Two of the most sought after managers in European football come head to head on Saturday. Both are under varying degrees of pressure from their board or owner and
this single game could change the face of the premiership in years to come.
The game on Saturday is make or break for Chelsea`s flamboyant manager, a loss to Liverpool Fc may not be the final nail on his coffin but it is one more nail in the lid.
This is a question mark over Chelsea rather than Liverpool, Benitez had his judgement questioned by some quarters following Liverpool`s poor exit in both domestic cups at the hands of Arsenal but a win on Saturday may open up a gateway to second place in the prem.
But i think the board realise what the vast majority of Liverpool fans already know, that Rafa is the right man to lead us forward and even if it is not this season, we are getting better all the time that Rafa is in charge.
On the chelsea side of things things are not so clear, we have massive amounts of rumours, probably most untrue but there is definitely a lot of unrest between Roman and Jose.
The British media has been softening up on Jose in the last couple of days by trying to imply that Roman has been the man picking some of the players that chelsea have bought in the last few seasons.
To me this excuse does not let Jose off the hook, think about it, if Jose bought all these players for overpriced prices that are not good enough to play for the club, that is his bad judgement.... But if he let Roman buy these players then you have to question what does Jose want from football. Any manager worth his salt would walk from a club when the owner went out on his own, buying players for the club, which may be the case. Imagine the Liverpool board telling Bill Shankly that they were handling transfers from now on.....love to be a fly on the wall for that one.
Jose has a great reputation in European football and could walk into a number of top jobs if he did not like what Roman has been doing for the last seasons..so why does he stay.
I think one or two reasons,(1) The money...... (2)its probably one of the easiest managers jobs in world football, you buy all the best players in the world let them play, win titles.. only problem is when things go wrong, you have got so lazy you dont know how to manage anymore.
Also rumours have come out of the bridge that the Chelsea players want to back Jose and make some sort of protest against his sacking, the sad thing for Liverpool is that in reality the only way these players can make a point for their beleaguered manager is on the pitch, so i expect a full on Chelsea assault on Saturday with every Chelsea player giving 110% for their fallen leader. We could not be playing Chelsea at a worse time.
But putting Chelsea`s eagerness to save their manager aside , they are dealing with the most in-form prem team of the moment so this really could be a momentous battle.....But as most pre-envisioned huge games go, there is so much pressure on the players that the games are not so entertaining to the neutral but to every Liverpool and Chelsea fan this could be their game of the season,the pressure is such.
So back to one of my opening comments, that Saturdays game could change the face of the prem for years to come, if Chelsea lose or draw against Liverpool i think they will not win the league so that may mean the end of Jose`s reign in England and as much as i dont like the guy he does make it more interesting and would be missed just for the his entertainment value.
Going to be an incredible battle on Saturday and even though i expect a fully fired up Chelsea team, Anfield is a daunting place now for all visiting teams and i expect Liverpool to be 3 points nearer to Chelsea on Sunday.
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