[lfc-news] Cracks start to show in Rafalution - Guardian

The Guardian, 20 Jan 2005
Cracks start to show in Rafalution
Liverpool's manager feels force of FA Cup backlash, writes Dominic Fifield

They were counting the cost of Liverpool's meek elimination from the FA
Cup from Dingle to Dorset yesterday, yet it was at the club's Melwood
training ground where disappointment was felt keenest. As the backlash
rumbled outside, the suspicion nagged that Rafael Benítez had committed
a major faux pas with his under-strength selection at Burnley.

There is sympathy from those on the outside looking in at the
restraints, whether financial or in terms of the squad at his disposal,
with which the Spaniard is working. Yet in the wake of what seemed an
all too obvious choke at Turf Moor, there is now also suspicion. "The
manager didn't realise how important the FA Cup is to the ordinary fan,"
said the former Liverpool midfielder Ronnie Whelan.

The significance of being knocked out will not have escaped Benítez. In
the long-term, managers are judged on their league credentials, but no
Liverpool manager has risked as much as the Spaniard by retaining only
three players from his Premiership line-up for Tuesday's third-round
tie. This was an invitation for disaster which, when taken up, ensured
that doubts have crept into the locals' faith in Merseyside's Rafalution
for the first time.

To argue that the Spaniard is used to the Copa del Rey - in which only
Athletic Bilbao of the Spanish first division clubs have fielded a
full-strength line-up - is too simplistic. This, after all, is a man who
admits to waking his wife, Montserrat, in the middle of the night with
his sleep dogged by nightmarish images of his new team slipping to
ignominious defeat. When awake, he is obsessed as much with Liverpool's
past as their future.

"I spend 10 hours or more every day in Melwood and, when I come back to
my house, I still think about football," he said. "I am on the sofa
watching a video, maybe an old one from great Anfield nights in the
1970s, or a scouting video. Or one taken of our next opponents. Then I
talk to my wife about my day and all the things that are still
unresolved in my head. I fight hard to find some time for my daughters,
but the rest - it's football."

Yet Benítez has defined his challenge as "to find and inspire the old
Liverpool spirit, the mentality, the philosophy of respect". With that
in mind, he clearly misjudged the relevance of England's premier
domestic cup competition. Liverpool are in no position to pick and
choose which trophies to pursue. Would elimination in the knockout stage
of the Champions League be considered as much a failure as exiting the
FA Cup at the first hurdle? Given Steven Gerrard's desperation to
plunder silverware if he is to remain at Anfield, this smacks of warped
priorities.

"People must have told Benítez that the Carling Cup's regarded as a
lesser competition, so he should have realised what the FA Cup means,"
said the Burnley midfielder Tony Grant. "We all know it would take a
miracle for them to win the Champions League. If they're honest they
know they haven't got the team for that, but Benítez must have known
what could happen because he played a stronger team against Watford last
week and they struggled."

The second leg of that tie, with the Premiership side holding a 1-0
lead, is next week and suddenly assumes greater relevance. The directors
at Bournemouth, whom Liverpool would have faced in the fourth round,
will presumably not be tuning in.

The Dorset club need to raise £500,000 to see them through the remainder
of the season, with a £250,000 influx denied them by the Merseysiders'
elimination. "I am hugely disappointed with the way Liverpool approached
the game," said the Bournemouth chairman Peter Phillips. "They were
arrogant and disrespectful to a very important competition."

The League One's club's frustrations are not Liverpool's immediate
concerns, though recovering their poise is. Benítez's squad system was
famed at Valencia, carrying his team to two league championships and the
Uefa Cup with players rotated regularly. But the Spaniard does not have
the personnel to duplicate his Valencia system, particularly given the
current injury list at Anfield. If only privately, Benítez may just have
woken up to the fact that Djimi Traoré's was not the only own-goal
shipped at Turf Moor.



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