on Saturday.

With a wry smile for the Press, he bemoaned his side's bad luck, discussed the particular problems posed by Stoke and addressed both Babel's absence and rumours of a possible dressing-room ruck between Gerrard and one of his coaching staff at half-time against Reading.

Then he retraced his footsteps back out into the rain to rejoin and placate a set of players still seething about the injustices of life.

All in a day's work. And all without Gerrard, Torres, Yossi Benayoun, Daniel Agger and Glen Johnson.

Of Gerrard, he said: "He was here to show his enormous commitment to this club. Though he is injured, he is our captain and came along to help us. As for any argument with anyone on Wednesday, that is 100 per cent not the case.

"As for Babel, I talked to him a week ago and explained the situation very clearly. After this meeting, everything was fine, he worked well and he was on the bench against Reading. And he played.

"Afterwards, things weren't so good and I decided he would not be on the bench today. Now we look ahead to the next game. If he trains well, then he will be available. If he doesn't, he won't."

The waters were muddied further by Babel apparently ruling out any chance of a move to Sunderland in a swap for Kenwyne Jones.

And then there was the game - a horrible, tedious, disjointed affair that made a mockery of claims by Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger that the standard of the Premier League continues to improve.

That Stoke and Sunderland, hammered 7-2 at Chelsea, could have started the day 10th and 11th in the table tells you just how far English football has regressed.

Yes, Stoke have their sympathisers who admire their pragmatic approach, how they play to their strengths and the way the club runs a tight ship at a time when others are building up big debts.

But it ain't pretty. As soon as Rory Delap departed injured after just 23 minutes so their main threat - Herculean throw-ins that had twice worried a keeper as good as Pepe Reina - disappeared.

Liverpool then took a 56th-minute lead when a mistake by Thomas Sorensen allowed Sotirios Kyrgiakos to bundle the ball home.

Only to concede a late equaliser when Danny Higginbotham headed a corner back across goal for Robert Huth to run home.

As Benitez said: "Free-kicks, throw-ins, corners, the ball always in the air. Against Stoke, it is always a challenge, another challenge and yet another challenge. There is no rest, no escape."

He could have been talking about himself and Liverpool.