The End of an Era at Anfield?
The End of an Era at Anfield?
By Christian McKinlay
It has been 4 years since Liverpool football club have won a trophy and 19 years since the club has won their domestic league title, which they were reminded of last weekend at their defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford. Rafael Benitez has been under fire during a frustrating season for Liverpool Football Club and another loss to their closest rivals has brought further frustration to the fans.
Manager Gerard Houllier was Benitez’s predecessor at the club and he spent five years at Liverpool football club attempting to rebuild the squad and searching for the lost glory from the 70s and 80s at Liverpool. Houllier did not do terribly at Liverpool he managed to win six trophies in his five-year spell and winning three in one year. The problem perhaps the board and fans had with Gerard Houllier was that he did not seem to be making very much progress in the Premier League and after finishing fifth in the 2003-2004 season Houllier was subsequently sacked.
The appointment to replace Houllier was Rafael Benitez. Rafael Benitez arrived at Liverpool and was immediately glorified by the fans and the press. Benitez, with his success as a coach of Valencia (winning La Liga twice), was known as a tactical genius and although his teams weren’t renowned for their flair, a tough defence and immaculate organisation were a common characteristic of Rafael Benitez’s sides. His experience of winning a domestic league hoped to bring Liverpool’s long wait for a league title to an end. This season things changed. Benitez sold arguably their best player, along with Torres and Gerrard, from last years campaign Xabi Alonso. He was sold to Madrid for around €35m. This upset the Liverpool fans. Benitez tried to please the fans by signing Alberto Aquilani from AS Roma who was known to play a similar role to Alonso. Benitez bought Aquilani for €25m but the player arrived with a long-term injury and did not even make an appearance until around half way through the season. Liverpool started the season badly losing two of their first three league games. Benitez chose to play Lucas Leiva because the sold Alonso and injured Aquilani could not play. Lucas seemed to be inexperienced and the fans and press stated it was a bad decision of Benitez’s to play Lucas. Another area Benitez’s side seemed to be lacking was the depth of a squad that teams like Chelsea, Man Utd and even Arsenal seemed to have. Benitez found himself searching for decent replacements when key players like Torres or Gerrard were injured. David Ngog is an example of a player who replaced Torres when injured and although he might be a great prospect is just not up to the standards Liverpool need to push for the league title. Liverpool went through a bad run of form winning only one game from ten and losing out in the Champions League in only the group stages. Half way through the season the media were already announcing that it was impossible for Liverpool to win the league.
Now we are in March and Liverpool are currently 6th in the Premier League. Rafa Benitez promised in a Sky Sports interview that his side would finish 4th in this years league, which would ensure at least the possibility of Liverpool being in the Champions League next year. However this does not seem an easy task, as there are strong teams around Liverpool such as Aston Villa, Manchester City, and Tottenham who all have a shout at finishing fourth this season. Many fans feel that if Benitez does not reach the desired fourth spot this year that he may lose his job as Liverpool manager.
Benitez has clearly made a few large errors this season and the fact he has not won a trophy for four years leaves Liverpool fans dissatisfied. So we are left with two questions. The first question is even though Benitez has won the Champions League and FA Cup is it not good enough now for Liverpool fans unless the manager wins the league? And the second question is how long does the board give a manager to win the league, 6 years, 7, 8?
Liverpool take on Sunderland this Saturday at 16:00 (GMT) and then travel to Lisbon to travel Benfica to play the first leg of the Europa League quarter final on Thursday.
