Rafael Benitez the former Liverpool and Inter Milan coach believes that Manchester United have been successful under Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign due to the club’s massive wealth.
It isn’t uncommon to hear such statement especially from rivals who cannot accept the success of their competitors. In fact, Benitez’s statements only draw attention back to his terrible reign at Liverpool and Inter Milan.
Since taking over as coach of the Reds in 2004 from Valencia, Benitez was only fortunate enough to help Liverpool the only major title they have won in the 6 years since – the Champions League won in 2005.
Benitez now claims that a lot of United’s success is due to the club’s wealth and not Ferguson’s genius ingenuity. If this is supposed to be a way of unsettling United ahead of tomorrow’s fixture at Anfield, it is not working.
Speaking to Radio Merseyside, Benitez refused to attribute Ferguson’s success to his personality.
“No, I think it’s the money they were spending,” Benitez said when questioned. “If you analyse the transfer record and the history… Rooney, or Ferdinand, for example… £30 million for a young player or a center-back. Every year they [United] are very well-off. It’s not just because of the interviews or the press conferences; it’s because they had money.”
His major public spat with Ferguson came to light in 2009 when the Spaniard turned to the media to publicly produce facts that Ferguson was influencing referees. At this stage of the league, Liverpool were leading the table.
It did not come as a surprise when Liverpool later conceded the title to United. In fact, fans were so angry that the blamed him making the team lose focus of the big goal and allow itself to get sidetracked by minor issues.
However, Benitez sort to shed more light on the whole issue.
“To be fair, I didn’t like it when the press was talking about mind games because I was just focused on my team, and the things I had to do for the team,” Benitez said. ”
If you say something in a press conference I can guarantee you that it has no impact on another manager. It can happen perhaps one in one hundred times, but the press likes to talk about mind games, but what they don’t realise is that you cannot win mind games if you have a bad team.”
Photo credit © thesportreview
