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Posts Tagged ‘rafael-benitez’

• Benítez also criticises managing director Christian Purslow
• ‘We have a saying: White liquid in a bottle has to be milk’

Rafael Benítez today launched a cryptic attack on Liverpool’s ousted owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, as well as the current managing director Christian Purslow.

Benítez, whose six-year reign as manager ended in the summer, was responding to Hicks’s claim that he was largely to blame for Liverpool’s worst ever start to a Premier League season. Hicks had accused Benítez of wasting much of the money he was given to spend during the latter half of his tenure.

But a clearly irked Benítez this afternoon insisted the Americans were to blame, citing their of appointment Purslow in the summer of last year as the beginning of a downward spiral that ended in the Spaniard’s exit. In an outburst reminiscent of Eric Cantona’s famous quote featuring seagulls and trawlers, the Internazionale manager compared the events leading up to his departure to a bottle of milk.

“I prefer not to talk too much about Liverpool,” said Benítez, who watched the Merseyside derby defeat on Sunday which left his former club second bottom of the table. “I prefer not to talk about this because I feel really sorry for the fans.

“I was watching the fans and I was really sad after the defeat the other day. We have a saying in Spanish, which is: ‘White liquid in a bottle has to be milk’.”

Benitez, who led Liverpool to second place in the Premier League in 2009 but could only manage seventh last term, added: “What does this mean? It means that after 86 points and finishing second in the league, what changed? The Americans, they chose a new managing director and everything changed.

“So, what changed? The managing director is involved in all the decisions: new lawyer, new chief of press, new manager, nine new players, new medical staff, new fitness coaches – they changed everything. At the beginning, they changed the managing director who was talking with some players, and they changed everything that we were doing in the past.

“So, if you want to ask again what was going on, it’s simple: they changed something and, at the end, they changed everything. So, white liquid in a bottle: milk. You will know who is to blame.”

Pressed further on the matter, Benítez would only say: “White liquid in a bottle. If I see John the milkman in the Wirral, where I was living, with this bottle, I’d say, ‘It’s milk, sure’.”

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolInternazionaleguardian.co.uk

• Spaniard says squad was ‘better’ than when he arrived in 2004
• Suggests he was stopped from signings players he wanted

Rafael Benítez has defended his record at Liverpool, insisting that he left the club with a better squad than when he arrived at Anfield in June 2004.

“I was very clear that when I left we had a better squad than we had in the past, and a better team,” said the Spaniard, who took over at Internazionale in the summer after steering Liverpool to a disappointing seventh-place finish last season. “A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic.

“When I left the club, [Javier] Mascherano, [Yossi] Benayoun and [Albert] Riera were there, along with Carra [Jamie Carragher], [Steven] Gerrard, [Jay] Spearing, [Stephen] Darby, [Diego] Cavalieri and [Jonjo] Shelvey. They cannot talk about legacy when [Christian] Purslow [the managing director] and [Roy] Hodgson signed seven players. They have already changed the squad.”

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Benítez did concede that he made mistakes during his reign, but suggested he was worn down by off-field problems.

“It was a long time, it wasn’t just one thing,” he said. “The feeling was that something was wrong, we couldn’t do what we wanted to do. We were preparing the signings and the sales but we could see that we have some targets and we didn’t do it.”

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolguardian.co.uk

• Sunderland manager glad to see back of Rafa Benítez
• Bruce says old-school Hodgson will succeed at Anfield

Steve Bruce takes his team to Anfield tomorrow accompanied by a sense of relief that Roy Hodgson rather than Rafael Benítez will be occupying the home dug-out.

Sunderland’s manager is no fan of his former Liverpool counterpart. To put it mildly. “I know for a fact we won’t have all the antics we had with Rafa, what with his ways and his carry-ons,” Bruce said.

He and Benítez were never close but fell out spectacularly over the latter’s mischievous pursuit of the former Sunderland forward Kenwyne Jones on a mooted, but never completed, loan deal last season.

Even though Benítez is now at Internazionale and Jones at Stoke City, the issue still rankles with Bruce who believes the Spaniard unsettled the centre-forward. “I thought Rafa Benítez’s behaviour to us last season was an absolute disgrace,” he said, shaking his head. “What he did over Kenwyne … But I’ll certainly be having a drink, probably a glass of nice red, with Roy Hodgson after the game.

“I really hope Roy does very, very well at Anfield. But I know one thing – he’ll definitely conduct himself better than the previous Liverpool manager.”

Hodgson is considered to be under pressure following a rocky start to his new life on Merseyside but Bruce believes the former Fulham manager’s critics should look closely at the legacy he was bequeathed by Benítez. “Roy inherited a very difficult job,” he said. “I’d expect that, with all the money Rafa spent at Liverpool, Roy would have thought he’d have