As Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett marvelled at Fernando Torres' goalscoring skills against Porto on Wednesday night, or more likely, pondered why a man costing £26.5 million could only beat the goalkeeper twice, it is unlikely that their eyes ever wandered to the stocky little Argentine furiously chopping the midfield wood, name of Javier Mascherano. To be fair, their £417 million investment in the club does not require them to appreciate the finer points of "soccer" nor to realise, which they apparently failed to do, that the 8-0 win over Besiktas last month represented anything special.
But if someone could have explained to them why Mascherano is as important to Liverpool as Torres and captain Steven Gerrard, even though he does his best work in their shadows, Hicks and Gillett might have a better understanding of the public attack on them by manager Rafa Benitez.
The owners, having allowed Benitez to pick their pockets for the best part of 100 million greenbacks in the summer, may regard him as cheekier than Oliver Twist for coming back for more so soon afterwards. Yet Benitez's call for new signings was really a singular plea for the permanent signature of Mascherano, who has blossomed from West Ham ugly duckling to Liverpool swan.
Benitez has a particular affinity for Mascherano, having spent four hours wooing him in January when he was on the point of signing for Juventus, which is why Rafa has pushed his luck to the point of losing his job. And though he now says he wants to kiss and make up with Hicks and Gillett, he is still a long way from being sure of staying as manager, even though fans from Norway and Ireland joined Scousers in singing his name in midweek.
Supporters regard Benitez as their most popular manager since Bob Paisley, though his outspoken attacks on Hicks, in particular, plus his veiled assaults on chief executive Rick Parry, have more a ring of Bill Shankly, who said: "There's a holy trinity of the players, manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques."
Benitez seems to share that opinion, a dangerous one because football has changed irrevocably since then and the men who pay such fortunes to the piper call the tune and the key in which it is played. Rumours that Hicks is already so disillusioned that he wants out can probably be discounted. "It's been a big misunderstanding blown very much out of proportion," Hicks said yesterday. "George and I are happy to see that it has settled back down.
"I am not selling any of my shares to anybody," Hicks added, emphatically denying a British media report on Friday that suggested he was planning to offload his stake.
Both he and Gillett, though, are entitled to ask why there is such a rush to sign Mascherano, who is under contract until May when Liverpool have first option to buy him for £17 million.
Mascherano himself says: "It's not my problem and it's not causing me a problem. But I think they [Benitez and the owners] have to be there trying to solve their differences because it's more important than my situation. I hope I will stay here but it's very important Rafa stays as the manager. I think he will stay. I don't think he and the owners have too big a problem."
In his apparently new conciliatory mode, Benitez wants talks with Gillett and Hicks before the scheduled meeting on Dec 16 after Liverpool's Premier League game against Manchester United at Anfield. One can understand his reasoning, not wanting the owners to make a decision on his future after what promises to be a critical six days of the club's season. Before the United game, Liverpool play their final Champions League group fixture in Marseille, where only victory will guarantee their place in the knockout stages and where defeat could see them miss out even on the UEFA Cup.
That would not encourage any loosening of the purse strings by owners who talk a good game about being in it for the glory and understanding the Liverpool tradition yet are not so old-fashioned that they do not want a return on their investment. Such is the pressure on Liverpool managers to succeed that Paisley, the most successful in their history, once said: "I was there during the bad times, too. We finished second one season." He actually finished second twice, something Liverpool have managed on only two occasions in the 17 seasons since they last won the title. Although second place now brings with it automatic entry into the Champions League, it has never been viewed at Liverpool as anything but something nasty you occasionally step into.
Benitez has funds of goodwill with the fans because of the 2005 Champions League win and last season's place in the final. He will ultimately be judged, however, on whether he can construct a side to win the Premier League.
Striker Peter Crouch, restricted to cameo appearances this season, can certainly not be described as the manager's pet but says: "It's starting to come good now. We are confident at the moment, so I am sure we will have a strong second half to the season." That is assuming he is still at the club for the second half.
As for Mascherano, he says: "I'm very close to signing for Liverpool and I want to play for them. It's possible in the next month there will be a meeting and everything will be resolved." If he were playing in the States, where players have so many consonant-riddled names that clubs spell them phonetically in their programmes, he would appear as MAS-KER-R-NO. But his hopes of remaining a Liverpool player will depend on whether Hicks and Gillett believe Benitez has spelt out his own message too forcefully for their liking.
