It’s Snow Joke

It is a day after Christmas, we are halfway through the season, and Liverpool Football Club are sitting seventh in the Premier League after 19 games.

With pre-season hopes of a first title win since 1990 on the back of last seasons refreshing title challenge now in tatters, as well as a premature exit from the European Cup, many fans are calling for Rafa Benitez to be given the boot from Liverpool.

The way I see it, there are three options open to us at the moment. The first option would be to give Rafa time with the current playing squad in order to hopefully propel us up the league and into a European Cup place.

The second, the much preferred and sadly most unlikely option, would be for the Yank twats to realise that the squad needs investment and back Rafa in the transfer market come January.

The final option would be to relieve Rafa of his position. Many modern Liverpool fans are impatient, uneducated beings from Southern England who have never been to Anfield and simply sit in their comfy armchairs watching Liverpool on the tele. Sacking Rafa is their preferred option. However, I ask those people, if Benitez were to be sacked, whom would you replace him with?

Jose Mourinho is one name put forward as a potential new manager of Liverpool. However, how could we attract Mourinho to Anfield? Imagine the following: ‘Hey Jose, do you fancy leaving Inter Milan to manage Liverpool. We can offer you 50p a season for a transfer budget, as well as many broken promises. Oh, and you have to service our £30 million a year interest by selling your best players. Up for it?’

Rafa is, in my opinion, our modern day Bill Shankly. In the five years he has been at the club he has turned us from a club on the decline, battling for 4th place, into one of the best teams in the world.

This season may not have been very successful so far, and I realise at the moment we are actually battling for 4th place, but Rafa has revolutionised almost every aspect of our club, and in a way he has been a victim of his own success at Liverpool. By winning the European Cup in his first season at Anfield, many fans expected a similar instant success in the league.

To win the league, you need a quality squad and not just quality players. Rafa has slowly been building up a quality squad over the last five years, and it is working. Working on limited funds, Benitez has bought numerous players for comparatively small amounts. Some of these signings have worked out well, others have not, but Rafa has not been afraid to ship them on and slowly, but surely, our squad is improving.

Most people point to players like Voronin and Degen still holding a squad number and warming the bench. Do you think Benitez wants players of such quality in the squad? The sad truth is that these players were signed on free transfers in order to boost squad depth, simply because Hicks and Gillett treat Liverpool Football Club like a franchise, sucking up all it’s profits without investing in the playing squad. Instead, if Rafa wants any form of transfer budget, he has to sell players. Make no mistake; the Yanks are the cancer of Liverpool Football Club.

Our form this season has been poor. Confidence is low and the players just do not look arsed. We lost Hyypia, Alonso and Arbeloa during the summer, and even though we brought in Glen Johnson and Alberto Aquilani, our squad is not as strong as last year. Johnson is a good player, although defensively suspect at times. Aquilani is still not completely match fit, however, his time will come.

Last season, finishing 2nd in the league with a club record number of Premier League points was a massive achievement. Many people thought that we could make a step up and win the title this season.

For Liverpool to progress and win the title this season, a number of things were needed. Stability at the club would be vital, Rafa would need to be backed in the transfer market, and finally, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres would need to remain injury free. None of which happened.

Injuries to key players have hit us hard, confidence is low, the turmoil at the club is still occurring and our dirty laundry is being aired in public. Bill Shankly must be turning in his grave, as every blade of glass he built when creating the Liverpool way is being slowly destroyed.

What now for Liverpool Football Club, Rafa Benitez and the cancer in the form of George Gillett and Tom Hicks? The story of our season is not over yet, and I’m sure there is a rocky road still to walk down… but we will never walk alone.

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