Is Benitez the Spanish Kevin Keegan?

Now it may be a bit too early in proceedings to suggest Liverpool are on the brink of collapse but things certainly don’t look as rosy in the red half of Liverpool as it did a few weeks ago.

First their captain gets arrested in some bar scuffle and now doubts have emerged over their manager’s future.  Add that to Benitez’s Keegan-style outburst a week or so ago and it looks as if things could be taking a turn for the worse at the Anfield club.

Before Christmas it looked as if Liverpool were on their way to their first Premier League title, now Manchester United are the hot favourites with the bookies soccer betting odds and the Liverpool camp seem to be faltering.  Benitez launched a frankly astonishing attack on his Manchester United counterpart Alex Ferguson, under no real provocation, and it looks as if the Spaniard has lost his cool somewhat.

Now Benitez has confirmed he has turned down a new contract because he doesn’t want to answer to anyone else in his transfer dealings.  Bizarrely this is also the reported reason for Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle departure earlier this season.  The Liverpool manager has said: “The only person who can decide the value of a player to his squad is the manager because he knows what elements are needed to improve the squad.”

I for one think he is quite right but it would be such a shame for Benitez to leave Anfield when he is on the brink of achieving something remarkable at the club.  He already has one Champions League trophy to his name and I’m sure if he stuck around, with the support of the board, he could leave a fantastic legacy.  The board and manager need to work together for the club to be successful and at the moment this is just not happening.

Liverpool failed too see of lowly Stoke in their last outing at Britannia Stadium in a result no one would have predicted and they need to get things back on track with a win in the Mersey derby on Monday. It’s at Everton and Liverpool’s away form has been better than at home and I still wouldn’t offer any football betting advice against Liverpool just yet.  I think they’ll probably take the points in this encounter but it isn’t as easy to predict as it would have been a month ago.

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