Last week all the talk was about the title momentum being with Liverpool. Well not any more, it’s not. Because this international break could not have come at a worse time.
After scoring 13 goals in three wins against Real Madrid, Manchester United and Aston Villa, you want your team to get back out there as soon as possible while you’re still in the groove.
You don’t want the situation Rafael Benitez now finds himself in, just sitting there and waiting for his players to come back.
He’ll be like a cat on a hot tin roof towards the end of the week, anxiously hoping his phone doesn’t ring with more injury news from the continent.
The situation with Yossi Benayoun won’t have done anything to reassure him over the risks of this particular round of games.
Instead of basking in the satisfaction of what Liverpool have achieved in getting back into the title race, he’s deprived of building on that and working with his key players ahead of a massive – and very difficult – game at Fulham on Saturday.
That’s the problem with the expanded number of sides in the World Cup qualifiers.
You never used to have the nuisance of a fortnight’s break from your club. You’d go off after a weekend game and play in midweek, then you’d be back straight away for another club game the next weekend.
The break didn’t need to be that long, maybe only four or five days compared to the 10 or 11 days that you’re needed on duty in the modern era.
That time must feel like an eternity for Benitez, stuck back at Melwood with just Jamie Carragher for company on the training ground. Hardly the ideal way to stoke up your squad for an impending title run-in and all the intensity that goes with it.
But my big worry is not how it will affect Liverpool. It is how it will affect Manchester United.
They’re in the exact opposite camp to Liverpool – they needed the break.
They needed the time away to recharge the batteries after two terrible results and they needed to get away from the pressure that went with them.
Pressure that would have been building up nicely now ahead of the Aston Villa game, which they could go into in second place in the table.
But the psychological doubts that creep in at this time will have been erased by this two-week break.
Yes, Alex Ferguson will have been short of players and unable to prepare them just like Benitez, but at least nobody has been talking about the Aston Villa game.
Normally, the papers and media would be full of stuff about the title race, like it was last week.
But by the time the aftermath of the World Cup qualifiers has died down it will be Friday before anyone even mentions the Premier League programme.
The scrutiny has been taken off United and the problems they had. And that’s why the timing of this break will suit them far more than Liverpool.
After scoring 13 goals in three wins against Real Madrid, Manchester United and Aston Villa, you want your team to get back out there as soon as possible while you’re still in the groove.
You don’t want the situation Rafael Benitez now finds himself in, just sitting there and waiting for his players to come back.
He’ll be like a cat on a hot tin roof towards the end of the week, anxiously hoping his phone doesn’t ring with more injury news from the continent.
The situation with Yossi Benayoun won’t have done anything to reassure him over the risks of this particular round of games.
Instead of basking in the satisfaction of what Liverpool have achieved in getting back into the title race, he’s deprived of building on that and working with his key players ahead of a massive – and very difficult – game at Fulham on Saturday.
That’s the problem with the expanded number of sides in the World Cup qualifiers.
You never used to have the nuisance of a fortnight’s break from your club. You’d go off after a weekend game and play in midweek, then you’d be back straight away for another club game the next weekend.
The break didn’t need to be that long, maybe only four or five days compared to the 10 or 11 days that you’re needed on duty in the modern era.
That time must feel like an eternity for Benitez, stuck back at Melwood with just Jamie Carragher for company on the training ground. Hardly the ideal way to stoke up your squad for an impending title run-in and all the intensity that goes with it.
But my big worry is not how it will affect Liverpool. It is how it will affect Manchester United.
They’re in the exact opposite camp to Liverpool – they needed the break.
They needed the time away to recharge the batteries after two terrible results and they needed to get away from the pressure that went with them.
Pressure that would have been building up nicely now ahead of the Aston Villa game, which they could go into in second place in the table.
But the psychological doubts that creep in at this time will have been erased by this two-week break.
Yes, Alex Ferguson will have been short of players and unable to prepare them just like Benitez, but at least nobody has been talking about the Aston Villa game.
Normally, the papers and media would be full of stuff about the title race, like it was last week.
But by the time the aftermath of the World Cup qualifiers has died down it will be Friday before anyone even mentions the Premier League programme.
The scrutiny has been taken off United and the problems they had. And that’s why the timing of this break will suit them far more than Liverpool.
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