A refreshing read for once! By Dion Fanning Sunday December 28 2008 After Chelsea's draw with Everton last Monday, Setanta briefly showed a Premier League table that had Roman Abramovich's side at the top. The presenter of their coverage -- so laddish and egregious it makes Sky's seem like Kenneth Clark's Civilisation -- noted that Liverpool were actually top, the table on the screen was a mistake and would be immediately removed. But there was something telling in that mistake. Few people expect Liverpool to remain top and it seems there is a hastiness to bundle them away so it can be explained just what they have done wrong. Liverpool reached the halfway point of the season on St Stephen's Day at the top of the table, historically not a great position to be, but assailed on all sides by those who insist on telling Rafael Benitez that he's blowing it. For the first time in 12 years, Liverpool are leading at Christmas yet they are constantly being told that they should either be ahead by more or are lucky to be there at all. This is not unusual. Since he took over, Benitez has become accustomed to being told he will never get it right. Those who spent most of the first season telling him he would not win the European Cup -- a contention they still hold to be valid in all aspects except the ultimate awkward fact of victory in Istanbul -- now say Liverpool are not doing enough to win the league. They may be correct but their presence is a reminder that they are usually wrong and Benitez is, more often, right. These are the people who say that Liverpool are the greatest culprits in the league which, in the cliché du jour, nobody wants to win. In fact, it seems it is a league that plenty of teams want to win or at least do well in, a departure from previous seasons which is what makes this season so exciting. There are fewer easy games, less teams who consider themselves beaten before they walk out at the big grounds. The tightness of the relegation battle also means that teams at the other end must search for points wherever they can get them. Right now it is Chelsea and Manchester United who are blowing it, failing to take more opportunities than Liverpool to top the league. That is an empirical fact: otherwise one of them, not Liverpool, would be on top of the table. Liverpool's achievement in becoming challengers in the first place given the chaos in the administration of the club seems to be ignored in favour of other lazy assumptions. The next few months will not only establish whether Liverpool will last in the title race, they may also determine whether the club can continue to survive at all. The financial mess which Tom Hicks and George Gillett have caused will not be arrested without some outside help. Liverpool's sponsors confirmed last week that the club is up for sale, but failed to make it an attractive proposition by adding that "the only people who can invest are those not interested in making a profit". Hicks and Gillett were never not interested in making a profit and it was Benitez who first exposed them with that uncanny instinct for spotting bulls***. Perhaps the bulls***ters instinctively sense this and it is why they attack him so ferociously. For many years, they have criticised him for rotation when the reality was subtly different: Liverpool relied on too small a group of players. That has changed this season but instead it is said that Liverpool no longer rotate when Benitez continues to change his team as do the other managers in the top four. When Alex Ferguson changed his team last season, one reporter described it as the "ruthless genius" of the Manchester United manager. When Benitez does the same, they wonder when he will ever learn. Liverpool have negotiated a tough period and remain top despite the absence of Fernando Torres (somebody will surely soon criticise Benitez for not playing him more often). If Torres returns and stays fit, they will view the second half of the season with optimism. They may be optimistic but they will not be as positive as Manchester United who, for some reason, are supposed to have been cheered by the relative failure of the big four to win matches in recent weeks, although they were up to their necks in it as well. Their late goals against Sunderland and Stoke may have highlighted their problems with their strikers this season (Liverpool have scored more than them in the league this season), but their failure to score at Aston Villa or Tottenham or their dropped points at Everton and defeat at Arsenal also indicates their forward problem. Dimitar Berbatov looks like another expensive mistake by Alex Ferguson. He has scored two league goals this season, three less than Robbie Keane and he has disrupted the balance of the side which could only accommodate the narcissist apathy of one player, Cristiano Ronaldo. Now they are being asked to accommodate two. It was fitting that Carlos Tevez got the winner at Stoke and was brought in for a game which would always require a physical commitment lacking in Berbatov. Tevez may not last there much longer as he is forced out by United's need to play a player who does not look like a £30m footballer. At the heart of United's challenge is Cristiano Ronaldo who was lucky not to be sent off for a third successive stamp after flinging a foot at an opponent during the game at Stoke. One of those stamping matches was against Sunderland when, tired of the punishment he was receiving, Ronaldo took the decision to substitute himself. It was a move now totally in character as the player seems convinced that each game has been designed as an intricate vanity project to accommodate his mammoth ego. Last season, he often played as badly as he has this year but his goals led him to be acclaimed as the best player in the world. He still scores, but not as often and every game is now simply an opportunity to find out which referee will stand up to him. As Ronaldo lashes out at those who he seems amazed to discover have not turned up to praise his genius, he is United's greatest liability as they attempt to win the title that would equal Liverpool's record. The victory at Stoke was an important one for Ferguson as the unconvincing display did not matter after the trip to Japan. With home games against the top five to come, he will see the title as being in his hands. Yet it may be determined by how he deals with Ronaldo's increasingly desperate assaults on his authority. But Ferguson will listen to the whisperings at his rivals and think he is doing alright. Liverpool have their problems and Chelsea have more money and more problems. Jose Mourinho remains the template for all Chelsea managers, particularly from many of the players who have not forgotten him. Luiz Felipe Scolari has, at times, looked bamboozled and been forced to deny the stories that there is dressing room displeasure at his selections and tactics. He will have to convince them in the New Year. Chelsea are judged by a different standard and that is right. They can complain that nobody could cope with the loss of Drogba, but when they have brought Anelka to the club on a whim, there won't be too much sympathy. Soon they will have Michael Essien back as well and Scolari will be assessed on his ability to fit them all in. Deco has slumped since his early season form, which suggested that Chelsea would be unstoppable. He was left out against West Brom on Friday as Scolari tried to accommodate Drogba and Anelka in the old formation. He appears to have a greater affection for Anelka, but the feeling will not be mutual if the striker spends a lot more time playing on the wing. Chelsea's weaknesses have been exposed by Arsenal and Liverpool among others this season. Arsenal's problem seems to be that they can only beat teams in the top four, finding the tiresome triviality of playing the lesser matches beneath them. This time last year they topped the table but it has been an uncomfortable year for Arsene Wenger. Next year doesn't look any better as they contemplate life without Cesc Fabregas, something they may have to get used to, and become increasingly shrill in their complaints. Arsenal's Christmas period has been most calamitous. Failure to hold onto a lead against Villa and to beat Liverpool at the Emirates rules them out of the title race. But it is not just the results, it is the feeling that they remain a team on the verge of a nervous breakdown that will undo them. The rest of the league has, at times, looked like it has been turned upside down. Manchester City's win against Hull moved them out of the bottom three. City are the only club looking forward to January when they may become a one-club attempt to get money flowing through the economy again. It is Stephen Ireland who again claimed attention over Christmas. He was excellent in the defeat at West Brom but against Hull he looked, once more, like one of the most gifted players of his generation. Hull City's players spent half-time at the City of Manchester Stadium being addressed by their manager Phil Brown on the Eastlands pitch. There was one obvious reason for Brown's decision: bulls***. Brown has become the latest man to be the next England manager, a title more toxic than being hailed as the next Bob Dylan. There was a time when it was Alan Pardew's to lose, before that Alan Curbishley and there seems to be only one role more certain to lead to calamity than being tipped as England manager and that is becoming England manager. Brown doesn't see it that way and he cheered his media supporters by standing up to Premier League egos and keeping them on the pitch like schoolboys. How the Premier League egos he is planning to manage for the rest of his career feel about it remains to be seen. Some of us expected Hull to be where West Brom are this Christmas and it will be harder for Tony Mowbray's side to move than it will be for Liverpool to be shifted at the other end. With 10 points separating Hull in seventh from Stoke in 19th, this could be a year when both ends of the table are endlessly unpredictable. Sunderland should survive when the music stops, but if they do, expect their Irish influence to be almost non-existent by the start of next season. Roy Keane's appointment was a gamble that worked, up to a point; Ricky Sbragia's elevation yesterday is a different kind of gamble but the risk is just as big. There are others like West Ham, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough who may find the struggle tougher, along with the more obvious relegation candidates, the promoted sides. Joe Kinnear's performance at Newcastle has, despite his early attempts, been remarkably understated, strange for a club of Newcastle's disposition. Damien Duff deserves a run free of injury and the club will need to hold on to Michael Owen and Shay Given, who really should give himself a break and join someone, anyone, else. Liverpool were top the league at Christmas, a position which, according to Benitez, gives them an 80 per cent chance of finishing the season as champions. History contradicts this. Between 1992 and 2004, only three teams have won the title after being top at Christmas. In recent times, three of the last four winners were top at that point, but that only emphasises, once again, how uncompetitive the league had been. Last year Wenger threatened to break through before Arsenal's injuries and their aggrieved reaction to those injuries brought them down. Liverpool have many things that can undermine them: Tom Hicks, George Gillett, Fernando Torres' hamstrings, Robbie Keane's nerves or Steven Gerrard's ego. But Benitez's management is, in Liverpool's context, a force for good. Rafa has built the team expertly, operating, contrary to conventional wisdom, superbly in the transfer market and he is managing a club that, right now, seems unmanageable. But there are a number of weaknesses in Liverpool's challenge and Chelsea's structure that should hand Manchester United an advantage. They have the manager and they have the tradition, but they may be undone by the Greek myth rather than the Greek god that is Ronaldo. They will also not be the first to underestimate Rafael Benitez and, by doing so, once again play right into his hands. - Dion Fanning ere
