Benitez losing the faith and KP struggles
Posted on 15/01/2010With speculation mounting that Rafa Benitez's tenure as Liverpool manager may be drawing to a close, potential replacements are being mooted. Paul Hayward, writing in the Guardian, considers an immediate ousting of the Spaniard with Kenny Dalglish taking over in a caretaker capacity. Dalglish, writes Hayward, would protect Liverpool's owners from the ire of the Anfield crowd:
At 58, though, [Dalglish] is entitled to feel he's not too decrepit to test his faith that he could still mix it with Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, especially at a club where he is already a deity. There would be no onerous (for the club) five-year contract to tempt Dalglish in from his ceremonial role and his work with the club's best youngsters. It would most likely be an emergency appointment. Yet there would be an obvious appeal to Tom Hicks and George Gillett in hiring a human shield against the mounting fury of the Kop. Shankly's premature departure was never corrected. This time, in the short term, the precipitous resignation of an adored leader might find a happier resolution.
Elsewhere, in the Times, Oliver Kay analyses the situation at Anfield and reaches an ominous conclusion. Not only is the Liverpool squad lacking in depth, he says, they are also lacking in spirit. Faith in the manager is dangerously low, with the loyalty being tested of those thought to be his closest allies in the dressing room. Kay writes:
There are 101 reasons why this season has been a calamity for Liverpool. The sale of Alonso is a factor, as have been the persistent injuries that have restricted Torres to flurries of brilliance and left Gerrard in pain almost from the start. But just about all the other factors — the litany of defensive errors late in games, the lack of flair, the loss of form of players such as Martin Skrtel and Dirk Kuyt — have their roots in that deep-seated psychological malaise.
As well as Benitez, another beleaguered figure at present is Kevin Pietersen, who has enjoyed a disappointing tour of South Africa. In the Independent, James Lawton offers his thoughts on the first day's play of the fourth and final Test; after heaping praise on Dale Steyn's performance in taking five wickets, he goes on to call Pietersen's current poor form England's "worst nightmare":
This was deflating enough but England's worst, and widening nightmare, is the continued deterioration of both Kevin Pietersen's confidence and timing. He pulled Morkel into the hands of Parnell at mid-on and when he left it was with the troubled walk of a man who appears to have lost his way. When he went, with seven against his name, England were 32 for 3, and all but broken. The sadness of seeing a player who owns the possibility of greatness slipping away from the height of his powers, at a time when he should be moving towards the zenith of his talent, is acute in any circumstances. There was, however, a still sharper poignancy here when you remembered that this is a ground where Pietersen first returned to his homeland in the colours of England and not so much endured the derision of his former compatriots but turned it against them with brilliant strokeplay and apparently the lightest of hearts.