With the Gareth Barry deal hanging in the balance, Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, must have known when he sat down on Thursday afternoon and expressed hope in an interview with this newspaper that the new season would be free of the turbulence that blighted the previous campaign, he was asking for the impossible.
As it turns out, the season has yet to begin and already Benítez appears to be on another collision course with Liverpool's controversial American co-owners, the outcome of which is probably too difficult to predict at this early stage.
Ignoring for a moment the ins and outs of the Barry saga and where the responsibility lies for the collapse of the summer's most protracted and farcical transfer, it is first worth asking how Benítez will respond to being undermined for a second time by Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.
Benítez had to grin and bear it the first time after it had emerged that Hicks and Gillett had met Jürgen Klinsmann not once but twice with a view to the former Germany coach, now in charge at Bayern Munich, taking over the reins at Anfield. Whether he is prepared to stomach the ignominy of being embarrassed so publicly yet again, however, is an altogether different question.
Benítez may have handled the prospective Barry transfer poorly and, in doing so, irked the owners, but that Hicks and Gillett let it drag on for so long, only to pull the plug at the eleventh hour after questioning the manager's judgment opens up a whole new can of worms.
The Spaniard has insisted that he wants to see through what he started at Anfield in 2004, but whether the manager now views his position to be untenable after being defied in public once again remains to be seen.
The Barry deal could certainly have been handled better on Benítez's part. The Americans were initially led to believe that the Aston Villa midfield player would cost considerably less than £18million, hence Liverpool's opening offer of £10 million, and that a deal was all but in place to sell Xabi Alonso to Juventus for £16million. But, when a formal offer for Alonso from Juventus - or from any other club for that matter - failed to materialise and the cost of signing Barry soared, Hicks and Gillett began to ask questions.
In addition to concerns about Barry's price and resale value, the owners believed that, with Alonso still on the books and a host of other central midfield players to pick from in Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano, Lucas Leiva and Damien Plessis, Benítez had more than enough cover in that department.
Contrary to widespread belief, Hicks and Gillett are understood to have had the money to sign Barry, but the fact that they even rejected a £12million interest-free loan from a wealthy Liverpool supporter underlines just how opposed they were to paying through the nose for a 27-year-old. Having already spent a projected £20.3million this summer on a 28-year-old in Robbie Keane, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker, they felt that a comparable outlay on a player of a similar age made no sense.
In some respects, it is a fair point, but even accounting for the way in which they feel they have been misled, the Americans could have informed their manager much earlier than they did that there was little appetite for the deal at that price and while Alonso was still at the club. By failing to do so, though, they have dealt a potentially fatal blow to Benítez's pride.
Furthermore, where all this leaves Barry has almost been forgotten. Having made no secret of his desire to join Liverpool, the England midfield player has incurred the wrath of both sets of supporters and Martin O'Neill, the Villa manager, and, unless Arsenal come to his rescue, he will have a lot of bridges to rebuild. Whether Benítez and Liverpool's owners can do the same, however, is unclear.
As it turns out, the season has yet to begin and already Benítez appears to be on another collision course with Liverpool's controversial American co-owners, the outcome of which is probably too difficult to predict at this early stage.
Ignoring for a moment the ins and outs of the Barry saga and where the responsibility lies for the collapse of the summer's most protracted and farcical transfer, it is first worth asking how Benítez will respond to being undermined for a second time by Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr.
Benítez had to grin and bear it the first time after it had emerged that Hicks and Gillett had met Jürgen Klinsmann not once but twice with a view to the former Germany coach, now in charge at Bayern Munich, taking over the reins at Anfield. Whether he is prepared to stomach the ignominy of being embarrassed so publicly yet again, however, is an altogether different question.
Benítez may have handled the prospective Barry transfer poorly and, in doing so, irked the owners, but that Hicks and Gillett let it drag on for so long, only to pull the plug at the eleventh hour after questioning the manager's judgment opens up a whole new can of worms.
The Spaniard has insisted that he wants to see through what he started at Anfield in 2004, but whether the manager now views his position to be untenable after being defied in public once again remains to be seen.
The Barry deal could certainly have been handled better on Benítez's part. The Americans were initially led to believe that the Aston Villa midfield player would cost considerably less than £18million, hence Liverpool's opening offer of £10 million, and that a deal was all but in place to sell Xabi Alonso to Juventus for £16million. But, when a formal offer for Alonso from Juventus - or from any other club for that matter - failed to materialise and the cost of signing Barry soared, Hicks and Gillett began to ask questions.
In addition to concerns about Barry's price and resale value, the owners believed that, with Alonso still on the books and a host of other central midfield players to pick from in Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano, Lucas Leiva and Damien Plessis, Benítez had more than enough cover in that department.
Contrary to widespread belief, Hicks and Gillett are understood to have had the money to sign Barry, but the fact that they even rejected a £12million interest-free loan from a wealthy Liverpool supporter underlines just how opposed they were to paying through the nose for a 27-year-old. Having already spent a projected £20.3million this summer on a 28-year-old in Robbie Keane, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker, they felt that a comparable outlay on a player of a similar age made no sense.
In some respects, it is a fair point, but even accounting for the way in which they feel they have been misled, the Americans could have informed their manager much earlier than they did that there was little appetite for the deal at that price and while Alonso was still at the club. By failing to do so, though, they have dealt a potentially fatal blow to Benítez's pride.
Furthermore, where all this leaves Barry has almost been forgotten. Having made no secret of his desire to join Liverpool, the England midfield player has incurred the wrath of both sets of supporters and Martin O'Neill, the Villa manager, and, unless Arsenal come to his rescue, he will have a lot of bridges to rebuild. Whether Benítez and Liverpool's owners can do the same, however, is unclear.
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