Dave Whelan was basically right about Liverpool wasn’t he?

Rafa Benitez is a man under pressure. His Liverpool side take on Lille tonight in the Europa League in a game that is a ‘must win’ for the Spanish manager.

Unpleasant

Rafa has said some very unpleasant things recently about the style of Sam Allardyce’s Blackburn. He made sarcastic comments about Barcelona copying Blackburn’s style. Of course, last season Rafa responded to comments from Sir Alex Ferguson by saying that he didn’t talk about other clubs or managers but then launching into an infamous tirade about the United boss.

Now, after Wigan chairman Dave Whelan spoke about Liverpool following Wigan’s win over them on Monday, Benitez has again criticised others for talking about his club. He really does seem to be confused about whether you should talk about others or not!

After the game on Monday Whelan was quoted as saying,

“Liverpool are in a mess. The owners, being American, I don’t think they feel what we fans feel. The big sympathy I have is for the Liverpool supporters because they are a fantastic lot. I’m really, really sorry for their supporters. We went to Anfield earlier in the season and there was absolutely no atmosphere and no heart at all. The supporters feel that and I think the players are starting to feel it.”

In response to that observation, Benitez has replied,

“I do not talk about Wigan. Whelan should talk about his own club.”

Benitez may be right. It is only Blackburn and Manchester United that he talks about, not Wigan. Oh yes, he did say that Everton were a small club once as well. I’m sure there are loads of other examples where Mr Benitez has expressed an opinion about other teams.

Accurate

Let’s look at whether Dave Whelan’s assessment of Liverpool is accurate. Monday was their seventh away defeat this season and their ninth over all. Last season they lost just two games and they were hoping and expecting to be even better this season.

The result left Liverpool in sixth place in the Premier League table, one point behind Tottenham and Manchester City who have one and two games in hand respectively over the Reds. Aston Villa, who are three points behind Liverpool, have three games in hand. The fourth place and Champions League qualification that Benitez has ’guaranteed’ looks to be a tall order.

Mess

I would say that to an outsider, the above situation is something of a mess. Do the American owners understand what Liverpool means to the fans and feel the things that the fans feel? No. Do the Liverpool supporters deserve better? Yes. Has Anfield lacked atmosphere at times this season? Yes. Are the supporters feeling concerned? Yes. Is it all affecting the players? Probably.

In other words, I think Dave Whelan was asked for an opinion and he gave a fairly honest and realistic assessment of the current situation. Maybe he should have kept his opinion to himself, but he didn’t and there is no point in Benitez getting upset about it.

Winning

What Benitez does have to do is to make his team start winning football matches and tonight is a good time to begin that process. Benitez is hopeful that his players will react to their performance at Wigan and to his criticism of their attitude.

“Hopefully there will be a reaction in Lille. This is an opportunity to put things right and try to get a good result. In football you sometimes prefer to rest but at this time it is good to have a match quickly after what happened at Wigan.”

It is not nice to ‘kick someone when he is down’ but a bad defeat tonight would surely be the end of Rafa’s time on Merseyside, wouldn’t it?