The crisis of Liverpool and Benitez

By Thomas O'Loughlin | 23rd December 2009

The crisis of Liverpool and Benitez | read this item

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Manchester United have MUTV, Chelsea have Chelsea TV and Liverpool have the History Channel. This season has been disaster followed by disaster for Liverpool, much to the delight of fans of other clubs. The opening day defeat to Tottenham proved to be a precursor for the shambles that has so far unfolded this season.

Last weekend’s defeat to Portsmouth was another embarrassing stat on Liverpool’s sorry season and further performances like this over the Christmas period will push them farther away from challenging for the top four. Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have been troubled by injury, and even with them in the team they are struggling with the huge pressure placed on them to perform and win games by themselves.

The manager also has to be blamed for Liverpool’s predicament. The longer Benitez stays the more stagnant and less progressive Liverpool will become. As a Manchester United supporter, I hope Benitez stays for as long as possible as he provides great entertainment for fans of the other clubs. He makes bizarre decisions and his excuses are quickly running out.

One of the major talking points this season is the inconsistency of the major sides. Manchester United have been dreadful in quite a few games and I have no faith in them getting past AC Milan in the Champions League Round of 16. In the home game against Aston Villa, it was hardly a wise move starting with a 4-5-1 and putting a player who scored a hat-trick in the Champions League in midweek on the bench. Last weekend’s performance was again inadequate, and although excuses could be made given the defensive crisis, the midfield was still dreadful and Paul Scholes no longer has the legs to cope with the demands of away league games.

Even though Dimitar Berbatov was on the bench on Saturday he has not brought an improvement to his game this season and he may be offloaded in the summer. Berbatov has been a big disappointment and the sooner Ferguson cuts his losses on him the better.

Chelsea also slipped up against West Ham at the weekend and they are failing to take advantage of the other teams slipping up and extend their lead. Petr Cech is no longer a top goalkeeper and the criticism of his performances are justified. If Chelsea find form then one would expect them to go on and win the league as United are not convincing in their performances and Arsenal are vulnerable without key players like Fabregas and Van Persie. It will be interesting to see if Arsenal experience a slump in the second half of the season like they did for the past few seasons.

Aston Villa have also been victims of the slump in the second half of the season in the past. But over the last few weeks they have certainly been on form and they are certainly contenders for the fourth Champions League spot along with Tottenham and Man City. They are a well balanced side with players on top form like Ashley Young and James Milner. John Carew or Emile Heskey can always make an impact and provide a goal, and in the game against United, arguably Villa had the better side on paper.

Finally, Roberto Mancini has replaced Mark Hughes as Manchester City manager and Hughes has every right to be unhappy. Mancini was very lucky to have the success he had at Inter Milan as it coincided with the match fixing scandal in Italian football. During his reign in the Champions League they didn’t make any impact. Hughes is a good manager as he proved over a long period at Blackburn and he should have been given more time.

The manager’s position at City could become a poisoned chalice like the one at Chelsea became after Mourinho. It certainly looks like we have plenty to look forward to over the rest of the season with lots of questions to be answered.

Joe D'Amore says:

December 25, 2009 at 10:03 am

Mark Hughes sacking reminds us of one of the three scourges of football: LUST for dominance , results and money. This leads to the standard lack of courtesy or professionalism as we witnessed in Hughe’s handling .None exists at the ownership level in many clubs, certainly at Man C. The other two scourges: match fixing and barbarism in the stands. Other than these it IS a beautiful game.

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Alfred says:

December 25, 2009 at 2:27 am

Hughes was having a bad run. If a company manager is performing badly he will be fired, the same happened to Hughes, this is completely understandable. With the amount of money being thrown during the summer they could not afford to keep Hughes and his ties. Mancini is a class A coach. He has won an award with every team he has managed, not just a product of the calciopoli scandal. I have no doubt he will break into the top 4.

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Bob says:

December 24, 2009 at 9:09 am

From a neutral’s point of view ( as far as City go anyway) I am so dissapointed with the whole City managerial epic. Firstly i think they didn’t give Hughes enough time and they did it with no class at all, secondly to see Mancini in makes me yawn, we all know italians like defensive football and play very defensively, another boring team to add to the EPL. More british and french managers please, Brit managers generally try and play entertaining football and look at Arsenal they play really exciting football, which is what makes the EPL so respected, but more defensive managers make me yawn, look at West Ham, they surely must be one of the most boring teams to watch at present.

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- Thomas O'Loughlin says:
  
  December 24, 2009 at 11:28 am
  
  I thoroughly agree with the Man City situation, Hughes was treated unfairly. He is much criticised for buying Robinho and selling Richard Dunne but these transfers were both board decisions not made by the manager. Hughes showed at Blackburn his quality and sacking him was the wrong move.
  
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