Liverpool FC Forum

There are two choices professional footballers face when they begin to wind down their playing careers. One is to put their reputations on the line, put their experience to use and take the plunge into the pressure cooker environment of management. The other more tepid and undoubtedly easier option is to sit on a couch or radio booth once a week and tell the World how those who made the difficult choice at the end of their careers should be doing it.

Great footballing brains of our time like Stan Collymore, Paul Merson, Rodney Marsh, Charlie Nicholas and Andy Gray can rest easy knowing that, unlike former teammates who actually took the plunge into management, they are never, ever wrong. Add to them the list of journalists forcing their unqualified footballing views on the World, and you’d think the British media would have limited sway. But once they’ve managed to grab their prey, it’s very difficult for that prey to wriggle free and fight another day. For a bunch of has-beens and never-weres, they hold significant sway on English football, far more than their footballing careers and medal deserve.

Avram Grant was caught by the predators early on in his Chelsea career, Martin Jol couldn’t escape their clutches at White Hart Lane despite supporter backing, and even Arsene Wenger has had a few lucky escapes in recent times. It’s not a Liverpool thing. They’re all not against us and us alone.

After a few previous escapes, the pack have got our own Rafael Benitez in their midst, and are sensing blood.
Andy Gray – a man who passed up the chance to take up the reins at the club he loves to continue his cushy number in the Sky Sports studio – claimed Benitez was “managing by numbers” and was failing to get the best out of Steven Gerrard. Merson, Nicholas, Collymore et al dismissed zonal marking, a system that has its flaws but was the foundation of the strongest defensive record in the Premiership in the past half a decade. Benitez should be pandering to his senior players and not justifiably criticising them said one broadsheet this week, whilst wildly exaggerated transfer expenditure has been used as evidence of Gillett and Hicks being justified in their lack of respect for the manager.

Surely after a disappointing day such as Sunday, the first thought of a Red is to hit the pubs, talk to other Reds and stick to facts? For many it seems the lure of the keyboard, blog, phone-in and internet message board is stronger than the lure of a cold one.

That is not to say the manager should be blindly backed, and beyond criticism. Last season he was too cautious when there was no real need to be. He picked players too often out of form, and this season has relied heavily of an isolated Fernando Torres to produce moments of magic. Constructive criticism that every manager should face from the paying public, but doesn’t mean that we should heed the advice of so-called pundits and experts and look to some mystical saviour who will come in and win every game at a canter.

Four points behind United, six points behind Chelsea, with 90 points to play for, is by no means a crisis. Especially when the squad we have, bar the loss of Xabi Alonso of which we have yet to see his replacement, has not been hugely changed from the side that squatted everything that crossed its path between February and May last year.

Two owners who are more concerned with siphoning funds that should be going towards transfer fees to make the changes necessary to make those final steps towards the league are playing on the belief that fans will be swayed by themselves and blame Benitez for any perceived failure. They believe that they can divert criticism of their own shambolic ownership by pointing at others like five year olds crying “it wasn’t me, it’s him”. With the help of the media on a quiet day, expect an onslaught of criticism towards Benitez whilst the internationals bore us rigid for the next fortnight.

It would be extremely naive to suggest that every single Liverpool fan is behind Benitez. There are some who believe he has taken us as far as he can, some who believe that Europe is his forte and the domestic prize will elude him time and again, and some who didn’t like him from the start. That is their choice, a view I don't agree with, but their view nonetheless.

But a manager’s fate or reputation amongst fans should be decided by fans. When, like Gerard Houllier in 2003/04, a sizable majority of fans have seen enough and want change, then there should be change – and from the stands to the pubs to the forums, it’s undeniably clear that this is not the case.

So, put down the keyboard, leave your 15 seconds of fame talking to Ray Parlour and take the words of failures receiving cheques for being controversial with a pinch of salt and don’t let others tell us what we think of our manager. We’ll decide when the time is right for change in the dugout, and that time for the majority certainly isn’t now.

It's the least a man who has acted with nothing but dignity in the face of cowboys in the boardroom and given us some pretty special nights along the way deserves.