Cross Rafa Benitez at your peril.
The no-nonsense former Liverpool boss might have been criticised by former players for not being the warmest of man-managers, but in the past he has tended to get results.
Sometimes there were rows, others were just ostracised from the team, but all of them knew their Reds days were numbered after crossing paths with the Spaniard.
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Danny Murphy
Considering Liverpool were working on a limited budget when Benitez first took over as manager in the summer of 2004, it’s inevitable that he would have to force some players out to help raise funds for his own signings.
The long-serving Danny Murphy was one such player.
A stalwart under Gerard Houllier, Murphy never really had a falling out with the Spaniard as such. In truth, he didn’t have time to as Benitez made it clear early on that he had no future at the club.
“Being told you’re no longer wanted at Liverpool by Rafa… that was a tough one,” he told TalkSPORT. “He was being honest and he said to me: ‘Look, I want to bring in some of my own players, you’re not going to be part of the XI and it’s unlikely you’re going to get back in the team. If you want to stay, there’s not much point, I know you like playing and you’re better off going’.
“Then he told him who were coming in for me – Tottenham, Charlton and Everton. I tried to plead with him a little bit, and he repeated the fact that my time was done, really, in his own way.
“Looking back, I do appreciate honesty from managers. I remember the conversation and he was all right, to be fair.
“I hated him at the time, but I’ve lost that now. I understand what he was doing. The next couple of days were a couple of the hardest days of my life. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to leave!
“Rafa just didn’t understand. He didn’t know I spent my whole childhood dreaming of playing for Liverpool, he didn’t know I had all those memories and feelings. He was doing his job, I get that, but it was hard.
“I had great contracts on the table, and choices of managers who really wanted me and that made me feel good. But to this day I still think I should have stayed. I should have stayed a bit longer and trusted myself, I should have.
“But the players he brought in weren’t bad, were they? Xabi Alonso, Luis Garcia … they won the Champions League that following season and he was justified.”
Murphy would sign for Charlton Atheltic in a £2.5m deal in August 2004.
Stephane Henchoz
While Murphy was moved on straight away, it was a different story for Stephane Henchoz.
The centre-back had been first-choice under Houllier, forming a brilliant partnership alongside Sami Hyypia, and it’s no coincidence that Liverpool’s form under the Frenchman faltered when the Switzerland international endured prolonged periods on the sidelines through injury.
Fully fit again in time for Benitez’s arrival, he featured throughout pre-season and even scored in a friendly vs Celtic.
But come the start of the season he didn’t get a look in. An unused substitute in the Spaniard’s first two games against Grazer AK and Tottenham Hotspur, he rarely made a matchday squad appearance after.
He did start the home leg defeat against Graz, reinstated next to Hyypia as he made his first appearance of the season in the process, but after that his final three appearances for the club all came with the kids and reserves in the League Cup.
Leaving for Celtic in January, he was not happy with how Benitez had treated him at all.
“I’m the king of the exiles here so, as far as I’m concerned, it’s finished for me at Liverpool,” he said. “In my head it’s as if I’ve already left. Besides, people are treating me as if I don’t exist any more.
“No-one’s shown me any respect and Rafael Benítez, since his arrival, has treated me as if I was the dumbest of the dumb.
“I’ll only leave if I go as a free agent. Liverpool won’t get a penny. After everything the coach has put me through, I’m not going to give him that parting gift (of a fee).
“I’m not going to leave simply for the sake of leaving. I’ve got two or three possibilities already and things are starting to move behind the scenes.”
He would later rue how Mauricio Pellegrino was brought in as his replacement.
“Just before I left Liverpool last January was when they brought in Pellegrino,” he told the Mail on Sunday. “And maybe, after 10 days training with him, well, that’s when I started asking questions.
“I just thought, ‘am I so bad that they want me to leave and they want him?’
“I think I was right as well because I saw Pellegrino play for Liverpool and I thought, ‘yes, I could have done the job he did for them, at the very least’.
“It was such a bad season for me. I spent six months with Liverpool hardly getting a game. I had played for five years at Anfield and then never got a game when Benitez arrived, apart from three in the Carling Cup.
“I was never given a chance and that hurts. It was never really explained to me. Admittedly I never really asked the manager, but he never said anything either, never said I wasn’t good enough.
“Yet even now they are talking about signing another centre half.”
However, like in Murphy’s case with Alonso and Garcia, Benitez could again claim to have made the right call as his decision to sideline Henchoz ultimately came hand-in-hand with the inspired switch to move Jamie Carragher back to centre-back, with the Liverpool legend’s own partnership with Hyypia usurping Houllier’s previous duo.
Milan Baros
Milan Baros finished Benitez’s first season at Liverpool as the club’s top goalscorer.
Yet he scored just one Premier League goal in the second half of the season and was sold to Aston Villa in the summer of 2005, starting his final game for the Reds as they famously beat AC Milan to win the Champions League.
The Czech Republic international had had suspicions that he wasn’t part of Benitez’s long-term plans, and reports at the time suggested he had threatened to walk out of the team hotel after finding out he had been benched for the 2005 League Cup final.
But while the striker disputed such claims, he did twice voice his grievances with some of his manager’s decisions to the press over the course of the season, prior to being sold to the Villans in a £6.5m deal.
“I was disappointed – this much is true,” Baros said in an interview with a newspaper in Prague. “All players want to play in such great matches and I had been playing regularly before the Carling Cup final.
“But I didn’t argue with anybody. This is nonsense and it is a fabrication that I wanted to leave the stadium. I would be against myself if I made such a decision.
“I was disappointed and that is all. End of story.”
“It is not true that I had or have had disputes with Benítez, but I am annoyed that when I’m fit I only warm the bench,” Baros said on the eve of Istanbul.
“Or when Benítez takes me off during a game even if I haven’t used up all my energy on the pitch. I need to play. Only then will I be better than I am now.
“I have not said I am going to leave Liverpool. I have some offers. If I leave the Reds, I would like to play in a team which would be at least at the same level as Liverpool in regard to playing in European competitions. And I would like to play there constantly.”
Djibril Cisse
A club-record £14m signing from Auxerre the same summer of Benitez’s arrival, the only problem for Djibril Cisse was it was Houllier rather than the Spaniard who sanctioned the switch.
A horrific broken leg derailed the Frenchman’s first season with the club, though he would return to help them win the Champions League in 2005.
An FA Cup winner the following year, Cisse did feature fairly regularly in 2005/06 but often found himself utilised out of position or as a substitute.
And while there weren’t particularly any cross words with his manager, he did make a reluctant exit at the end of that season after being told his services were no longer required.
But an exchange with Benitez did leave the Frenchman rather bemused on his way out.
“I was with the national side, before the World Cup,” he recalled to the Times. “Benítez called me and said I wasn’t in his plans, so it was better for me to find a (new) club. It was funny. He told me he needed pace up front.
“So I asked who he was going to sign. Usain Bolt? Carl Lewis? I can do the 100 metres in less than 11 seconds. Who are you going to buy with pace? It’s like telling (Lionel) Messi you need technique. I was really upset.
“I still don’t know his real reasons. Just tell me. If it’s the way I play or the way I am, fine. But don’t tell me you need pace. I want to know.”
Cisse admitted, after joining Marseille on loan, that he did hold a grudge against Benitez for forcing him out.
“I keep a fantastic memory of England, even if I still hold a grudge on the coach,” he told L’Equipe Magazine. “I have still not swallowed it. Maybe I will never swallow it. I am still very upset.
“Liverpool remains the place where I have suffered the most as a footballer, above all during the last season.
“I scored 19 goals and I never played! The coach and myself were not compatible.
“On a psychological level, it was very hard because I restrained myself a lot. Don’t do or say anything. Frankly, I am proud of that.
“Apart from that, I loved everything at Liverpool – the players, the people, the fans, everything was great. I miss all that a little.”
However, time heals all wounds and Cisse was a lot more positive about Benitez when speaking exclusively to the ECHO back in February this year.
The Frenchman spent the 2006/07 on loan at Marseille, with Cisse joining the club permanently in a £6m deal in July 2007.
Craig Bellamy
Perhaps the most obvious name on this list.
Craig Bellamy joined Liverpool from Blackburn Rovers in a £6m deal in June 2006. In February 2007, he was caught up in a drunken fight with team-mate John Arne Riise. An unused substitute for the 2007 Champions League final, he was informed by Benitez on the flight home that he had no future with the club.
“I say by myself on the plane back to England the next day. Rafa came to sit next to me,” he recalled in his 2013 autobiography. “At first, I thought maybe he was going actually coming to justify his decision to leave me out. I should have known better by then.
“‘What are your plans for next season?’ he said. I looked at him. We’d just lost the Champions League final. I hadn’t got on. I was feeling glum. I wasn’t in the mood. ‘I haven’t really thought about it’, I said.
“Rafa didn’t mince his words. ‘We’re going to buy another striker’, he said. ‘If you want to go and speak to other clubs, that’s fine’.
“He started to get up to go but I told him to wait for a second. ‘I’m still trying to come to terms with the disappointment of what’s just happened and now you tell me you want to get rid of me. Classy timing’.”
It was no surprise that the Spaniard had quickly decided to move the striker on, and the Wales international would later reveal his problems with his manager started on day one.
“The biggest problem I had with Rafa was the first day,” he told Sky Sports. “We were sitting in his office, just about to sign, and he showed me a picture of me shouting at a player! It was a normal Craig Bellamy picture in a newspaper!
“He said: ‘I don’t want to see this’. And I remember thinking, ‘oh my, this is going to be trouble, this is going to be difficult for me’.
“But it was Liverpool Football Club. I knew he wasn’t the man for me, but because it was Liverpool I just had to sign.”
Another altercation between Bellamy and Benitez would take place in the Spaniard’s office after the Welshman was fined for taking a penalty against Birmingham City when Robbie Fowler had been the designated taker.
Given Bellamy’s reputation, you can imagine these were not the only occasions when the duo failed to see eye to eye.
The striker would join West Ham United in a £7.5m deal, as Benitez went on to replace him with Fernando Torres, before later returning to Liverpool in August 2011 and enjoying a more successful stint with his boyhood club under Kenny Dalglish.
Jerzy Dudek
Liverpool’s hero in Istanbul for the 2005 Champions League final, Jerzy Dudek’s reward was to be relegated to the club’s back-up goalkeeper just months later following the arrival of Pepe Reina.
And after falling down the pecking order at Anfield, the Poland international was involved in a couple of controversial incidents before departing on a free transfer to Real Madrid in 2007.
Arrested after drunkenly refusing to leave a bar on the same training camp that saw Bellamy assault Riise, he admitted in his autobiography that he once came close to hitting Benitez after the Spaniard blocked him from leaving the club for Koln despite his game-time being limited.
“He (Benitez) said it would be a good move for me, adding: ‘We’ll definitely help you, we’ll do whatever it takes to make a deal,’” Dudek recalled.
“The negotiations started. There was an issue over whether it was a loan move first or a permanent transfer straight away. A week-and-a-half later and there was no progress. I was in touch with Meier regularly and he told me Benitez wouldn’t speak to him, but was saying Köln’s offer was unacceptable. They wanted to take me on loan for six months, for which Liverpool would get €800,000, then complete a permanent €3m transfer in the summer if they avoided relegation.
“German clubs are financially savvy – Köln knew they couldn’t afford to buy me if they weren’t in the top division – but Rafa refused to let me go on loan. It was a permanent deal or nothing as far as he was concerned. I tried to convince him to change his mind: ‘What have you got to lose? If they go down I’ll come back to Liverpool and stay until my contract ends or you can sell me then. I really need to play games to be prepared for the World Cup.’
“He said he understood and liked my desire to be playing so negotiations with Köln continued. Three days before the transfer window closed I went in to see him again – ‘Relax, Jerzy, there’s still time, but we want a permanent deal,’ – but Meier was telling me that Rafa was still refusing to take his calls! I got more and more frustrated with him until transfer deadline day when I finally boiled over.
“As soon as training had finished I stormed over to him and ripped my gloves off in an aggressive manner. I was so angry that the lads said later the aggression was pouring out of me. I raised my voice. The lads could see I was fuming so all hung around to see what would happen. Footballers love seeing a bit of confrontation on the training ground!
“‘We’ll talk in a moment, Jerzy.’ “No, let’s talk now. What is going on with my transfer?”
“‘I will be honest with you, I am not interested in loaning you. If they come back today to buy you, they need to double their offer as this is the last day of the transfer window.’
“I was furious with him, absolutely fuming, and in my head I could hear a devilish voice saying ‘punch him in the face – punch him in the face and he’ll let you go to Germany’.
“To be completely honest, I genuinely considered punching Rafa in the face. Then the consequences of doing so flashed through my mind. Would he let me go? Or would it just lead to a massive media scandal? Surely I couldn’t stay if I gave him a smack?
“I don’t know how, but I managed to stop myself. Punching a Liverpool manager who had won the European Cup only a few months earlier wouldn’t have looked too good on the CV I guess, but I was still angry.
“‘You said you’d help me. You said you’d do everything to get a deal through. You didn’t mean it.’”
“‘I cannot let you go on loan. I’ll get €800,000, great, but I can’t spend it today and I’ll be five months without an experienced reserve goalkeeper. What if Pepe gets injured next week? I’ll have Scott and a kid from the Academy. Imagine the pressure I’d be under if that happened…’”
“‘Why should I care? I haven’t played all season. Scott played in the cups. You promised you would help me but now I have a concrete offer you’ve not kept your word.’”
“‘I cannot risk it. I repeat, if they come back in today they must pay double.’”
“…I felt he was treating me unfairly, but that’s how Rafa operated. He did everything so coldly, almost inhumanely, because he saw things as business. He had to protect his interests, but it was hard to be on the receiving end of it.”
Knowing he would leave Liverpool at the end of his contract in 2007, Dudek at the time said Benitez had treated him like a ‘slave.’
“I have to finally tell Rafa I’m leaving because maybe he’s not aware of it, he said. “I will remember Liverpool fondly as a success but not the situation I’ve found myself in.
“When a player knows he is a slave, he’ll never give his employer his heart.”
John Arne Riise
John Arne Riise was another player who had his future taken out of his own hands by Benitez, with the Spaniard telling the Norwegian it was time for him to move on.
The left-back’s standards had arguably slipped in his final two seasons with Liverpool as he fought with Fabio Aurelio for a starting role with only the Brazilian’s injury record ensuring he didn’t retain the position permanently.
In January 2008, Riise would score an own goal against Luton Town in the FA Cup after failing to defend a cross coming in from the right.
Three months later he would do the exact same against Chelsea in the Champions League semi-finals, gifting the Londoners what would prove to be a decisive 90th minute away goal.
Starting the 3-2 AET second leg defeat a week later, it would prove to be his final appearance for the club as Benitez called him into his office to tell him he would be sold and wouldn’t be involved for the remaining games of the season.
“He smiled at me from behind his desk. Then he said: ‘I think it’s time we go our separate ways,’” Riise recalled in his 2018 autobiography.
“‘You could benefit from new challenges and we’ve bought a new left-back that we intend to rely on’… Liverpool had purchased Andrea Dossena from Udinese for £7million, but that kind of thing had happened before. On each occasion I had accepted the challenge and emerged victorious from it.
“So I hadn’t expected this. I just sat there, half in shock…. ‘You’re a big name, you can play anywhere at all. We’ll help you find another club if you like.’
“‘Can I play the last matches?’ was all I could say. For some reason it was important that I reach 350 matches and an exact average of fifty per season. Benitez just shook his head… I’d got the sack, plain and simple…”
Yet despite his exit, Riise does hold Benitez in the highest of regards. It was just a case of his manager no longer wanting him in his squad, with the defender going on to sign for Roma in £4m deal.
Robbie Keane
Liverpool paid £20m when signing Robbie Keane from Tottenham Hotspur in July 2009.
Yet he would return to Spurs just seven months later, and at an £8m loss, having quickly fallen out of favour under Benitez.
Not quite fitting into the Reds’ favoured system, failing to forge a successful partnership with Fernando Torres and not being suited to lead the line when the Spaniard was injured all contributed to his premature departure.
In the years since leaving Liverpool, Keane has never criticised Benitez for selling the striker but believes the Spaniard was simply the wrong manager for him at the wrong time in his career.
“Rafa is a top manager and he’s proven that. I’ve certainly never said a bad word about him as a manager, I thought he was top,” Keane told The Football Show on Sky Sports last year.
“I think he was the wrong manager at the wrong time for me. Before that I played at Tottenham, free-flowing football, different managers. We played attacking football.
“When I went there (Liverpool) I was told myself and Torres (would start) and Stevie would drop into the midfield but obviously as it went on I think Rafa liked Stevie playing that no.10.
“Stevie was unbelievable playing that 10. He was different class, the amount of goals and assists that he got. I certainly had no complaints about that.
“I’m not one of these players that likes to sit around on the bench and just pick my money up. All I ever wanted to do is just to play football.”
Again, it was another case of Benitez controversially deciding a player’s time at Liverpool were up, with reputation and price-tag making no difference to his decision.
Jermaine Pennant
Like Bellamy, it is perhaps no surprise that Jermaine Pennant was a player not best suited to playing for a manager like Benitez, given his reputation and the disciplinary issues that dogged his career.
This is a player who had spent time in prison and played in the Premier League wearing an electronic tag after all. Hardly the sort of character you can see embracing the Spaniard’s totalitarian style.
A £6.7m signing from Birmingham City in the summer of 2006, he impressed during his first season with the club and was a standout performer in their 2007 Champions League final defeat to AC Milan.
Starting the following season strongly, his manager even called for him to be given an England call-up. But after being sent off in a Champions League clash with Porto in September 2007 and suffering an injury against Besiktas, his fortunes turned and he fell down the pecking order after being unable to regain his place or recapture his earlier form.
Making 52 appearances in 2006/07, that dropped to 25 in 2007/08 while he was frozen out in 2008/09 altogether, featuring just four times and making only two Premier League starts before being sent on loan to Portsmouth.
Released at the end of his contract, he signed for Real Zaragoza in the summer of 2009 on a free transfer and has repeatedly slammed Benitez in the years that have followed.
Writing in his autobiography, he described the Spaniard as the “most difficult” manager he played for, criticising him over his lack of man-management skills, claiming he only ever had one proper conversation with him.
That exchange took place just days into his Liverpool career and involved Benitez asking him to write down his misdemeanours and faults.
Pennant simply wrote “GIRLS” in capital letters – and it was downhill for him from there.
Commenting on Benitez’s touchline instructions, he said: “On the pitch, often I can see what’s best. Ultimately you have to trust the players once they cross the white line. But with Rafa, it was constant directions.
“Just sometimes, he might as well have turned a player into an Xbox, dressed me up like RoboCop and put a picture of my face on it. I’m not a defensive midfielder. I’m not James Milner, who keeps it simple. I’m a flair player and do my own thing. But his constant instructions really restricted me. They stopped me from being free. He could never let me do my thing.
“When you have so many instructions, it makes it so difficult. You’ve got some instructions and tactics in your mind and yet he’s shouting even more at you. All of a sudden you’re confused.
“You’ve got two sets of instructions in your mind and you’re left wondering what to do. It means that, suddenly, you mess up with a simple pass because your mind is all over the place.
“Honestly, Rafa was a nightmare like that.
“There were times when I would get so angry about how boring and repetitive training was that I would just lose it and shout, ‘For f**k’s sake – just give us a bit of a five-a-side!’
“As a player, you just want a bit of fun, to make training good and lively. But, with Rafa, the training was so boring that you’d come in and all you’d want to do was slit your wrists! The amount of time in training that we’d do shape, tactics and nothing else!
“With Rafa, it is all about himself. It was either his way or no way. The man management was down to his staff. That was why, when Pako Ayestarán (his assistant) went, they had a parting of the ways and things started to go downhill a bit.”
Xabi Alonso
Xabi Alonso’s relationship with Benitez is a curious one.
You listen to his former team-mates and all say the Spaniard’s relationship with his compatriot completely broke down during his final season at Liverpool, before putting in a transfer request and leaving for Real Madrid in a £30m deal in the summer of 2009.
And it appears that such a deterioration stemmed from the midfielder missing the Reds’ trip to the San Siro to face Inter Milan in March 2008 to be present for the birth of his child, with Benitez trying to sell Alonso the following summer to help fund a move for Gareth Barry.
“It was for the Champions League quarter-final squad against Inter,” Alonso said. “We were going into labour, and I told Rafa that I could not go. I would go when everything was fine, catch a plane and show up there.
“I had to be with my partner. It was such a special, important moment that I took the decision that I needed to be there,” Alonso explained. “Some things are more important than football and I had the full support of the club. The manager understood my decision.”
Meanwhile, Benitez told his player: “When he is born, you call me and we decide. Take it easy. Enjoy it. See you on Wednesday.”
However, as the labour dragged on, the Reds boss had a decision to make as he went ahead without the midfielder and ultimately snubbed Alonso’s offer to fly out on the day of the game.
Given Benitez’s reputation as one who cannot call upon humane man-management as one of his skills, it is understandable why it is believed their relationship broke down from that moment.
Yet, the Spaniard is not a monster. Missing a match, however big, for the birth of your first child is perfectly understandable, with it appearing the only disagreement between the two came from Benitez declining Alonso’s suggestion to later link up with the squad.
“It was a bit frustrating not playing Inter, but I had to be with my family at the time,” he said. “I had to make a decision and decided to be with my family. It was not easy, my job is not a normal job and it was not just any game, but I never regretted it.
“Yes, I would have if I were not present at the delivery. By the way, we won 0-1 with a goal from Torres.”
Only the two men would truly be able to answer whether their relationship changed after that trip to the San Siro.
But once Benitez had decided to sacrifice Alonso to bring in Barry, the writing was on the wall. And whatever the reason, it is clear there was a breakdown in their relationship which ultimately ended with the midfielder signing for Real Madrid.
Which Liverpool player do you wish Rafa Benitez had never sold? Let us know in the comments section below…
Albert Riera
Albert Riera’s falling out with Benitez is pretty cut and dry.
Signed in an £8m from Espanyol in the summer of 2008, he featured regularly in his first season with the club as Liverpool fell narrowly short in the Premier League title-race.
But after falling out of favour in his second season, he was fined, suspended, banished from Melwood and transfer-listed after slamming his manager in two different interviews with Spanish radio, and after allegedly assaulting a young team-mate in training.
Claiming Liverpool were ‘sinking ship’ under Benitez in March 2010, he said: “I’ve been here two years and I know how he (Benitez) is. He’s never sorted out a situation with a player by talking with him.
“He thinks he’s in charge and everything else falls on deaf ears. His dialogue with the players is practically nil.
“When the coach says nothing to you and you are well, with no physical problems and training well, you cannot help but think it must be something personal.
“If I’m doing something badly and you are my boss, and you value me, then you are going to come and tell me what I have to do to play again. This is what hurts me.
“You see that the team are not doing well and there are no changes. It’s a little frustrating because you see that you can help.
“I would like to be here for the rest of my career, but players live to play. My objective is to go to the World Cup and for this I have to play.
“Right now the only market open is the Russian one, I have offers from two teams and, looking at my situation, that has made me reflect a lot.”
In his second interview he said: “I do not want to make trouble with the manager. I am not interested in making Rafa my enemy in the slightest, quite the opposite, but ultimately it is about playing, and if I am not, we have to talk about why not.
“We have not had any talk about why it is. I played all of last year, and sometimes if I did not play so well in one game, I would still play the next week. But this season I have not played at all. When that starts happening, you have to assume it is something personal, rather than professional.
“I believe in these situations it is better to talk about it and try to fix it, or at least make sure everyone knows where they stand. I have no problem talking to people. I am delighted to play for Liverpool and if I was playing, I would love to stay, because it is a brilliant place to play football.
“But if I am not playing I have no chance of going to the World Cup, so I am trying to solve the problem so I at least have a small chance.”
Riera would later blame the media for the breakdown in his relationship with Benitez when speaking to Anfield HQ in 2016.
“The only problem was the media,” he insisted. “I was frustrated when I was not included in the Spain squad for the World Cup in 2010 because I hadn’t had a lot of playing time in the Premier League for like two months.
“So (journalists) put some words in my mouth saying that the person who was responsible for me not being included in the Spain squad was Rafa.
“After that I did another interview and said that I have to be my first critic. But the media was not interested anymore.
“I have a normal relationship with Rafa. I meet him from time to time like at Pepe Reina’s wedding, or some family parties.”
Liverpool actually failed to find a buyer for Riera before Benitez left the club in the summer of 2010, but he was sold by successor Roy Hodgson to Olympiacos that July in a £5m deal.
Yossi Benayoun
On the face of it, Yossi Benayoun’s relationship with Benitez was a pretty standard one with the Israel international proving himself to be an important player for Liverpool.
A scorer of big goals, he produced countless important moments in his three seasons with the club as the Reds challenged for the Premier League title and progressed in the Champions League.
134 appearances and 29 goals would seemingly demonstrate that. But with 47 of them coming from the substitutes’ bench, and with the playmaker taken off on 53 of his 81 starts, behind the scenes he was not happy with his manager.
The Israeli would depart Liverpool for Chelsea in a £5.5m deal in the summer of 2010 following Benitez’s departure, though the move had been agreed with the Spaniard’s blessing before his exit.
And after moving to Stamford Bridge, Benayoun would lay into his former Reds boss, insisting he was the only reason he had any interest in leaving Anfield.
“Everyone asks me why I left Liverpool,” he told the News of the World.. “There is only one reason – Rafa Benitez.
“I agreed to join Chelsea before Roy Hodgson was appointed Liverpool’s new manager. It’s a dream for me such a fantastic club have given me this opportunity. But I want Liverpool fans to know the truth and for them to know I made up my mind to leave a long time ago because of Benitez.
“He never treated me with the respect I deserved. If I played well, I never felt he gave me credit. When I scored, I still expected to be out of the team the next game. And when the fans wanted me to play, Benitez told me he couldn’t understand why.
“There are many examples of him treating me badly. On two occasions early last season, against Fulham and Lyon, the fans booed when I was subbed. They thought I was playing well but Benitez told me he was surprised the fans booed because I was not good enough. It was as if the fans’ reaction worked against me.
“The situation got worse afterwards. He told me I was a better player as a substitute instead of starting in the team. Then, when we played Birmingham after I hadn’t started a game for a month, he didn’t tell me I was starting until two hours before the game.
“He tried to destroy my confidence. You can’t treat a player like this and expect him to be happy. I felt so unhappy but, out of respect to the club, I never spoke out.
“The players and the people at the top of the club knew how I felt. I don’t want to speak on behalf of other players at Liverpool, but people know what happened to Albert Riera and Xabi Alonso. It was the same for me. Benitez tried to break me like he broke Riera.
“I was sure he wanted me to attack him in the press during the season so he could turn the fans against me, so I kept quiet. I felt he was waiting for me to make a mistake so he could use it against me.
“On the day before the final game of last season at Hull, Benitez pulled me to one side after training and said: ‘You will not be in the squad for this game. Thank you for your three years of service, now you can call your agent to do a deal with another club.’ That’s when Chelsea made an offer and the deal was done before Benitez left.
“The previous season when we finished second in the Premier League, I was happy with my performance in the final months but I was not sure if the manager thought I was a good player,.
“I told Benitez I would go if he wanted, but he told me I was important and he would give me a new contract, which I signed. But then for the first game of the new season I wasn’t in the team again. The manager ignored me when I wanted to know why.
“After he ignored me for a long time, he needed me for Europe when Ryan Babel was suspended. I said: ‘You need me now and I will always do my best.’ I scored against Atletico Madrid in the Europa League semi-final. It was a really emotional moment for me. The fans could see what it meant to me. I couldn’t say at the time, but I knew this was my last season at Liverpool and I wanted a special end.
“I thought: ‘No matter how the manager is treating me, I’m showing the fans the club is in my heart.’ I knew I had to get away from Benitez.
“A lot of people at Liverpool treated me well and asked me to stay, but I could not turn down such a massive club as Chelsea. I could not risk waiting to see if Benitez kept his job. The club said they understood why I was unhappy and promised they’d let me leave in the summer if an offer came while Benitez was manager.
“It is good for Liverpool that Benitez has gone, but it was too late for me. I know everyone working there will be a lot happier and I believe Roy Hodgson is a good choice. It was a privilege for me to play for such a great club in front of great fans. I thought I would be staying for a lot longer.”
Ryan Babel
Ryan Babel was just 20 when he joined Liverpool from Ajax in an £11.5m deal in the summer of 2007.
The young Dutchman enjoyed an impressive first season at Anfield under Benitez, but would later find himself often out of favour under the Spaniard as his starting opportunities in the following years.
And Babel has since described his relationship with his first Reds manager as ‘weird’, repeating pointing the finger of blame at Benitez for the fact he was unable to push on on Merseyside.
“It was, in my opinion, a weird relationship (with Benitez) because when he signed me I looked at him as the big uncle who wanted to give me a chance and help me succeed,” he told the Guardian.
“But then as we went on he left me totally on my own and only judged me for the things I didn’t do right instead of telling me how to solve or improve the things I had to improve.
“I was very young and I just needed guidance. I don’t want to blame the coach for me not having the ultimate career at Liverpool but I felt it could have been closer in terms of guidance and support.”
“I don’t think people in England ever saw the best of me. For a player to really be at his best you have to give him a certain confidence, but I did not feel appreciated by some people at Liverpool,” he told the Mirror.
“Rafa Benitez promised me a certain development, but very quickly he took away that promise and it was a totally different situation. I don’t think I ever really played more than three games in a row.
Meanwhile in an interview with the Independent, he said: “He (Benitez) promised me certain things at this time to help me develop which I thought was the same as Ajax but at a different pace.
“But from the start I felt basically left out, by myself, no help and that was of course very difficult for a 20 year old. I had really to become an adult very quick and adapt.
“It was up and down but at the same time I had a great experience there. I learnt a lot. When I look back I could have done things differently but at the same time I also think I could have got more guidance from the coaches.”
Babel would remain a Liverpool player for another half a season after Benitez’s exit, playing under his immediate successor Roy Hodgson before being sold by Kenny Dalglish to Hoffenheim in an £8m deal in January 2011.