da bet7k： Love him or hate him, no man divides opinion on Merseyside more than Rafa Benitez. He was ruthless, hard to please, tactically astute, made quite a few enemies for his style of management and conduct but I want to explore why to one person Benitez is considered one of Liverpool’s greatest managers and to another he is considered a failure. In his 6 years with the Anfield club Liverpool won a Champions League, an F.A. Cup, reached a further Champions League final, were Premier League runners up on one occasion and had a further four top-four finishes.
da wazamba： He presided over arguably Liverpool’s most successful period since the late eighties but in his final season Liverpool slumped to a disappointing 7th position – “and this is a fact”. So what do Liverpool Football Club owe this man, while many idolised him and would love to see him back at some point, he is vilified by others who were delighted to see the back of him in June 2010.
It’s fair to say that during Benitez’s tenure, inconsistency was a presiding theme as Liverpool had some fantastic highs and some baffling lows. In his first season Liverpool won the Champions League but in the league they finished in 5th place, behind city rivals Everton and lost in the League Cup final to Chelsea. In the 2005-06 season Liverpool’s league form improved, finishing in 3rd place and winning the FA cup, however their Champions League performance wasn’t what they had hoped and they were dumped out in the 1st Knockout Stage by Benfica.
The 2006-07 season saw the arrival of the calamity duo of Hicks and Gillett. Liverpool did reach another Champions League final and finished the season in 3rd once again, however they were 21 points off winners Manchester United.
Liverpool were even worse the next season, finishing in 4th and there were rumours that Benitez’s time was coming to an end as his relationship with the owners became strained. Benitez survived and the 2008-09 season saw them push Manchester United all the way, finishing in 2nd place just 4 points behind the winners, losing only 2 games all season. His final season saw Liverpool completely slump under the pressure of trying to mount a serious title challenge and they eventually finished in 7th place and dropped out of the Champions League at the group stages.
The result: Benitez had his contract terminated. So 2 major trophies, 4 top-four finishes and a further Champions League final… Oh and of course a famous Community Shield win in 2006, get in! I would argue that although his final season in charge was a complete flop, Liverpool made great strides forward in the League and 2 Champions League final appearances re-established them as a European Super-Power once more.
One of the key misconceptions of Benitez’s reign at Liverpool was that he was a bit dense when it came to the transfer market. In fairness, in six seasons he brought in around 80 players including a disproportionate amount of expensive flops which became a stick with which to beat Benitez with when things went badly. For every Reina, Mascherano, Alonso, Torres, Luis Garcia, Arbeloa and Kuyt he signed – there was a Robbie Keane, Kromkamp, Nunez (Legend!), Dossena, Bellamy, Morientes or Josemi. In total, Rafa Benitez spent £229.3m during his stint in charge, contributed too by the expensive signings of Aquilani (£17m), Johnson (£17.5m), Keane (£19m), Torres (£20m) and Mascherano (£19m).
[ad_pod id=’unruly-2′ align=’right’]
However, as Rafa was so keen to point out, despite his huge expenditure the club did manage to recoup much of that money back. In total Liverpool recouped £151m from player sales during his reign and overall Rafa’s NET spend was £78.3m which is not a huge deficit in Premier League terms (Also Liverpool have profited further from big money sales of players Benitez brought to the club, notably Torres and Mascherano). Meanwhile in the same period Fergie’s United have posted a NET spend of £27m, helped by the £80m gained from the sale of Ronaldo, Chelsea have NET spend of £186m , Manchester City’s spending in the same period doesn’t even bear mentioning whilst Arsenal have made a profit of £27m in the same period. So in comparison (other than Arsenal who are renowned for their tight-fisted approach to the transfer market) Rafa Benitez didn’t actually do that badly so the argument that he was a bit of a pudding in the transfer market actually carries little weight in comparison with their rivals.
Although his impact during his time in charge is up for debate, what cannot be denied is his visionary work behind the scenes. He was often criticised for not bringing through any young local players but how could he if the talent was not there. He brought in a lot of young players to the academy to raise the standards of the youth team which in turn saw a return of 3 FA Youth Cup final appearances and 2 wins and weaned a couple of youngsters in the League Cup.
Meanwhile he brought in both Jose Segura, the highly regarded former Barcelona Youth coach, as technical manager at Liverpool’s Youth Academy and he brought back ‘King’ Kenny Dalglish in 2009 to oversee the Academy with the aim of raising the standards of the youth and local talent so they could challenge for a first team place.
This work is now beginning to bear fruit as in recent months the likes of Jay Spearing, Jack Robinson and John Flanagan have broken into the first team and performed very well, whilst the academy boasts 5 England U-19 internationals and a hatful of England U-17 internationals. This would not have been achieved without Benitez’s determination to invest in the youth team.
Overall, I think Benitez did a fairly good job given the resources available to him and the boardroom struggles that went on. He converted Jamie Carragher from utility man to one of Europe’s best centre-backs whilst adding a lot of quality to the team and for a period in 2008-09, Liverpool had probably the best first-eleven in the league. His legendary ‘Rafa Rant’ about Sir Alex Ferguson, although with hindsight probably wasn’t well judged, though it wound Fergie right up and that’s always nice to see. Memorable victories against AC Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United demonstrated his excellent tactical nous and will live comfortably in the memories of Liverpool fans.
With Kenny Dalglish at the helm Liverpool will hopefully go from strength to strength and build on the work done by Rafa whose tenure should be considered on the whole, as a positive one for Liverpool Football Club, despite his poor last season in charge.
Read more of Rachid’s articles at This Is Futbol