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• Dutchman saddened by Rafael Benítez’s Anfield departure
• Everyone wants to keep Stevie at the club, he says

Dirk Kuyt has expressed his disappointment at Rafael Benítez’s departure from Liverpool and hopes the Spaniard will not be followed out of Anfield by the captain, Steven Gerrard.

Benítez left Liverpool this month and has since taken over at Internazionale, bringing an end to a six-year tenure at Anfield which included the highlight of winning the Champions League in 2005.

Kuyt was signed by Benítez from Dutch side Feyenoord a year later and the 29-year-old admitted he would be forever thankful to the Spaniard for giving him his chance in English football. “I was sad to see Rafa go. He was the manager who brought me over to Liverpool and I think he is a great manager,” said Kuyt.

“He was very important for Liverpool. He won the Champions League and did wonderful things for the club. I would just like to thank Rafa for bringing me to Liverpool and making me the player I am now.”

Following Benítez’s departure there have been fears on Merseyside that Gerrard could follow him out of the club, with the new Real Madrid manager, José Mourinho, reportedly keen on luring a player he almost signed while he was with Chelsea.

That would be a major blow to Liverpool’s hopes next season in the eyes of Kuyt, after they could only manage a seventh-place finish in the Premier League last season. “I wouldn’t like to see Stevie G go. Everyone wants to keep Stevie at the club,” Kuyt said. “He is the captain of the team, he’s very important and his heart is bleeding Liverpool.

“So it must be a very good offer or a very good club if he wants to leave. But I don’t know what will happen. It’s just up to him and the club. I have spoken to Stevie while I have been here. We wished each other all the best before the games started but we just talked about football and not his future.”

LiverpoolSteven GerrardRafael BenítezTransfer windowguardian.co.uk

Liverpool could be nervously looking over their shoulder, Sam Allardyce deserves more credit and Leeds aren’t chokers after all

Liverpool may be a long time gone

While Chelsea, 8-0 victors over Wigan Athletic, cavorted around Stamford Bridge with the Premier League trophy, Steven Gerrard, whose Liverpool side had shambled to a 0-0 draw at relegated Hull City, was scrambling through a mini-pitch invasion at the KC Stadium as a few overamorous Tigers fans attempted to cop a feel or make off with his captain’s armband. It was a finale somehow befitting of Liverpool’s season and not exactly the finale that the England midfielder would have pictured.

Arguably the crucial self-destructive period in the Reds’ campaign came between the end of September and Christmas when they picked up 12 points from 11 games (fewer, for example, than Portsmouth), although inconsistency has blighted them throughout – Rafael Benítez’s side won four games back to back in August and September, but won consecutive league games only three more times after that early spurt.

The only solution is an overhaul. Seventh is their lowest league finish since 1999 (and it’s a ‘depth’ they have plunged to only three times in the past 44 years). The team that ended the last season of the century under Gérard Houllier – Friedel, Staunton, Song, Matteo, Carragher, Berger, Redknapp, Ince, Leonhardsen, McManaman, Riedle – was rapidly broken up, the Frenchman spending over £30m the following season in an attempt to reinvigorate the club. Though it didn’t get them much closer to the title (they were 25 points off the pace in 1998-99 and 24 in 1999-00) it did at least bring a return to the top four.

The problem for Liverpool is that Benítez is unlikely to have even that fairly paltry sum (in Premier League terms at least) to spend this summer. With Manchester City revving up for another spree and Tottenham, already a better team than Liverpool, likely to be bolstered by an influx of Champions League money, those at Anfield may be nervously looking over their collective shoulder next year. If the season had started at Christmas, Everton would be third …

Sol Campbell shouldn’t go to the World Cup

Though it’s an indictment of the very average seasons endured by the likes of Joleon Lescott and Matthew Upson that Fabio Capello should even be considering England World Cup recalls for Jamie Carragher and Sol Campbell, the latter’s display yesterday should put the final nail in that coffin.

The Arsenal defender creaked against Fulham – and should have given away a penalty when compounding his heading error and grappling with Clint Dempsey in the box. It was always going to be an outside chance anyway, but Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka or Michael Dawson have all done more to earn their chance.

Spurs may be in the Champions League but they’re still Spurs

Whisper it, but the Fiver might have got it wrong. Tottenham Hotspur really are still funny. Which other team could qualify for the Champions League and, in the same week, become the first team since West Ham in February to get beaten at Burnley? The last visiting team to concede four at Turf Moor? Bristol City, almost exactly a year ago.

Sam Allardyce deserves a bit more credit

Last summer the writing seemed to be on the wall for Blackburn. Rovers had finished 15th, as bad as it has been for them in the Premier League since relegation in 1999, and it had taken a Sam Allardyce escape act to save them from the drop. Roque Santa Cruz left for Manchester City, Stephen Warnock high-tailed it to Aston Villa, the reliable Andre Ooijer headed back to Holland and PSV Eindhoven, Tugay called it a day. Even perennial superbsub Matty Derbyshire took himself off to Olympiakos.

Yet Allardyce has turned his team around and steered them into 10th. Yes, 10th, ostensibly hardly the sort of finish to prompt the popping of champagne corks and ticker tape parades, but for a club of Blackburn’s side (and, more importantly, wealth) a real achievement. Despite the relative flop of last summer’s big purchase, £6m Nikola Kalinic, who has mustered two league goals all season, they’ve ended up level on points with Birmingham, and if Alex McLeish deserves a huge amount of credit for leading Blues into the top half on the back of promotion (and he does), then Allardyce deserves a bit too.

It can be eye-pokingly painful to watch at times, but in a league where cash, money and dosh are the holy trinity, the Rovers hierarchy will be more than happy to overlook aesthetics. “The difference those results make is four places in the league and four times £800,000,” Allardyce said yesterday. “That’s a big difference to our limited budget.”

Leeds United aren’t the chokers we thought they were

3 January 2010 was a good day to be a Leeds fan. United sat eight points clear at the top of League One with a game in hand on second-placed Norwich. They’d lost just once all season and, to top it off, Manchester United had just been vanquished at Old Trafford in the FA Cup.

But between the turn of the year and the start of April, 16 games yielded just 15 points. That run destroyed any hope of claiming the title and they went into Saturday’s final game of the season needing a win to be sure of clinging on to automatic promotion and returning to the division they departed through the trapdoor in 2007.

On Saturday they went down to 10 men – Max Gradel having utterly lost the plot – and then 1-0 down against Bristol Rovers three minutes into the second half at Elland Road, just as Charlton took a 2-0 lead at Oldham. At that point, with Millwall and Swindon drawing, the Addicks were heading for promotion. Jon Howson equalised at Elland Road, but just after the hour Gordon Greer’s own goal put Millwall 2-1 up, the Lions into the promotion places and sparked a mini-pitch invasion at the Den.

That might have been that. But within seconds Jermaine Beckford, the beneficiary of a horrendous goalkeeping error, bundled in the decisive Leeds goal and brought rapture to West Yorkshire. So Leeds aren’t chokers after all. The Championship’s top 10 next season is not an impossibility.

Premier LeagueLeague OneLiverpoolSol CampbellTottenham HotspurSam AllardyceBlackburn RoversLeeds UnitedJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

• Benítez may stay if new Liverpool ownership structure emerges
• Spaniard says fans were the only reason he stayed last season

Rafael Benítez remains torn over whether to end his six-year reign at Liverpool despite increasing confidence at Juventus that he will become their coach at the end of this season. The Liverpool manager’s dilemma was illustrated yesterday with an admission that he would have left Anfield last year but for his relationship with the club’s supporters.

Benítez again refused to commit his future to Liverpool following Thursday’s Europa League semi-final exit against Atlético Madrid and sources close to the new Juventus president, Andrea Agnelli, claim a deal to take the Spaniard to Turin is almost complete. Agnelli is pressing Benítez for an answer as he prepares to launch his ambitious project for the club and the prolonged wait for investment at Anfield is pushing his preferred candidate towards Italy.

Benítez would prefer to remain on Merseyside under a new ownership structure but has yet to see firm evidence that Tom Hicks and George Gillett, the Anfield co-owners, have found a buyer willing to meet their asking price. Benítez said this week he had received no direct assurances over his future from the Anfield hierarchy, who would avoid having to find a £16m payoff should their manager accept the offer from Juventus. But he refused to give any assurances of his own to the supporters who chanted his name during the exit on away goals to Atlético.

“If I am here it is because of those fans,” he said, when pressed to give supporters clarification on his future. “I have had massive offers over the last year and I decided to stay because of the fans. It’s been a very disappointing season because we couldn’t achieve what we were expected to, and still I’m here and I will do my best until the end.”

He added: “The fans are the main thing, the best thing, that the club has. For one year, I have been working very hard, trying to do my best, and we will see what happens in the future because [the game against] Chelsea is the future now.”

The Aston Villa manager, Martin O’Neill, would be a strong contender to replace Benítez, who in recent weeks has not disguised the fact that he has lost patience with the Liverpool regime. Without a sudden development in the takeover search, it is likely tomorrow’s league game with Chelsea will be his last as Liverpool manager at Anfield.

Benítez’s reticence on his future was evident in his exchanges with reporters:

Q You said you wanted assurances. Do the fans not deserve clarification the same as you?

A At the moment I cannot talk about the future long term because I think we have to focus on the games we have left.

Q Is that because you don’t know what the future is for you?

A I know the future very well and it is Chelsea, that’s it.

Q Do you want to be here next season?

A I want to win against Chelsea and then Hull, that’s it.

Q In an ideal world where would you find yourself next season?

A I will not talk too much about an ideal world. The situation is the situation that we have and Chelsea is the target.

Q Juventus are saying you will be there next season. Are they wrong?

A I am here now and hopefully I will be here on Sunday against Chelsea.

Carlo Ancelotti, the former Juventus coach now in charge of Chelsea, said Benítez would be tailor-made for Italian football: “I’m sure he would be a success. Tactically, he has fantastic experience. His teams are tactically very, very good and so, in Italy, he would not have a problem. Benítez is one of the most important coaches and maybe Juventus will think to bring him to Turin but I don’t know what will happen.”

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolPremier LeagueJuventusCarlo AncelottiAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk