1056 GMT: Liverpool forward Ryan Babel is attracting the interest of Mille who are looking for an alternative to Inter Milan winger Mancini. (French newspaper La Provence and radio station RTL)

Rafa or Lazy ar$e?

Why anyone gives Paul Hart a job in professional football management is beyond me

LFC end of season dinner details are out. You are all invited, sure to be a fun night:


Menu is as follows –


Starter – Sour Grapes

Main Course – Plaice (probably 5th or 6th)

Pudding – Selection from Kuyt, Ngog, Lucas, Dossena, or Degan.

Drinks will be available but there’s strictly no doubles. Trebles, and certainly no carling premier.

There will also be a selection of wines served by some fat Spanish bloke with a dodgy beard

Please note that dress code is strictly “late 80s” to celebrate our last league title.

ALL drinks will be served in plastic glasses as cups are not on the agenda again this season.

For entertainment on the night Rafa Benitez will be doing his party trick of making £250 million disappear into thin air with f**k all to show for it.

I think my post should have read: "since become evident."

I guess we rode our luck with injuries last season, apart from the lengthy absence of Torres.

It was posted on here just a few weeks ago by Mutt1. Very boring now, especially from bluenoses.

I think he was signed because he was at such a cut price. A fit Aquilani would cost around £25-£30m, he's a very good player who some people have already come to the opinion of that he's poor already.

As for it being a luxury, from what I understand, only £20m was spent by us in the summer, the rest will be paid out in installments. Considering £7m of that £20m was money owed to us by Pompey as well as apparent money left over from the sale of Robbie Keane, it wasn't that much for us to spend. However, the board hadn't given him any money to spend in the summer, it was all money made from sales (Alonso, £30m, Arbeloa, £4m).

From what it equates to, it's something like £16m net spent each year by Benitez. I know a lot of people think that net spend doesn't matter, but when you're building a squad to win trophies it does. You simply can't build a team having to sell 5 players every summer and bring in 5 more who are only slight improvements. Remember the year United won the title (2007), that summer they went and signed Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson and Tevez. Last year, we finished second and were expected to build on our team, instead, we lost one of our best, a very solid defender and, in the hope we'd get a similar quality player to Alonso, had to sign an injured midfielder.


Anyway, as I've said, Rafa's on thin ice, the echo says the club aren't looking to sack him, but if we don't beat Stoke or Spurs, I find it very hard how the man can justify his job after an unbelievably bad season.

With the reported money problems, one possible problem the board may have is they can't afford the pay off to sack Benitez, coupled with the fact the large backroom team he's assembled who would probably follow him out the door. The only way I can see him going is if he resigns but think he's a bit too stubborn for that to happen.