Give us a break!

Another vital win at the weekend, but the criticism continues. When Man Utd scrape a win with a fighting display - the typical "that's the sign of true champions, when they can win without playing well" plaudits always follow. When Liverpool do it, we're not good enough, and the many so called football journalists still don't get off our backs. The negative press we've had this year has been appauling. Fair enough compared to last year we have not had a good season, but in most of Rafa's and our previous bosses Houllier and Evan's seasons - we have had to battle hard to secure 4th place in the division, usually behind Chelsea, Arsenal and Man Utd. So in reality in the league this is not too disimilar to many of the last 15 seasons - so why are we getting such a hard time this year?

Man United have had a championship winning side for the last 20 years and until last summer have had the funds to improve that team year on year. Chelsea were nowhere until Roman arrived and bought them success in the last 7 years and again they have had the funds to continually improve. And Arsenal, well fair play to them - they have been incredibly successful under Wenger considering the significantly lower net spend compared to the top two. But Liverpool are really in the same boat as Arsenal, and although they have a couple of Premier League titles in the cabinet that we would do anything for, they don't have a Champions League trophy - so in fairness, our achievements are pretty similar.

One of the most pathetic critisisms of Rafa and his team this season - that gets rolled out everytime we have a bad result is the failure of the club despite such a massive spend on players. The way the media spin the situation to make it sound FAR worse than it is, is just rediculous - firstly they seldom reveal the net spend - they talk about him spending £200m but fail to mention the £150 million he has recuped , which shows how he has actually succeeded very well - in trading up to improve the squad. The truth is he has a net spend of £50 - over 6 seasons, to me that's pretty impressive - less than £10million per season and the team we have now compared to before Rafa arrived is miles ahead.

I'm not defensive enough about my club not to happily admit he has made mistakes in the market, but who hasn't - Shevchenko anyone, Veron, Forlan, Klerberson, Djemba Djemba, David Bellion, Kezman, Francis Jeffers for £10m!!

Rafa's clever strategy of buying decent players, getting LFC on their CV and moving them on so he can use the cash for better players has actually worked a treat. The best example being Xabi Alonso - signed for £10.75m and sold for £30m, but also Peter Crouch signed for £6m, sold for £10, Bellemy signed for £6m, sold for £9m, Scott Carson signed for £750k sold for £4m, Voronin signed for zilch sold for £2m.

Yes, before the critics shout what about poor old Robbie Keane. Fair enough this didn't work out as we'd have hoped but Rafa doesn't hold the cheque book - he wanted Barry and Keane for a combined £20ish million, Parry was the negotiator and overspent on Keane. And in trust the loss is far less than reported. The £20.3million figure was not what we spent, like with most signings there were a number of add ons which weren't met so in trust the figure paid was more like £18m, and the amount recouped was around £15m - and people forget he did score 7 important goals for us in his ill-fated 6months at Anfield and several more assists - so £3m wasn't too much to lose for that. And when you consider that Harry Redknapp has shipped him out to Celtic and replaced him with another washed up player in Gudjohnson, was Rafa actually first to spot that Robbie Keane was starting to struggle with the pace of the premiership and better to get £15m back for him now than give him another year and only get £5 for him?

The lastest flop is Andrea Dossena and I think he was Rafa's biggest blunder, but every manager's allowed a few, especially when he was the man who attracted Fenando Torres to the club our great red hope, not to mention Pepe Reina - probably the best keeper in the league, Daniel Agger, Glen Johnson, Yossi Benayoun and a few others who are a world apart from the days of Igor Biscan, Milan Baros, Salif Diao, El Hadj Diouf and so on. He is also the man to credit for resurrecting the career of now Argie captain, Javier Mascharano.

Although most football journalists and columnists, would hate to admit it, we are probably favourites for that coverted 4th place - when you look at the fixture lists for the challanging clubs and the fact now, for the first time this season we have most of our best players fit again (I'm not a religious man, but will happy pray on Wednesday night that Torres doesn't get hurt playing for Spain.... again!), has been telling - 24 points from 30 in our last ten league games, shows we are the form team.

Despite the "In Rafa We Trust" tributes, I think every Liverpool gets frustrated with Benitez from time to time, but since the glory days he has certainly been our best manager. He's outperformed Souness, Evans and Houllier and has a better win percentage than any other previous Liverpool manager, bar King Kenny Dalglish. So football journalists - how about having a go at someone else for a change and let us get on with it, and look forward to next season?

There's one topic I can talk about for hours on end, something that means so much to so many, that we claim entertains us and gives us joy, but it reality causes more pain and anguish than pleasure but yet we still devote everything to it. Yes football of course. I'm sure I am probably one of a billion football bloggers on the web but hey, if it only serves to get my frustrations out after a crushing defeat it will be worth the effort.

Long live football banter....