SIDELINE CUT:THE CHANTS on the football terraces across England and the insinuations in the newspapers all hint that Rafa Benitez has lost his marbles. But in a world gone mad, who should care or even notice? In a puzzlingly swift space of time, the perceived wisdom is Liverpool have gone from genuine title contenders to the most popular study in dysfunctional families since Ozzy Osbourne and his brood let the cameras in.
Whether one cares for Premier League entertainment or not, there is something fascinating about this period, which will be remembered for the colossal loss of nerve displayed by the Liverpool management and players – unless they arrest it against Chelsea tomorrow. And for Irish sports fans, the starkly vulnerable and lonely circumstances into which Robbie Keane has been thrust has become a big issue in its own right, overshadowing Liverpool’s increasingly hollow title claims.
It seems clear Keane is as mystified as the public at large as to why he has been treated in such cavalier fashion by Benitez, who has collared him from the field with humiliating frequency only to leave him out in the cold entirely in more recent weeks. Keane never had sufficient chance to settle into his new environment and found himself further isolated when the goal touch that had seen him shine at Tottenham for the previous two seasons dried up. The big wait for Robbie’s first goal became uncomfortably prolonged and was greeted with relief more than celebration. And the season was only beginning to take shape when the first rumours that Benitez was ready to offload him were voiced.
Although there were flashes of exuberant flair from Keane – most significantly against Arsenal – the “run” that all strikers need has eluded him and more often he has cut a lonesome and frustrated figure who, just when it seemed he had reached the pinnacle of his professional career, found that he had to prove himself to the world again. Premier League footballers are handsomely rewarded for the trials and tribulations of their working lives. But Keane’s sporting life has taken a terribly public and prolonged bashing, which has to have exacted some sort of toll on his self-esteem and his confidence.
Given his professed devotion to Liverpool, to find himself cast as a central yet exiled figure in what might turn out to be an infamous season must be the stuff of nightmares. And there is no hiding – the cameras invariably seek a shot of Keane’s pinched and solemn expression in the shadows of the stands now. At best, Benitez has sent out mixed messages to the Irishman. At worst, he has destroyed the principal asset that any sportsman needs – confidence bordering on cockiness. Who knows why Rafa has toyed with Keane? Perhaps, as the parlance goes, he “just doesn’t fancy him.” Perhaps Fernando Torres has quietly let Benitez know that he can’t partner Keane. And perhaps Keane, as has been speculated, has found himself the victim of the ongoing internal squabbles between the manager and the boardroom.
All week, rumours hinted Keane might be going back to Spurs. Now it seems he will be staying on Merseyside for the remainder of the season. The idea of an Irish man wrongly imprisoned in England remains highly emotive in this country and Keane’s plight is beginning to have such a whiff of injustice about it that it seems like only a matter of time before Jim Sheridan persuades Daniel Day Lewis to sign up for the lead part (with Colm Meaney limbering up to portray a menacing Rafa).
Liverpool’s ex-Irish mob has been loyal to Keane in their criticisms of Benitez. Of course, the Spaniard is entitled to select whom he chooses and, as he frostily stated earlier in the week, what he wants to see from Keane is goals scored. If that is the case, then he is going to have to place renewed faith in the Irishman and hope he can find his true form.
But Benitez’s decisions and his interviews have been so erratic it is impossible to predict what he will do next. Ever since Benitez decided to publicly criticise Alex Ferguson, the old boys on the Match of the Day couch have been shaking their heads ruefully. You cannot, they lament, get into mind games with Alex Ferguson, as if the Govan man were the modern day equivalent of Friedrich Nietzsche. “A master at it,” sighed Alan Hansen.
Ferguson may be a sharp blade and the patriarchal figure of English football but the idea that other managers should kow-tow around him because of this is plainly rubbish. And the idea that any exchange of opinions between two managers, however venomous, could unhinge either the players or the managers is alarming. Virtually all of the foreign managers in the Premier League – from the professorial Wenger to “tinker man” Claudio Ranieri, to the pouting Mourinho have been portrayed as oddballs. Benitez is now being painted as the oddest of them all. It seems certain he is at least eccentric – nothing wrong with that and Liverpool fans probably realised it the first time he appeared sporting his strange beard (It’s neat, it’s weird, it’s Rafa’s goatee beard” goes the chant).
But it is fine to be as odd as Howard Hughes when you are winning. Nothing has gone right for Liverpool since the day he criticised Ferguson, while United are looking super-confident and ominous. And Ferguson, the former Clyde shipyards worker imbued with Scotch pragmatism and – in John Updike’s phrase about Ted Williams – “the hard blue glow of high purpose,” has seen off many pretenders down the years.
When Benitez walks out at Anfield tomorrow, Liverpool may well be five points adrift of Manchester United, their weeks at the top of table a fast dimming memory. If Liverpool falter against Chelsea, they might go into freefall and they may struggle to hold on to a place in the top four.
But the situation is not irreversible. The general assumption seems to be Liverpool’s title challenge has actually ended. Given that it’s almost two decades since they won it, it will be no major surprise if they fall short again. But sport rarely runs along expected lines for very long. There has to be a twist. In some ways, Benitez’s strange treatment of Keane has bordered on the vindictive. Keane’s presence and his inability to decide how to use him as become a grand distraction. But it is not yet impossible for Benitez to invest a renewed show of faith in Keane. The striker’s ability to score goals against Premier League clubs has not been permanently erased. If Liverpool can resurrect their league challenge, perhaps Benitez will at last praise the man he has come to see as a misfit.
