A quick look at the internet versions of today’s papers confirmed to me that there was no point whatsoever in going out and paying for them. Sunday’s papers always seem to bring out the worst in the journalists in this country, I really don’t see why. Liverpool aren’t the only victims of the clamour to make the big news that will be spoken about all week. If there’s nothing true to sensationalise then it’s just made up.

The Mirror had a go at us on Friday through their interview with the cowardly traitor off the Liverpool board, their sister papers are determined to join in today.
Take the People. Well, don’t take the People, because if this is an example of the standard of their product then it’s really not worth paying for. They have a story today, by a Mr Bates, saying that Gerrard is off to Madrid. Well, they say Madrid want him. They want him so much that they let it slip to a tacky Sunday paper in the UK before they told their own contacts in their own press:

People.co.uk - MAD FOR HIM
EXCLUSIVE SPANISH GIANTS TARGET GERRARD Real plot £32Mraid
By Steve Bates

STEVEN GERRARD will find a £32million European bolt-hole at Real Madrid this summer if his fragile relationship with Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez reaches breaking point.

That was the word emerging from Spain last night with Madrid ready to part company with one English legend - David Beckham - and welcome another in Gerrard next summer.

I understand Madrid chief Fabio Capello is a huge fan of Gerrard and the Spanish giants are reported to be willing to pay the £32m it would cost topers uade Liverpool to part with the Kop king. Gerrard revealed after the disappointment of the World Cup how he hoped Liverpool would finally end 16 years of misery by lifting the Premiership title for the first time since 1990 this season.

But after a poor start they are in turmoil with dissent in the boardroom being compounded by fan anger and frustration to give Benitez his first full-blown crisis since taking over from Gerrard Houllier.

“Fan anger and frustration”? People were fed up I’ll grant you that after last weekend’s victory, but they were far from acting angry with Rafa yesterday. Not that Mr Bates would have checked this out anyway. He goes on…

Last night Benitez insisted Gerrard was happy despite being played on the wide right of midfield and he doesn’t want to sell his inspirational skipper - who feels he’s wasted in an isolated role.

But senior members of Liverpool’s hierarchy are concerned a substantial bid from Madrid for the Anfield skipper is in the pipeline - and this time the 26-year-old England star will go.

Well there’s only one “senior member” of Liverpool’s hierchary who’d go to the likes of Bates with his views in this way, and he picked the People’s sister paper the Daily Mirror for his moment of back-stabbing. The next paragraph from Mr Bates was sensationalist nonsense, because Gerrard still does not want to leave Anfield, no matter how many reporters and pundits try to make it seem that way:

He knows his only realistic escape from Anfield next summer is to Spain to either Madrid or Barcelona.

Chelsea no longer need him, while Arsenal couldn’t afford his fee or £120,000-a-week wages and he wouldn’t go to Manchester United.

Meanwhile the Sunday Mirror are just as bad:

SundayMirror.co.uk - WORLD EXCLUSIVE: GERRARD’S RAFA RIFT
29 October 2006
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: GERRARD’S RAFA RIFT
Skipper’s future in the balance
By Simon Mullock

STEVEN GERRARD’S future at Liverpool is hanging in the balance, with the Anfield captain growing increasingly unhappy with life under Rafa Benitez.

Sunday Mirror Sport can reveal the strained relationship between Gerrard and Benitez is now close to breaking point.

Gerrard publicly insists that he is happy to play anywhere in Benitez’s tactical system.

But privately, he feels his poor form this season is down to the Spaniard’s insistence that he plays wide on the right of midfield, while Xabi Alonso and Momo Sissoko play in his favourite central position. Gerrard is prepared to put his preference to one side for England - but feels his talent is going to waste at Anfield.

Benitez, who has insisted he will not quit Liverpool, now faces a third fight to keep the £30m-rated midfielder at his home-town club. Gerrard looked destined for Chelsea after Euro 2004, but was persuaded by Benitez when the Spaniard arrived at Anfield from Valencia.

Twelve months later he asked for a transfer after becoming frustrated by the lack of progress regarding new contract talks - but changed he mind again.

“World Exclusive”? You made it up! Sorry Mullock, but you aren’t one of Gerrard’s confidantes! He’s probably not even heard of you, let alone spent any time chatting with you. “Sunday Mirror Sport can reveal the strained relationship between Gerrard and Benitez is now close to breaking point” - I think you mean that Sunday Mirror sport’s lazy reporter made this story up on Friday afternoon, after Lipton printed the story in the Daily version of your paper from the idiot on the Liverpool board.

Some of the stuff being spread about Stevie around Liverpool is even worse than this, and equally fake. All kinds of stories about personal issues for Stevie, all kinds of stories about how one paper or other will have it printed soon, yet not a shred of evidence. No photo, no video, in this day of camera phones. No “someone close to the couple” quotes. Nothing. Why? Because none of it is true.

I don’t know how they live with themselves making stuff up like this, when they know that it can only cause hurt. Stevie hurt a lot of us when he said he was leaving - but he made up for that in other ways. We’d not have won the FA Cup without him for example and we certainly wouldn’t have finished third last season without him. All the players have started off badly this season, Stevie included, but yesterday they showed that they are determined to stop the rot. If Stevie comes out in the papers himself and says he’s leaving, that’s the time to slate him. Until that happens - and all the real evidence points to it not happening - then button it.
It’s time that Liverpool supporters (not all of you, just some of you) started to remember that Steven Gerrard is a life-long Red and a human being, just like you. Ignore the stories the mancs and bluenoses are trying to spread. And stop spreading them yourselves too - especially those of you who’ve sent emails to us with this nonsense. The press are already having a good go at ruining Steven Gerrard and Liverpool’s season, and I really don’t know why. Don’t give them that bit of help they need to finish the job off.

People who are close to the players know that these stories are nonsense, especially the rumours that no paper would dare to print because they are so fake they’d be sued. The rumours are so wide-ranging that eventually they might actually get one right, but there’s no way all of them could be right, they contradict each other. And if just one of them did turn out to be true, don’t Liverpool supporters owe it to Steven to allow him to sort it out in his own way?
As for what the papers can print, well between Friday’s Mirror and today’s two Sunday versions of that paper, it’s clear that someone in that group - at least the southern-based part of that group - has some kind of an agenda against Liverpool FC and maybe that’ll be clearer soon. In the meantime I think most Reds would be better finding something else to read instead.

The classless, faceless, nameless coward who set about destabilising Liverpool is probably feeling quite proud of himself this morning. Just about every Liverpool fan site has condemned his comments, condemnation also coming yesterday from Rick Parry. Rafa Benítez also had to defend himself, from someone supposedly part of the same club he works so hard for.

Other newspapers have now had a chance to put their own opinions into the mix. The Guardian starting off by putting Rafa’s views forward, and seemingly being in support of Rafa more than the coward who should (in our view) fall on his own sword today.

Benítez has club’s backing despite criticism from boardroom - Guardian Unlimited Football

Manager reacts angrily to claim his policies have put Liverpool out of title hunt, writes Dominic Fifield

Rafael Benítez pleaded for a sense of “perspective” last night in the wake of criticism attributed to an unnamed club director, though the Liverpool manager admitted that he had expected his side to perform more coherently in the Premiership this season after their heady cup successes in his first two years in charge at Anfield.

…

Benítez was visibly annoyed by the criticism. “People have short memories,” he said. “I don’t remember people talking about rotation when we were beating Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen, Chelsea or Milan. And last season, when we won 11 games in a row, people were not talking about [Steven] Gerrard playing on the right side, and rotation.

“If you haven’t won the most important trophies for years then there will be expectation. That’s normal. But we won the Champions League [in 2005] and something changed. Because we won that, and the next year we won the Super Cup and the FA Cup, then people - all of us - were waiting for us to become contenders for the Premiership. But we started really badly away from home and now it’s a similar situation to last season. Then we worked hard, changed some things and the team was better. We will try to improve now by working harder and better.

“I hope to see the same things happen this year as last year, but you need to have perspective and analyse the situation. Manchester United went 26 seasons without winning the league, and at Valencia it was 31 years. These things happen in football. You can improve a lot, but if the other teams are improving as well then it is more difficult.”

…Liverpool were sufficiently alarmed by the comments to launch an internal inquiry yesterday in order to unearth their source.

The Independent were also coming down more on Rafa’s side than on the side of the faceless  director who despite a fair length of time in office clearly doesn’t understand the Liverpool way. Andy Hunter referred to football losing its marbles.

Independent Online Edition - Benitez shakes off boardroom criticism
By Andy Hunter

Proof that football has lost the last of its marbles emerged at Anfield yesterday, when the only Liverpool manager to lift two major trophies in his first two seasons at the club was forced to defend his record against vehement criticism from within his own boardroom.

Liverpool have opened an internal investigation into the attack on the style and transfer policy of Rafael Benitez, from one unnamed director in a tabloid newspaper, and quickly announced that the comments did not mirror the views of chairman David Moores, a staunch ally of the Spaniard whose majority shareholding prevents dissenters from having an influence on the manager’s future.

At a club that prides itself on unity, however, the exposure of a fundamental rift within the Liverpool hierarchy, along with the despondency at the team’s poor start to the Premiership season, has come as a jolt. It was boardroom stability that had a major bearing on Benitez’s decision to resist overtures from Real Madrid and Internazionale earlier this year. With the club now in the third year of its search for new investment to fund a proposed stadium move, as well as the ambition of a manager who has had to sell to buy, the outburst has attracted little support…

The Times meanwhile talk about the sacking of managers in general. Stuart Pearce has been under threat recently, as have Alan Pardew, Iain Dowie and Gareth Southgate. Pearce has spoken of his desire to see the equivalent of transfer windows but applied to managerial appointments and dismissals. The turncoat director who peddled his tripe to the Mirror is probably even prouder today to see that he has managed to get Rafael Benitez pigeon-holed with those four.

Times Online - Pearce in urgent call for chop window
By James Ducker
Click here to see the odds on who will get the boot this season

STUART PEARCE called for the introduction of a transfer window for managers yesterday in an effort to bring an end to the culture of “farcical” kneejerk reactions that he believes is blighting the game.

The Manchester City manager wants a system similar to that which exists for players that would make it impossible for a club to dismiss a manager outside two “windows” in the winter and summer…

A 4-0 thrashing by Wigan Athletic at the JJB Stadium last weekend — City’s fourteenth defeat in 17 away games — prompted an angry reaction from John Wardle, the club’s chairman, who gave warning that a repeat performance would not be tolerated, but Pearce is by no means the only Barclays Premiership manager to be feeling the heat.

Alan Pardew, the West Ham United manager, Iain Dowie, in charge of Charlton Athletic, and Gareth Southgate, the Middlesbrough manager, have all come under varying degrees of pressure of late, while Rafael Benítez’s position at Liverpool was called into question last night after an astonishing attack from an unnamed Anfield director.

…

Having woken to discover an anonymous Liverpool director questioning the direction in which he was taking the club after a poor start to the season that saw them slump to eleventh position in the Premiership after a 2-0 defeat by Manchester United last Sunday, Benítez called for a little perspective yesterday.

“Some people have short memories,” the Spaniard, who has won the Champions League, European Super Cup and FA Cup in less than 2½ years at Anfield, said.

The tabloid that got the scoop from the fruit-loop puts Rafa’s views across today. The fact they didn’t ask him for his opinion the night before so they could be added to their article yesterday suggests that perhaps they were worried Liverpool might try to stop the story getting out. Or that it would then be a balanced article. Not all of the journalists at that paper hate Liverpool though, so expect some more interesting articles in the coming days. For now, they’ve stuck with this one:

Mirror.co.uk - RAFA’S FURY AT ENEMY WITHIN
By David Anderson

ANGRY Rafael Benitez last night hit back at his Anfield boardroom sniper when he said that criticism of the club should be kept private.

The Liverpool boss was shocked by the attack on him by an unnamed director in yesterday’s Mirror, who questioned his leadership and transfer dealings after defeat at Manchester United effectively ended their title challenge.

Benitez claims his critics have short memories and pointed to his Champions League and FA Cup successes in his two years at Anfield.

He said: “Everyone is in a hurry for success. But Manchester United did not win the league for 26 years and in Valencia it was 31 years before we won the league.”

It will be interesting today to see how the fans react as a whole. Most Reds are frustrated at the lack of, well, wins this season, but only a very small minority would want Rafa sacked. And of that minority, most would accept that doing so now without a replacement lined up would be absolutely, well, stupid.

Expect to hear Rafa’s name sung loudly and proudly. And if you hear any Christmas carols being sung listen carefully to the words being used!

Liverpool Football Club have a traitor in their midst. Early this morning readers of the Mirror were greeted with a story by their Chief Football Writer Martin Lipton that claimed Liverpool were concerned about Rafael Benítez’s work so far.

Lipton claimed to have direct quotes from a member of Liverpool’s board – but the coward had not allowed Lipton to name him.

The article was introduced with a statement from Lipton that “a senior Anfield board member admitted the club is concerned about the direction the Spaniard is taking them.” As the day went on it seemed that saying “the club” was concerned was exaggerating the truth somewhat. As far as we can tell, it’s not “the club” that is concerned, just one cowardly member of the board. His excuse for not having the balls to come forward and put his name to his comments was, according to the paper, “to avoid a boardroom split”. Hard luck Mr X, you’ve probably achieved that anyway now.

The unnamed board member was quoted as saying: “We have paid too many inflated prices and inflated wages for players who are not doing the job. When it comes to any manager, the view of the board has always been to let them get on with it. We do not believe in interfering. But the day will come when we may not be that way inclined any more. We have always been very respectful of any manager we appoint. The view has always been the same one, the right one - that the manager must stand or fall by his efforts.”

What’s ridiculous about those quotes is that Rafael Benítez has had much less time (so far) to prove how good he can be for the club than most of his predecessors going back to Kenny Dalglish. As far as inflated transfer fees and wages are concerned, Rafael Benítez is still having to deal with offloading most of those left behind by the previous manager. Liverpool are 11 points from the top at the moment, and six points off a Champions League spot. The team that currently sits in fourth place six points above the Reds is Arsenal, the next team we play away. A win in that game and the gap would be closed, yet this director who I’d love to name says: “One thing that we can’t hide is that we have to be in the Champions League every season and if we do not qualify it will be a major problem. The budget we have set up is still in balance if we do not get into the Champions League. But if we are to make investment in the team we are talking about £20m of income we need to have every season.”

It’s unbelievable. Liverpool lost in terrible fashion on Sunday, and many people were disillusioned at the way it happened, and rightly so. Then on Wednesday night Liverpool won their Carling Cup game. It ended closer than it should have done, but as the first of four home games in succession it really did feel like the start of a recovery was maybe, just maybe, on the way. Liverpool were lacking confidence and this brought some back. So what the hell was this board member doing?

I’ve heard people on radio phone-ins and internet forums talking like this, I’d not expect one of our directors to do it: “We were looking to do something in the league. We thought it would be this year and it’s not going to happen now. Normally, by the time you get to October, you’d expect the manager to know his best team and stick with it but there are no signs of that happening now. I don’t think he could tell you what his best team is.” I’m stunned that a director of our club has done this on such a high profile stage and done this to the manager.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and those internet forums and phone-ins I mentioned are full of them - from the most over-optimistic caller with Red-tinted glasses to the most pessimistic defeatist types who post threads about how the end is nigh for Liverpool. This director is clearly one of the defeatist types, one of the most extreme ones too. He is entitled to his opinion of course, but why give it to a tabloid in this way?

Earlier this morning I wrote about how annoying I was beginning to find Andy Gray, the bluenose-turned Sky pundit who seems to be on a mission to ridicule Rafa. I was annoyed at him being like that, and felt it was pushing the limits of what he should be saying as a member of a national broadcasting company. If he shouldn’t be talking like that, what on earth is one of our own board members doing to be talking in much the same way?

It’s bad enough that the director has been so spiteful in what he says, complaining about Rafa paying inflated prices and inflated wages for players who aren’t good enough. Which ones would they be by the way? Very few of Rafa’s signings haven’t worked out, although in some cases it really is too early to tell. What’s most frustrating about what this director has done today is that he’s done it in this way. Anonymously.

He’s not had the guts to say it as himself, using his own name, which he should now change to “Yellow”.

He’d probably be better off sticking to his other job, he’s clearly spent too much time in that one to be in touch with how we do things at Liverpool Football Club. I wonder if he’s even realised that Rafael Benítez has replaced Gerard Houllier yet.

There’s only one option open to the remaining members of the board. Vote the traitor out.