Old habits die hard: Allardyce has renewed his war
of words with rival Benitez
Sunday, 28
February 2010
Sam Allardyce has taunted arch-critic Rafa Benitez by
claiming that Liverpool are turning into the new
Bolton.
The pair’s long-running feud began in August 2004 when Liverpool
lost 1-0 in a bruising encounter with Bolton — their first defeat
under Benitez.
The Spaniard attacked Bolton’s strong-arm tactics then and the
managers became embroiled in another spat last season. That time,
Allardyce, by then in charge at Blackburn, was furious at a Benitez
hand gesture he interpreted as signalling that the game was all
over when Liverpool had taken a 2-0 lead at Anfield.
Benitez tried to clarify the issue by claiming that he was
jokingly telling his players not to listen to him after they had
ignored his orders and gone on to score.
Allardyce’s anger still simmers, though, and ahead of Sunday’s
clash he declared that Liverpool’s recent run of hard-fought
results had been achieved with the same uncompromising style about
which Benitez was once so disparaging.
Allardyce said: ‘He’s used all that stuff that he always says he
doesn’t like — it’s ironic, isn’t it?
‘I watched them at Manchester City and they got six players
booked, so he’s brought the physical side out as well.
‘If it’s a good physical challenge on Sunday then I’ll be more
than happy to go down that route — although I don’t really have the
players to do that like I did at Bolton.
'But they’ve had to go back to basics and the pretty stuff goes
out of the window until you start winning. They have been
professional and dogged enough to slowly improve over recent
weeks.
‘They have not been as pretty and fluid as they could be but
they have done the job and got the results they needed to get back
in the pack.’
Allardyce also revealed that, at the height of the pair’s
dispute, he discovered Benitez had gone to referees’ chief Keith
Hackett with evidence against Bolton.
Allardyce added: ‘He went as far as putting a DVD together and
sending it to Keith Hackett. He doesn’t know I know that, but I do.
I got on to Keith Hackett and told him I didn’t want it to
influence what refs do because it was all a load of rubbish.’There
was a blow for Benitez when it was confirmed that defender
Martin Skrtel suffered a broken toe on his right foot in
Liverpool’s Europa League win over Unirea Urziceni on Thursday.
Scans showed he cracked a metatarsal.
‘Martin has had X-rays today, and they have confirmed he has a
broken metatarsal,’ said the Liverpool manager. ‘We have to check
over the next couple of days how long it will take him to
recover.’