40 Day Detox

Rafael Benítez fudged the challenge against Manchester United

There are moments when all football managers must speculate to accumulate – and not just in the transfer market. With Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City intensifying their pursuit of fourth place, the time had arrived for Rafael Benítez to go for broke yesterday. In driving parlance Liverpool were approaching a dangerous corner and their manager needed to demand that they daringly risk accelerating hard into it, thereby gaining the momentum to overtake a queue of Champions League rivals on the home straight.

The price of balking at such a gamble could be not just the loss of a disillusioned Fernando Torres to Manchester City, Chelsea or – worst of all – Manchester United but a failure to find an investor willing to cough up the Authentic Prada Canvas Bag £100m Liverpool desperately require if the Royal Bank of Scotland is to be pacified this summer. Playing hardball with the Rhône Group is all very well but only so long as such potential partners retain the belief this is a club worth buying into.

The stakes could not have been higher yet the biggest indictment of Benítez is that he fudged the challenge. The Spaniard’s team-sheet at Old Trafford might have been printed on a white flag. Although technically extremely adroit Liverpool looked a side configured to nick a draw; had this Authentic Prada Handbags Wholesale had been a Sunday afternoon drive, their players would have remained in light-footed, strict fuel-conservation mode throughout.

True, Torres was supported by Steven Gerrard in a withdrawn striking role but, behind that pair, the central midfield double act of Javier Mascherano and Lucas seemed most unlikely to make many, if any, late dashes into United’s box. Granted, out on the flanks, the industrious Dirk Kuyt – who started superbly – patrolled the right wing well enough but, on the left, Maxi Rodríguez was neat but not penetrative.

When Benítez finally introduced the elusive fluidity personified by Alberto Aquilani’s one- and two-touch game along with Yossi Benayoun’s improvisation and Ryan Babel’s pace, it was far too late. Exhausted by an afternoon spent assiduously chasing, harrying, tracking back and passing the ball neatly in front of United’s defence, their team-mates Black Leather Prada Milano Purse could not Best Prada Outlet In Florence muster a second wind. When a chance arrived to equalise, Torres miskicked and Benayoun’s header was wastefully weak.

With Michael Carrick proving less than inspired and Darren Fletcher primarily about spiky scrapping, yesterday represented All Prada Nylon Bags a wasted opportunity for Liverpool. Who knows what might have happened had Aquilani started.

Admittedly Sir Alex Ferguson deployed Wayne Rooney alone up front but the England striker’s game was augmented by two genuine wingers in Antonio Valencia and Nani as well as Park Ji-sung’s late darts from an advanced Authentic Prada Vitello Daino midfield position. Park had not done much before his winner but that opportunistic burst behind enemy lines was something his opposite number, Gerrard, failed to replicate.

Gerrard played significantly better than of late. Bergdorf Goodman Prada Mens Shoes Indeed, like Torres, he ran assiduously and intelligently off the ball, rarely wasting a pass. The problem was that once his initially bright colleagues retreated into their shells the England Authentic Prada Bags Online Singapore midfielder lacked the on-rushing infantry required to help him adequately bolster Torres.

Similarly Torres started well, connecting with Kuyt’s fine counter-attacking cross and heading brilliantly beyond Edwin van der Sar but, thereafter, things gradually went downhill. Booked – yet again – the Spain striker’s game was studded by flashes of Are All Prada Handbags Leather petulance and, despite like it on occasions demonstrating his power to unnerve Nemanja Vidic, he appeared to lose heart after being clattered by the Serb late on.

Early on it seemed Benítez threatened to outwit Ferguson but, for Liverpool fans, this proved a chimera and from the moment Rooney equalised Liverpool’s containment policy looked increasingly ill advised.

We all deceive ourselves in different ways and Liverpool’s manager appears convinced he is more daring than he really is. Such resistance to tactical change calls to mind the small boy who defiantly places his hands over his eyes in the forlorn believe no one can see him any more.

At half-time a Chinese youth on an exchange visit to Manchester took part in a penalty taking competition. His attempt struck a post but, ignoring such narrow failure he whipped off a replica shirt and began bowing to all and sundry.

No one could blame the boy for a spot of self-delusion in front of 75,000 at Old Trafford but Benítez must realise that, for Liverpool now, hitting the post is not enough.

Should they finish fifth, sixth or – God forbid – seventh, investors may well Are Prada Trainers Made In Vietnam vanish, the bank could get seriously heavy and selling Torres might suddenly become imperative. Like it or not Benítez must order his players to accelerate hard into every bend along the road ahead. There is no other option.