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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

• Liverpool manager unfazed by criticisms
• Allardyce admits to ill-feeling between pair

Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, has refused to bite back at his Blackburn Rovers counterpart Sam Allardyce’s latest jibe at him. The spat between them has been running for a long time and after Benítez mocked Allardyce’s behaviour and Blackburn’s style after their match at Anfield last month the Rovers manager responded in kind.

Allardyce suggested Benitez’s criticism of him is a cover-up for how bad Liverpool are, claiming they have all but blown their chance of finishing in the top four. “Who?” was the Liverpool manager’s initial, half-joking, response when asked about Allardyce’s latest comments after the 1-0 Europa League defeat in Lille. “No comment. No publicity for him.”

Allardyce admitted there is ill-feeling between the two but blamed Benítez for making things “personal”.

“It was a good cover-up by Rafa because he knows how bad his side were and that was repeated against Wigan on Monday night,” said the Rovers manager. “He’s got personal with it for many, many years now. That’s why I don’t like him and the feeling is probably mutual. I don’t get personal with him; I get into him and under his skin, yes, but that’s all part of the game.

“The tit-for-tat between me and Rafa will probably go on until one of us is no longer a Premier League manager. I’ve managed to psych out one or two here and there and that’s how the Premiership has evolved over the last 20 years.”

Allardyce also believes Liverpool’s result at Wigan leaves Benítez’s side unlikely to finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League.

He added: “The last time one of the big four didn’t finish in the top four it was Liverpool – Everton got that spot – and I think this time it looks pretty difficult having lost against Wigan. They are having to rely on other teams slipping up now. They have a wealth of experience and that may be a telling factor when the nerve ends start jangling.

“We saw what happened to Tottenham a few years ago with the famous “poisoned lasagne” scenario – which was obviously never the case – and they let it slip. But I think it might be more difficult for Liverpool this time around because there are more teams involved. There’s Manchester City, Aston Villa and Tottenham in there and, if Everton keep rolling on, you might be surprised to see them making a late run.”

After the victory over Blackburn at Anfield Benítez had pointed the finger at Rovers’ uncompromising style saying: “I think it is a model for all the managers around the world, their style of football, his [Allardyce's] behaviour. The style of football I think Barcelona are thinking of copying.”

Allardyce claims, however, that this shows he has won the psychological battle. He said: “You do it to try to get your team in a position to get a result. Personal criticism is not the road I go down and I don’t personally criticise Rafa Benítez but I clearly get under his skin and that can be a benefit to my side when we play them.”

LiverpoolBlackburn RoversPremier Leagueguardian.co.uk

• Sam Allardyce says Benítez sent DVD to referees chief
• Disc alleged to have documented Spaniard’s grievances

Sam Allardyce has rekindled his feud with Rafael Benítez by accusing the Liverpool manager of sending a DVD to the referees’ chief Keith Hackett in protest at his rival’s methods with Blackburn Rovers.

There has been no love lost between the managers since Allardyce, then in charge of Bolton Wanderers, inflicted the first league defeat of Benítez’s Anfield tenure in August 2004 and prompted the first in a series of complaints about his perceived direct, physical approach. The animosity deepened last season when Allardyce and Sir Alex Ferguson accused Benítez of showing contempt for Blackburn with an alleged dismissive gesture during Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Rovers at Anfield.

And their manager has continued his criticism of Benítez ahead of Rovers’ return to Liverpool tomorrow. Allardyce said: “I have no worries about what he thinks of me or my team. The most important thing to me is we can beat them on any given date and we know we can beat them because I did it at the Reebok.

“Because he didn’t like it he found an excuse about how we played. [Arséne] Wenger did it, [José] Mourinho did it; they all do it when they get their backside smacked. That will get him moaning about me again but I am not bothered. He even went as far as putting a DVD together and sending it to Keith Hackett. He doesn’t know I know that, but I do. I got on to Keith Hackett and told him I didn’t want it to influence what refs do because it is all a load of rubbish. He had a bee in his bonnet for a while.”

Ferguson and Allardyce claimed Benítez dismissed Blackburn with a hand gesture after Liverpool’s second goal last April, even though the Rovers manager did not witness anything at the time and everyone else inside Anfield that day suspected it was aimed at Xabi Alonso for taking a quick free-kick against his manager’s instruction.

But Allardyce said: “I won’t get an explanation for that. He is his own man and he does things his own way. I didn’t particularly like it. We were finished then because they got the second goal. They were terrific that day. Based on how well they finished last year I am very surprised they have gone through the turmoil they have in the past few months.”

Sam AllardyceBlackburn RoversRafael BenítezLiverpoolPremier LeagueRefereesAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk