Spin Cycle

There are rumblings of discontent in the red part of Merseyside and they appear to be getting louder all the time. Somehow, the magic seems to have gone out of Raffa Benitez’s roundabout.

This was to be the season when Liverpool would be chasing the title and nine games into the campaign they are becalmed in mid-table, in 11th place with just 11 points from 9 games. Pundits and exasperated ex-players are almost queuing up to question, or condemn, what to most people seems to be a bewildering and destabilising policy of rotation which has made consistency of performance impossible to achieve. And the world and his wife are at a loss to understand why Steven Gerrard, Liverpool’s outstanding player and the best central midfielder on the books, is ritually banished to the right flank while Jermaine Pennant regularly sits and watches.

Faced with all this unrest, a rather indignant Benitez talks proudly of trophies and no-one underestimates his team’s achievement in winning the Champions League, especially in such dramatic circumstances. But he would do well to remember that the trophy which is most coveted on Merseyside is the unquestionably the one which at present is held by his bitter rivals at Chelsea.