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.