Benitez has lots to prove

So the pots in the cabinet and won't be coming out again and the fans are still drunk and all is well. To most fans the result is everything....the score is all that matters. It is probably the reason that the bookies make a fortune out of football bets every year. It seems that now we have a tactical genius in charge of the club. This must be correct. We won didn't we?

But what really happened? I sat through the first half in shock watching the worst display I have ever seen from a Liverpool side in a big game for over 45 years. I had hoped that Benetez would play a more positive game but there seemed to be no awareness of how to play against this skillfull side. A midfield which covered rather than contested, tracked rather than tackled. The Italians cut through Pool as if they were not there. Tap in goals... men against boys. After the first three I feared it would be 4 (in fairness it should have been) or even 5 by half time. Like everyone else, I saw the worst display ever by a Liverpool side and likely humiliation. The team was leaderless on and off the field. Whilst Milan scored Benetez watched and did nothing other than make an injury change How many bloody goals did he need them to get?

We all know from our experience that the game was over. Benetez certainly thought so even though maybe he hoped for a rare miracle. The fans were in tears in the stadium and on line they were hoping that Pool might just get a goal. Only once in a lfetime can you give a team of this quality such a start. But our tactical genius just sat.

To many in here ,who just look for fuel to annoy Everton and Man U fans with, it now makes no difference, Pool got through, but I cannot forget the managers inept display as, god knows why, he waited for half time. The fact that the game was saved is not relevant. The changes he made were now forced by the score and the only option he had left so he had to play the with a line up close to the one he should have started with and in a style more likely to succeed. It's hardly good management is it? Good fortune got him off the hook, we all know that in reality.

So, I suggest that all those who now say that this is the answer to Pools future should think again. I admit that he has never had the greatest side to put out but the tactics and motivation he was responsible for were not very encouraging. Kewell for god sake? Probably unfit, and the most out of form player on the books, and one who has never seemed to enjoy playing for Liverpool, a player without enthusiasm as a starter in the most important game of the sides season? Tactical skill my arse!

Benetez was a very, very lucky man, which is no bad thing in a manger, but it will take more than amazing good fortune to make him the manager Liverpool need. He is a nice , modest man, who takes no credit for the win ( or maybe he is a realist?) and maybe he will grow into the job of being the manager of a side with top Prem ambitions once he can buy a few players. Right now he has a long way to go after his display last week.

LC