Trouble Brewing At Liverpool

The Liverpool supporters would certainly disagree and would even raise a crusade against this but there is something wrong at the club.

First the manager lashes out at the clubs’ owners, then the owners retaliate, then the manager apologizes, then there’s a talk that one of those owners could be withdrawing himself from the club which of course the person in question dismisses as absolute rubbish.

And now a key player of the squad comes out and says that his team will subscribe to a mass exodus should their manger be sacked!

Fernando Torres has been at Anfield for barely 5 months but he is already speaking in favour of manager Rafael Benitez and more importantly against the club’s co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks (albeit covertly) who were responsible for handing the black bag stuffed with cash to Rafa for the purchase of Torres. Torres was a star in Liverpool’s 4-0 demolition of relegation threatened Bolton Wanderers in the English Premier League on Sunday but in the post-match conference he became something of a rebel.

This is what Torres remarked:

He cannot leave. The fans have given their verdict and it was clear. Benitez has created a team of people who are indebted to him. It’s certain if he goes many players will think about their futures. Benitez is not just another manager. He created a team and put his faith in players that owe him a lot.

There’s no doubt on whose side the players will be on in case of a manager-owner(s) tug-of-war. And there’s also no doubt that there is a rift at Anfield. Although the American duo’s takeover of Liverpool in February this year was largely accepted, there are one or two concerns about the long-term future of the club. Some Liverpool fans want the Yanks to walk to the border before long and the major fraction of the Anfield faithful are in favour of Rafa continuing his managerial job at Merseyside.

The whispers of trouble would be hard to extinguish. The coming out of Fernando Torres and acting as a virtual spokesman for the team wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by Mr. Gillett and Mr. Hicks who would now be wary of pulling the axe from the bag. It’s good for Rafa though. He was desperately short of player support when trouble broke out between him and the Valencia Board in 2004 and left his job at the Spanish club and shipped to England and to Liverpool. Now of course the Spaniard is assured of player support at least.