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Benitez aims ‘milk’ rant at old Liverpool regime
The former Anfield boss launches into a bizarre tirade about ‘white liquid in a bottle’
Former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez, who spent much of his time at Anfield apparently teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown, has embarked on another of his trademark rants in which he harked back to his time in England and blamed the regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett for his dismal final season in charge of the club.
His latest outburst centred on a bottle of milk and even featured a cameo appearance from "John the milkman in the Wirral", although the main target of Benitez's ire appeared to be Christian Purslow, Liverpool's managing director, appointed by the club's former American owners at the start of last season.
The speech has earned widespread comparisons with Eric Cantona's infamous "when seagulls follow the trawler" moment in 1995 after he had attacked a Crysal Palace fan.
Reading between the lines, Benitez seemingly blames Liverpool's fall from grace - they finished second in 2009 and seventh in 2010 - on Purslow's arrival at the club and is anxious to dismiss claims that he was in any way culpable for the Red's demise.
"I prefer not to talk too much about Liverpool," he announced, before doing just that. "I prefer not to talk about this because I feel really sorry for the fans."
Benitez, who was talking to the English press as his Inter Milan team prepared for their Champions League game with Spurs, then announced: "We have a saying in Spanish, which is: 'White liquid in a bottle has to be milk'. What does this mean?
"It means that after 86 points and finishing second in the league, what changed? The Americans, they chose a new managing director and everything changed.
"So, what changed? The managing director is involved in all the decisions: new lawyer, new chief of press, new manager, nine new players, new medical staff, new fitness coaches - they changed everything.
"At the beginning, they changed the managing director who was talking with some players, and they changed everything that we were doing in the past.
"So, if you want to ask again what was going on, it's simple: they changed something and, at the end, they changed everything. So, white liquid in a bottle: milk. You will know who is to blame."
He rounded off his speech with an even more cryptic announcement. "White liquid in a bottle. If I see John the milkman in the Wirral, where I was living, with this bottle, I'd say, 'It's milk, sure'."
Fans of Benitez, who still have fond memories of his 'facts' outburst against Alex Ferguson in January 2009, will be delighted that the highly-strung Spaniard has not forgotten his English audience.
Liverpool, now under the ownership of John W Henry and languishing second from bottom of the Premier League table, declined to respond to Benitez's comments. ·
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Well given that Hodgson has continued and indeed worsened Liverpool's dreadful run of form well into this season, we might reappraise the 2009-10 season as Rafa making the best of a bad lot...
Good saying, and chronologically correct, but....... having watched Rafa's last season with despair, both I and my mates were convinced he had either totally lost his mind or was deliberately trying to make the wheels fall off. Outside of that, he's got strengths but he's a poor man manager and has some major foolish pride going on there - and he seems to be a good political operator who can put his own interests before the clubs.
Muppet, well said I was about to write and explain the Duck expression but you got ahead of me. Why do people continue to put Rafa down he is a different kind of person who has some difficulty with the English language, the media needs to cut him some slack.
I don't know why everyone's describing this as "bizarre" and "cryptic" - it isn't at all. Nor is it a "rant". Just because someone says something that requires a little more brainpower than what's on the pages of Heat magazine? This expression is similar to the English one: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" or even "If the cap fits, wear it". Rafa is just saying that if some things are so damn obvious that you don't even need to analyse them.