Benitez proving the Real deal once again
Sep 16 2005
Here we go again pt 2Injured, 4 games in 11 days, big game on Sunday. How can someone who is paid to know so much...
By David Prentice, Liverpool Echo
THERE were loud clunks heard all around Seville on Tuesday night. It was the noise of jaws hitting the ground after Rafa Benitez had handed in his teamsheet.
But while some supporters grimly recalled the ghosts of Burnley past, and others feared another Goodison derby debacle, those sounds had turned to gulps . . . from large portions of humble pie being swallowed.
The Reds' boss had shuffled his pack, cut the cards, done that irritating trick with half-a-pack in each hand, then mixed them up again - and still came up with a winning hand.
But to label Benitez a gambler would be wrong.
That would be to under-estimate his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Spanish game, the flaws he spotted in Real Betis' line--up which allowed him to leave out Steve Finnan, Steven Warnock, Djibril Cisse and, mind numbingly, Steven Gerrard.
Benitez selected horses for courses. More than half of his team had either been signed from, or had played regularly, in La Liga. They were perfectly equipped to deal with a hostile reception on a sweltering night in Seville.
New Comedy on ITV 2ITV 2 bosses are cheering this morning on the ratings achieved in the 2nd half of their new hit 'Reality Comedy' show simply called 'Everton in Europe' The...
The remaining players came in fresh and desperate to make an early season impression.
Florent-Sinama Pongolle and Djimi Traore were two of those beneficiaries - both criminally implicated in Benitez's last wholesale shake-up at Burnley. Both flourished.
Pongolle was surely only included in Spain for the nuisance value his pace and persistence offered? One clinically lofted lob 88 seconds later suggested otherwise.
And hadn't Djimi Traore spun an early end to his Anfield career on the mud of Turf Moor? Not if subsequent performances, or the superb sliding intervention to deny Oliveira on Tuesday was anything to go by.
It is still far too early to make predictions over Liverpool's season, especially with Manchester United and Chelsea next up.
With the Londoners at Anfield again only five days after their Champions League visit, expect some more jawdropping selections.
Just don't be too quick to criticise.
