What chance does Rafa have? Board room unease may ruin Liverpool’s season

Football FanCast columnist
Rob Facey assesses Liverpool's season ahead of
tonight's Champions League qualifier
and wonders just how long Benitez will put up with the distractions
in the boardroom.

Rafa Benitez will oversee the first
real Liverpool’s
season ahead of tonight’s Champions League qualifier Third Round

Rafa Benitez remains defiant that despite the boardroom difficulties that have dominated club affairs since last Christmas he will stay focused on the job in hand.
The fans are fully behind the manager, rather than the club as a brand, which is in contrast to affairs at Chelsea where a successful team is the be all and end all of matters.

This will work in Benitez’s favour of course, but a harmonious club at all levels would mean that the Reds would have a decent stab at a title push, rather than any success being achieved with spite.

Whenever you see Benitez in press conferences you can’t help but feel that he is just a millisecond away from losing his top with frustration, despite his cool exterior.

"Even if we signed a player today he could not play against Standard Liège so I am not worried about that situation. I am only concentrating on the game," the Liverpool manager said last night, as reported in The Guardian.
"I am really calm about the situation. I don't have any problems. I am not distracted. I am focused only on this game."

This is the same apparent indifference and focus on footballing matters that he and his team showed midway through last season when the wheels well and truly came off.

I feel for Benitez because the truth is that he will be continually asked these sorts of questions for the foreseeable future. This means that every decision made at the club will cause journalists to prod the Spanish manager about whether the actions of Tom Hicks and George Gillett are affecting his team.
Defeating Standard Liege over two legs should be a matter of course for Liverpool who possess a vastly superior and talented squad but qualification for the Champions League will still not appease the American owners.

The Liverpool transfer policy continues to baffle neutrals, including me.
It has been clear all summer that sales need to be finalised before any transfers can be pushed through. The confusion over whether the money was available for Gareth Barry or not means that they have missed their chance to sign the England midfielder. This is of course a matter of days before the club spend over the odds for Robbie Keane.

Qualification for the Champions League will please the Americans financially, but with so much money tied up in loans and stadium plans it is unlikely that Benitez will get a whiff of it unless he sells.
The names being linked with movs away from Anfield are Voronin, Pennant and, most worryingly I think, Alonso.
Selling the Spaniard to accommodate Barry seems a bizarre choice and Benitez has to be careful that his stubbornness to prove the Americans wrong does not harm the team’s chances.

Liverpool will not win the league this season, nor will they if there continues to be this internal struggle for power between manager and owners.
The most worrying thing for fans, of course, is that this has been the case since January and the saga does not show any sign of relenting just days before the season kicks off.
How long will Benitez put up with it?

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