Rafael Benítez has been unable to get beach-ball boy off his mind over the past few days. That’s the kid who kicked off Liverpool’s latest crisis by throwing an inflatable on to the pitch at the Stadium of Light.
Six days later, Benítez’s side are on the brink of elimination from the Champions League after Tuesday’s defeat by Lyons, their title aspirations are in ruins and Michael Owen and Manchester United are due in town on Sunday. The fitness of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard has added to the manager’s worries.
Yet he is still thinking about the kid. Privately, Benítez has tried to track down beach-ball boy. He wanted to tell him that flicking the ball from the stands five minutes before kick-off was not the reason Liverpool lost to Sunderland and not the reason the season is threatening to spin out of control.
He would like to tell the young lad that he is not responsible for the ills of the team. The boy has gone to ground but Benítez’s critics have broken cover in numbers this week. The Kop will give its verdict on Sunday.
Nowhere in football is the relationship between manager and crowd such an important issue as at Anfield. The umbilical cord between dugout and terraces is the work of one man, Bill Shankly.
When he arrived in Liverpool 50 years ago, he found a run-down stadium and team. Shankly built the English game’s most successful club. Yet that is less important than the bond he created with the fans.
“He made the people happy,” it says on Shankly’s statue outside the Kop. But more than that, he made the people feel they were part of something important, part of a philosophy, a culture. According to the great man, the Kop “sucked the ball into the net”.
Every one of those 26,000 people on the terrace heard that and felt that they had as much to do with victory as the players.
Even when he retired, Shankly embellished the legend he created by standing on the Kop. Ever since, Liverpool supporters have expected their managers to be part Kopite.
Trying to track down the kid is something Shankly would have done.
The bond between manager and fans was reinforced by Kenny Dalglish after Hillsborough. His support for the bereaved families, the injured and traumatised will never be forgotten on Merseyside.
So Kopites want their manager to be someone who understands their dreams and aspirations.
Sometimes they try too hard to project that identity on to the man in the hot seat. In 2001, they sang “Are you Shankly in disguise?” to Gérard Houllier.
The other side-effect of this is an eagerness to support the manager even when it has become clear that he is the wrong man for the job. Roy Evans and Houllier passed their sell-by dates with the sound of adoration ringing in their ears.
Even Graeme Souness was not hounded out by the Kop. Souness was the anti-Shankly; the evil twin with a knack for bringing chaos and a gift for alienating fans.
Benítez is no Shankly, but he has connected with the fans. In 2005, he turned up at a bar in Cologne the night before the Champions League tie with Bayer Leverkusen and drank with supporters. This sort of thing has not made him immune from criticism, however.
A substantial proportion of the crowd at Anfield are irritated by his transfer policy and his perceived innate caution. They are irked by his inability to deliver the title. However, all but his most irrational critics will concede it is impossible to judge his performance against a background of dreadful ownership and political chaos at the club.
Boos rang around Anfield when Benítez replaced Yossi Benayoun with Andriy Voronin against Lyons but this does not mean that Benítez has lost the Kop. Even Bob Paisley was booed for taking off Craig Johnston in the early 1980s.
Paisley reacted by criticising the crowd, saying they were layabouts who’d never done a day’s work in their lives. He soon retracted his attack, saying it was aimed at particular individuals in the main stand. Paisley made the right move. Do not alienate the Kop. They moan in private but, when public backing is needed, they will recall the managers who stood beside them and recognise the real enemy.
So win, lose or draw, Benítez’s name will be sung on Sunday. Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. will not be so lucky.
Six days later, Benítez’s side are on the brink of elimination from the Champions League after Tuesday’s defeat by Lyons, their title aspirations are in ruins and Michael Owen and Manchester United are due in town on Sunday. The fitness of Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard has added to the manager’s worries.
Yet he is still thinking about the kid. Privately, Benítez has tried to track down beach-ball boy. He wanted to tell him that flicking the ball from the stands five minutes before kick-off was not the reason Liverpool lost to Sunderland and not the reason the season is threatening to spin out of control.
He would like to tell the young lad that he is not responsible for the ills of the team. The boy has gone to ground but Benítez’s critics have broken cover in numbers this week. The Kop will give its verdict on Sunday.
Nowhere in football is the relationship between manager and crowd such an important issue as at Anfield. The umbilical cord between dugout and terraces is the work of one man, Bill Shankly.
When he arrived in Liverpool 50 years ago, he found a run-down stadium and team. Shankly built the English game’s most successful club. Yet that is less important than the bond he created with the fans.
“He made the people happy,” it says on Shankly’s statue outside the Kop. But more than that, he made the people feel they were part of something important, part of a philosophy, a culture. According to the great man, the Kop “sucked the ball into the net”.
Every one of those 26,000 people on the terrace heard that and felt that they had as much to do with victory as the players.
Even when he retired, Shankly embellished the legend he created by standing on the Kop. Ever since, Liverpool supporters have expected their managers to be part Kopite.
Trying to track down the kid is something Shankly would have done.
The bond between manager and fans was reinforced by Kenny Dalglish after Hillsborough. His support for the bereaved families, the injured and traumatised will never be forgotten on Merseyside.
So Kopites want their manager to be someone who understands their dreams and aspirations.
Sometimes they try too hard to project that identity on to the man in the hot seat. In 2001, they sang “Are you Shankly in disguise?” to Gérard Houllier.
The other side-effect of this is an eagerness to support the manager even when it has become clear that he is the wrong man for the job. Roy Evans and Houllier passed their sell-by dates with the sound of adoration ringing in their ears.
Even Graeme Souness was not hounded out by the Kop. Souness was the anti-Shankly; the evil twin with a knack for bringing chaos and a gift for alienating fans.
Benítez is no Shankly, but he has connected with the fans. In 2005, he turned up at a bar in Cologne the night before the Champions League tie with Bayer Leverkusen and drank with supporters. This sort of thing has not made him immune from criticism, however.
A substantial proportion of the crowd at Anfield are irritated by his transfer policy and his perceived innate caution. They are irked by his inability to deliver the title. However, all but his most irrational critics will concede it is impossible to judge his performance against a background of dreadful ownership and political chaos at the club.
Boos rang around Anfield when Benítez replaced Yossi Benayoun with Andriy Voronin against Lyons but this does not mean that Benítez has lost the Kop. Even Bob Paisley was booed for taking off Craig Johnston in the early 1980s.
Paisley reacted by criticising the crowd, saying they were layabouts who’d never done a day’s work in their lives. He soon retracted his attack, saying it was aimed at particular individuals in the main stand. Paisley made the right move. Do not alienate the Kop. They moan in private but, when public backing is needed, they will recall the managers who stood beside them and recognise the real enemy.
So win, lose or draw, Benítez’s name will be sung on Sunday. Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. will not be so lucky.
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