by stmichael » Tue Jun 15, 2004 2:46 pm
IF - and it's a big IF - gerrard does leave for chelsea, and owen decides that he's also off, what will benitez do, and how will it affect the expectation levels? What should he do in such a situation?
firstly, the liverpool fan base would be absolutely shell-shocked. not many liverpool fans genuinely expect owen to leave this summer - we all think that he will at least sign a new short-term deal, and give us another season to show improvement; particularly since benitez will be the new manager (owen's admiration for rafa having been well documented).
but the departure of gerrard would be the real salt in the wound. for all LFC fans, gerrard IS liverpool football club. brought up in liverpool; liverpool fan through and through; and our best player by some distance. for benitez, this could work two ways. on the one hand, expectations will not be so high, and there are some ready scapegoats for any problems we would have next season. on the other hand, the pressure might be on to make some swift signings to replace them and soften the blow. whilst we might not expect players of an equivalent standard, we'd expect him to do something.
fortunately, rafa has shown he can work with limited playing resources and in difficult circumstances at valencia. i would not have trusted GH to have coped with such problems - gerrard and owen carried GH's teams a lot of the time. benitez, though, has relied on a great team first, and great individual's second at valencia. this suggests that things would not completely fall apart.
despite this however, we MUST keep both of them so that this situation doesn't arise.