it's never going to be manager's fault , the players are to be
blame .
To change a manager , means a new start , a new budget , a new
style from scratch .
We just do not have those luxuries .
I have to take it that this is not the season for Liverpool
.
if Lucas are playing , we are not going to win anything .
U dun win things with kids .
well, PM, it seems U like Rafa a lot.
A loss is nothing, but then, Rafa made a critical error
->
(http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/steve-stammers/After-criticising-Gerrard-and-Carragher-Rafa-Benitez-needs-to-learn-what-goes-on-in-the-dressing-room-stays-in-the-dressing-room-article132001.html).
t is one of the oldest maxims in football – lose the dressing
room and you end up losing the battle.
Rafa Benitez is likely to discover the veracity of that saying
over the next few months.
No-one is above criticism. No-one. That includes Steven Gerrard
and Jamie Carragher.
But even if a manager feels that one man who is arguably the
most complete player in the world and another who has proved his
physical courage beyond any debate or question are at fault, such
words should be delivered in the inner sanctum of the dressing
room.
Gerrard and Carragher can take it. They are big boys.
But once such verbal assaults are made in the public arena, it
is the start of a slippery slope.
Gerrard and Carragher this week – whose turn will it be after
the next Liverpool defeat? That will be going through the minds of
the players.
Great managers keep their views private and in-house.
I can recall Sir Alex Ferguson being asked after a Fabien
Barthez howler had cost Manchester United a match what the French
goalkeeper had said in the dressing room afterwards.
That Glaswegian stare came to the fore as he answered: ”What
goes on in my dressing room is absolutely none of your business. Ok
?”
End of conversation.
Over at The Emirates, Arsene Wenger has owned up to regular
attacks of myopia when one of his players has been guilty of a
misdemeanour. “I didn’t see it,” is now his famous, catch-all
response.
Over at Tottenham, Harry Redknapp made light of a glaring miss
by Darren Bent by insisting his wife Sandra could have scored.
Cue laugh.
A dig at Bent but not in a humiliating fashion. An off-the-cuff
remark.
But Benitez doesn’t do humour. That’s a fact.
It filters out that he is unhappy at the funds with which he is
provided and yet some estimates show that his sell-buy balance is
in excess of 100 million. That’s a fact.
And like Phil Brown at Hull, who famously – or infamously –
paraded his shattered players on the pitch for a half-time
rollocking at Manchester City in front of the travelling fans, the
line between respect and resentment is gossamer-thin.
Hull won just one more league game after the public humiliation
last Boxing Day and stayed up more through what other teams didn’t
do than what they did themselves.
They say you reap what you sow.
Benitez has just sown the seeds of discontent and there could
well be a price to pay.
That’s a fact.