Dear Mr Benitez,
As a fervent Liverpool fan that is suffering to see our beloved team in such difficulty, I take this occasion to write to you to share some considerations and ask some questions which I expect will go unanswered.
Your recent declarations that fresh player inserts are desperately needed in the January transfer window further confirm my fears that the end result of last summers transfer campaign was as bad as we all imagined. The strategy used by you and Cristian Purslow did not work. We all feel that what went wrong has nothing to do with the Club’s finances but more with how players and the same finances have been managed.
We fail to understand why you spent Stg 17 million on a right fullback to replace Arbeloa, when you replaced the ageing and injury prone Aurelio with a 20 year-old inexperienced Argentinian? If your reasoning is coherent, could you not have gone for Kelly or Darby for the right back position instead of splashing such a substantial sum on a fullback? If one of the reasons for this decision was the Stg 7 million still due to us by Pompei, than why did you not opt to get Niko Krancjar to Liverpool, he would not even cost that much and is player that adds quality to any side he plays in (have you seen him playing for Spurs lately?).
The Alonso saga was the pivotal story of last summer. Xabi wanted out, Real wanted him at all costs, and new Real coach Pellegrini was in a revolutionary state of mind, giving players like Sneijder, Huntelaar, Van der Vaart, Heinze and Negredo the axe! You and Mr Purslow insisted on cashing Stg 35 million instead of even considering the likely possibility of an exchange for a pairing like Sneijder and Negredo, or Van der Vaart and Huntelaar plus further Stg 5/10 cash for Xabi! These people spent over Euro 200 million last summer, so they were not exactly penny pinching. Would this have not brought in two quality players in vital roles to the squad plus a large chunk of the money you wanted to spend on bring in Glen Johnson? Would this not have also saved us paying another Stg 20 million for Aquilani? It does make sense doesn’t it, but it’s not Rafa’s way, right?
Mentioning the various Voronin, Dossena, Babel and Degen is not even necessary. Not even worth mentioning how much they cost and that they have rendered!
How about our game plan? Did you really expect the team to play with the same intensity and inventiveness after Xabi left? Were you really convinced….no I need to get this one right…..are you really convinced that our present game plan is yielding results? Why was not Steven Gerrard brought down to midfield to be the charismatic playmaker he really is? Why was not Kuyt moved forward as a second striker, which accidentally happens to be his natural role? Why do you insist on playing players out of position? Aurelio in midfield? Kuyt on the right? Benayoun on the left? These are midfield players, they don’t give the team width in depth! And then what about our infamous zonal marking defensive tactics that continue to leak in goals like a bottomless beer tankard? Can’t you really see that our game has become so predictable that even teams like lowly Reading take counter measures and make us look ridiculous? You let Sami Hyppia go and brought in Kyrgiakos!!! Sami was voted best defender in the Bundesliga for the first half of the season! Sami was Liverpool through and through!
Many of us cannot come to terms with so many decisions you have taken. Last season we Reds supporters were confident of our teams’ ability facing any opposition. This year we fear everyone, and Liverpool supporters are not used to live in such fear.
Mr Benitez, please make sure you get the January transfer window right, because if you don’t I have the impression that you will loose the affection and trust of the Red support, and I assure you, you will not want that to happen.
Yours faithfully,
Tonio Bone
Liverpool Fan for Life.
“We all feel that what went wrong has nothing to do with the Club’s finances but more with how players and the same finances have been managed.”
Really? Who are this “all”? Do you not think that the strategy employed by Benitez and Purslow could have, in some way, been determined by the fact that the club is skint, badly managed and hasn’t got any liquid funds from which to purchase players?
The major issue Rafa has to deal with is the limited budget, Hicks and Gillett have left him with no money for transfers.
I do not think Rafa would have gone for Johnson is he knew that Xabi was staying.
I really think Rafa thought he could hold on to Xabi.
if zonal markin was such a bad system the league leaders chelsea wudnt be implementing it.
sami voted best defender in the bundesliga, voronin was topscorer in that same league last season ses alot doesnt it.
inexperienced insua? aurelios natural position is left midfield.
kuyt finished last season as second highest wrt assists for a winger in the entire league.
get ur facts straight before u slaughter the wrong people.
playing players out of position???? werent they the same players who played those positions last season when we were beating teams out of sight? dropping gerrard back into midfield would break up his partnership with torres which is the best attacking partnership in the league. support the manager and the team through the good times and the bad
If Rafa thought that he could hold on to Xabi then he was about the only one.
I think the best bet would be to have a go at shifting Johnson to the wing. He’d be better suited to that position than anyone else we currently have and I doubt that our defence would suffer that greatly.
I don’t think Rafa can be entirely blamed for the way this season and the team are panning out but he has definitely made errors that are coming back to hurt. Still too early to pass judgement on Aquilani but for Rafa’s sake I hope the lad works out because that could be the extra piece that leads to his demise as manager.
I reckon because we don’t have to pay Aquilani price all at once, but in several time in rather small amount in a couples years gets into club’s consideration why Rafa and Purslow decided to sign Aquilani.
Tonio i totally agree with everything u said in that letter, its the same stuff im askin after each n every match this season. (even when we win) more so the stevie bk in2 a midfield position, thats been so blaringly obvious that even us fans can see it …… its simple really, playin 2 holdin midfielders is not very attackin swappin lucas 4 stevie would link the team 2getha again, and is it not just coincidence that this is stevies worst season in a red shirt??? back when he was a centre mid he would find killer balls n passes n then rattle in a screamer aswell ….. now he just attempts shots instead of findin a pass, i think thats rafa tellin himm 2 just shoot or whether thats how he see’s his role now.
personally id have stevie n masch in centre mid with benny/babel/aquilani in “the hole” or play a 442 wiv kuyt revertin bk 2 his NATURAL position
also i think our defence is far more cohesive when its carra n agger at the heart …….. imho skrtel n carra partnering is where most of our goals have been conceded
again these r just my thoughts but im 100% agreeing with Tonio’s original post
I think putting so much focus on money is a weak excuse for the club’s form (especially when we’ve overpaid for any number of players). Consider the example of Arsenal: Wenger is nothing if not shrewd with his expenditures, but still gets results with both inexpensive and inexperienced players. Rafa suffers from two things: destructive stubbornness (e.g. sticking with zonal marking when players are clearly uncomfortable with it and it hemorrhages goals, or playing guys well beyond their freshness); and failing to guide players in growth. Since Torres who was the last young player to really bloom at Anfield?
Certainly the players need to be held accountable too. While the offense hasn’t exactly been inspired or creative in years past, the defense has looked downright lost and disorganized. Stevie seems to be sulking, and needs to pick it up. And I’ve grown sick and tired of Mascherano and his recklessness, which continually goes unremarked upon. In match after match he makes *stupid* unnecessary fouls, gets booked, and then 5 minutes later is rolling on the pitch is yet another fake injury. He’s gotten to be a caricature, really. He may not have deserved being sent off a few weeks back, but his reputation is working against him and the club at this point.
As for Xabi, my feeling is that he wanted out in no small part because Rafa screwed him around last summer, dangling him in a failed effort to get Barry. Xabi felt disrespected, and rightfully so. And in any case, he’s gone — so we have to get over it.
The club needs our support, no doubt, but it gets disheartening when we see so little progress — and fall to Portsmouth or draw to Reading. I suspect Rafa has until the end of the season and if things don’t improve, he may be walking alone.
I think the only thing that you can blame rafa for is the transfer of Xabi alonso..Hyypia wanted to go himself! n btw,skrtel was fantastic until he sustained that injury against man city so its natural that with agger and carra around,hyypia wasnt gonna get much game time..
& i dont blame him for not being part of an exhange deal with madrid,we were,at that time n we sadly still are in a lot of financial difficulties..i believe that the owners did not allow him to have an exchange deal coz the club needed money..n 30m is not a small amount n could’ve come in handy for the owners..and since the owners were badly in need of money,they only allowed 17m out the 30m for rafa to spend on aquilani..the other 13m were probably used to release some of the debt
Plz stop blaming rafa,the guys got a mind,we didnt come 2nd last season for nothing..
Never truer words spoken, if only Rafa could actually read this! he needs to address these issues now! before we’re made an even bigger laughing stock!! YNWA.
Dan
No, we don’t ‘all’ feel.
You speak for yourself, not me or everyone else.
This letter is a bit pathetic.
Who the hell writes this shit? First off, copy and paste a bloody £ sign to at least give yourself some credibility. Secondly, who the hell is Pompei? Its not a volcano.
And most importantly, this is a load of bollocks as the majority of fans, at the time, were very happy with signing Johnson and now some muppetts decide to throw it back in Rafa’s face. They moan 1 year we don’t make big signings, then the next they moan we spent too much on 1 player.
Absolute load of rubbish.
15 of the 16 teams that reached the knockout stages of the 2004 UEFA Champions League used zonal marking.
-FiREWALL
I’m sorry but this is rubbish.
The whole Alonso thing gets on my nerves. When Rafa tried to sell him to Juventus he’d had two extremely poor seasons, hence Rafa tried to bring in Gareth Barry but was held back by budgetary constraints placed on him at the last minute. This forced him to keep a now unhappy Alonso who had the best season he’s had at Liverpool, might I point out one of only two good seasons he’s had.
How anyone can write-off Aquilani after only two starts is beyond me. Give the lad a chance, he’s going to take time to get into the rhythm on one of the toughest leagues on earth, easpecially after just coming back from injury.
Hyypia wanted to go and Rafa let him. If someone who has been a loyal servant to the club for a decade wants to move on in search of first team football you have to let them, it would be unfair on Sami to force him to stay. He got a defender award for the first part of the season in the 6th best league in Europe, it’s much slower than the Premiership and as proven last season he can’t handle the pace.
Skrtel has had injury problems this season, as have many of the players. It’s only natural his form is going to suffer when he’s not been playing. After a decent number of games I’m sure we’ll see the high-quality defender we saw at the end of last season.
Kuyt is a winger, converted from a striker. Just because someone used to play in a certain position doesn’t mean it’s their best position. Let’s not forget that Gerrard used to play right-back. Kuyt was outstanding on the wing last season. Unfortunately his form has slipped along with the teams. He tends to only play well when the rest of the team does, it’s nothing to do with where he plays.
Benayoun can play anywhere in the middle of the park, whether it me behind the striker or on the wing, he’s a utility player and can do a job. There’s no other player in our team who can create things from nothing like he can, no matter where he is on the pitch. He spent the majority of last season out of the wing and proved himself as one of the best in the league.
As for the ‘dud’ signings you’ve mentioned only one I agree with. Voronin and Degen were free’s, they’re no risk as all we have to do is pay their low wages. Both players, though not brilliant, have filled in when needed, which isn’t very often. Babel was a young signing and they always come with risk. Ask Alex Ferguson after he signed Nani for an even higher price. While he hasn’t proved himself using his signing as a smear against Rafa’s name is stupid as he was a risk that was worth taking.
Dossena I slightly agree with, he’s not been great and he came at a high price. However, he has worked as cover and chipped in a few goals. Auerlio and Insua are our main two at the back (Note Auerlio is a natural left-mid) so Dossena acts as back-up, ableit expensive back-up.
Zonal marking isn’t what has cost us. We used it last season and we concieded the least goals in the league. The problem is complacency at the back mixed with an ever changing defense due to inuury, we’d have the same problems if we were man marking.
This article is incredibly short-sighted from someone who’s wirting has impressed me greatly since joining the site. The write-up provides useless questions that have been asked time and time again and have been disproved yet you offer no solutions.
This is the sort of venom I expect from the London-based media mafia, not on a Liverpool website and certainly not from a Liverpool “fan”. This is pathetic and has no basis whatsoever in it.
Hyppia wanted to leave cause he wants first team football. Going for a trade for a couple of Real Madrid players isn’t as easy as it looks. There’s wages and contract offers to be sorted out. Will we ever know that maybe Rafa did in fact wanted Negredo or RVN or VDV for example but we couldn’t provide the desirable wages or contract details these players want?
We overperformed last season and this season we are crumbling under the massive expectations bestowed on the team. It’s pathetic that teams like Birmingham or Wigan has a bigger transfer budget than a team like ours. It all boils down to money and we are not getting enough of it
Speak for yourself, I don’t agree with half of this letter. Not to mention how weak it reads, are you sure you believe this yourself…?
I am sick of tired of the whole zonal marking talk, every time we have a free-kick or corner against us the TV commentators have to mention zonal marking.
You never hear praise for when zonal marking is effective, everyone seems to have a short memory but we had the best defensive record in the Premier League up to a few months ago. We were using zonal marking then, it is nothing new that Rafa decided to experiment with this season.
If zonal marking was so bad then we should have conceded at least 10 goals yesterday.
-Antoine
Watch the goal we conceded last night, it was due to bad luck, nothing to do with zonal marking.
Tonio, you do not speak on my behalf.
-Antoine
Tonio you do not speak for me. As Cath says who are this all? If you are a Liverpool supporter then support them in their time of need which is now. You are entitled to your opinion but if you love the club you would be encouraging and supporting the club and staff rather than having a go. Have you considered the alternative to Rafa? A yankie yes man I suspect.
Michael is correct in most of what he says here. I understand your frustration as we all are but we are going to come through this if we all get behind the club (team and staff). If you are not with us as a supporter you are against us and I assure you that you will not want that to happen!
Wtf come on lfc fans, you’ll never walk alone means something not just words. If we take pride from being called the best fans in the world then we need to act like it! 1st 17 mill for one of the best right backs in the country if not europe, scum utd were paying these price’s for defenders nearly 10 yrs ago!!! 2nd, left back, needing a left bacl rafa buys an international for like 7 mill(most of which will be recouped when sold) or there abouts & gets outperformed by a 1.5 mill buy he had in reserves for 18 months or so. Would rafa not have taken stick for not bringing in an experienced left back?!
Lucas, our best player so far this year in my opinion, was getting sooo much flak last year & even this year who if bought by wenger when we bought him for how much we bought him for would have been typical wenger.
Voronin, Degen “not worth mentioning how much they cost” THATS BECAUSE THEY COST NOTHING!! I’d agree that i dont believe these good enough for LFC but beggers can’t be choosers. Babel was big money ( again most of which will be recouped when sold) but big money lots of top teams wanted to spend especially wenger!
“Last season we Reds supporters were confident of our teams’ ability facing any opposition. This year we fear everyone, and Liverpool supporters are not used to live in such fear.” And this is rafa’s fault?????? same team minus alonso ( which rafa made app 20 mill profit on a player who handed in a transfer request, great work!) plus GJ. Injuries, confidence & the run of the ball have all gone against us this 1st half of season lets hope the 2nd half evens up a bit.
Bottom line is we have 1 of the best managers in the world lets not make things worse and start attacking him! We need the owners to step up with the fund to compete or step down & sell to someone who will!!!
YNWA! JFT96! IN RAFA WE TRUST!
darn michael owen. you took the words right out of my mouth. i read this article before i went for a shower and took the time formulating of a reply instead of singing “bohemian rhapsody”… then i read your reply which is almost identical to what i’d say.
so on top of all your points, i’ll add this:
1. tonio is using hindsight to talk re johnson v krancjar. the same hindsight speaks when discussing dossena, voronin etc. with every voronin, there’s an arbeloa/aurelio/ngog; every dossena a skrtel/garcia/benayoun/agger (i think you get my idea). and with every rafa buying a babel, we have wenger buying jeffers (francis, from everton, remember?), fergie buying veron, the list goes on.
2. as for why buy johnson. i’ll hazard an analysis. portmouth owes us money, looking at the situation there now (they cant afford to pay players’ wages, which is the first thing a company has to do), we’re noy likely to see the money. it is best we get someone from there.
next, Arbeloa wanted to leave, so a replacement was needed. Insua showed promises last season, we also have Dossena and Aurelio as reliable cover, so that position has sufficient depth. Rafa was likely to have let Riise go coz he knows we have sufficient cover in that dept.
add to that the fact that we can get from Portsmouth, who owe us money and is going bankrupt, can give us England’s no.1 right back. is it that tough to choose? we’ll never get Ashley Cole now, would we?
anothr point being that it is rather obvious we need some good cover at right back, even when Arbeloa was around. its actually quite a no brainer, wonder why you needed to bring that up…..
3. as for why we didnt swop for huntellar, sneider etc. i think its simple bargaining and this is where i believe Rafa actually shows how shrewd he is.
if one of these were to be swopped, they’d be valued at around 10m, if not more. if Rafa really wants them and waits 6 months for it, their value will likely be half that offered in the swap deal. with any luck, it’ll be much less than half as Real will not want to be paying them to sit around, and they would be more likely to want to leave and get their career going, with the WC round the corner. this means these players will be less demanding in their transfers also.
Rafa has already admitted that things were worse regarding Aquilani’s injury and it went beyond the worst case estimates of a panel of doctor. you can hardly blame Rafa, who isnt a doctor or physio!
finally, note also the age difference and potential of Aquilani vs those others.
You do not speak for me also in this letter.
Rafa is not only contending with the fact he has not been given much if any transfer budget in the last 2 season when you take into consideration players sold, but he is having to deal with a low wage budget, the sixth lowest in the league.
You exhibit the lack of information that has been apparant in a lot of Liverpool fans over the last few season, and you appear to be following the flow of much of the media that is filled with experts who are so far removed from their titles its laughable.
First up is the Johnson transfer, the left hand side of our defense is covered with Dossena, Insua and Aurelio. Remember the Goals last season from our left backs? against Scum twice, Real Madrid and Chelsea. Do you remember any from our right backs?
Kuyt is also very hard working and does a lot of tracking back which means we had the scope for a more attacking right back.
Johnson fits this bill and also helps Rafa cover off some of the up and coming stipulations around home grown players that are becoming more apparant in the Premier League and in Europe, incidently this is also why he went after Gareth Barry.
Johnson cost £17m to bring to Anfield, over his real value agreed but we were in an auction with Man City and Chelsea, his form and goals early in the season showed why Benitez went for him. He will be a very good player for LFC over the next few years.
In Aquillani we have seen glimses of a player who will offer the kind of creativity in the center of the park that Alonso did, and his record suggests he will offer more of a goal threat. Unfortunatly for everyone associated with LFC including Benitez medical experts expected him to be fit around the middle of September not the end of October.
I do take comfort from the fact that Benitez is looking at the long term future of LFC by the fact that he was willing to buy an injured player and wait for the benefits because there are not many players with his kind of qualities.
I also take comfort from the fact that Benitez did not buckle to peer pressure and play Aquillani as soon as he was fit, as with the state the team was in, if he took time to adjust or he got re-injured he would have been labelled a flop by the media and then fans alike.
Next is Gerrard, do you really think playing him alongside Mascherano would really improve him? removing him from the responsibilities of a central midfield birth is what helped transform Gerrard from a 10-15 goal a season player to into a 15-25 goal a season player. Have you not seen him play for England, he struggles when he doesn’t have the freedom Benitez has given him in this team.
Yossi had a fabulous season from the left last season and Aurelio is naturally a midfield player who is versitile enough to play further back.
You slate zonal marking like it has only been introduced this season, like we haven’t had consistantly the strongest defense over the time Benitez has been manager, you ignore the fact that we have so far this season had 5 seperate centre backs, 7 seperate right backs and 3 left backs.
We are conceding goals which have zapped the confidence of this side because every defender except Carragher and Insua have missed games down to injury, and we have rarely had the luxury of fielding the same back 4 in consecutive games.
Hyypia was aloud to leave because he is a 36 year old player who wants to play a few more years before joining the back room team at Anfield. At the time Benitez with Agger, Skrtel and Carragher could not guarantee Hyypia the football he wanted so he opted to not sign the contract he was offered. It wasn’t down to money, he just wanted to continue playing first team football.
You write your letter like someone who has been asleep for the last 5 years and just woken up and read the last 5 months news papers.
the end of the letter is awful… that cant be the way you say good bye…..
anyway i agree with the rest of it.
take care.
Pretty poor article that. I understand its just opinions etc, but in my opinion that is just poor poor writing that will not help liverpool football club in anyway.
“Last season we Reds supporters were confident of our teams’ ability facing any opposition. This year we fear everyone, and Liverpool supporters are not used to live in such fear.”
You said it yourself!!! LAST SEASON YOU (yes YOU because i didn’t) were confident! but what about the year before that??? and the year before?????
If you are a true liverpool supporter you should know that since Rafa arrived the team has evolved with a bunch of ups and downs..
but whats most important is that after liverpool won its 5th champions league title, MANY people (and i mean MANY) suddenly thought that liverpool problems where over, that the team suddenly could win anything (although the spirit shown in those days really could do anything) but in reality liverpool, then, now, and tomorrow, is still A WORK IN PROGRESS!!! we’ve had our joys.. oh yes.. but the suppremacy that made this club famous is still very far…
so all we can do is keep supporting with all our hearts.
Your article definitely fails to represent my views and shurely the views of a lot of fans!!
greetings from chile
well i for one agree to most parts of what has been said in the letter…i would go further to add the robbie keane sage…it was one of the worst displays of “sulking” i have ever seen by rafa…he treated a world class player with disrespect and made sure he never succeeded…i know the results of last season didnt highlight such decisions cos we were doing well, torres and gerrard were firing and we didnt need worthless players like keane…but now we are being linked with similar sort of players to act as torres’ backup…i for one have no doubts in my mind that rafa has made some blunders in the transfer market, not to say that he hasnt made some good signings. also i totally agree that benitez is stubborn which is very clear with the sides he picks ..consistently picking lucas and mascha in the midfield and refusing to play best players in their best positions..i have said from the very moment that xabi left that we have to pull stevie back and have kuyt upfront with torres atleast untill aquilani proves himself in that position!!!!