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Legendary fan tribune The Kop booed coach Rafael Benitez. Such a phenomenon, seen for the first time in general, was encountered last Sunday in an English Premier League match against - a game where the highly respected and beloved strategist in England decided to replace the excellent player Peter Crouch instead of the struggling Fernando Morientes.
29-year-old F. Morientes arrived at Liverpool as one of the most dangerous European forwards - he earned this title with excellent performance in various teams. In the last 12 Champions League matches, the Spaniard scored 9 goals. However, Morientes is finding it difficult in England, as he hasn't scored in 11 consecutive matches.
Nevertheless, R. Benitez firmly believes that this problem can only be solved by keeping the player on the field: "F. Morientes will not solve his problems sitting on the substitute bench.
This way the coach "broke" P. Crouch, who also did not impress with good performance at the beginning of the season, and is now an unquestionable starter in the Liverpool lineup, loved by the loyal English fans.
R. Benitez also stated that it is very important for F. Morientes to score a goal. If he succeeds in doing so, one can expect much more support for the experienced forward in both the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League.
"The goal would give him confidence in his abilities," the coach said. - "But if you want to see your forwards scoring goals, you cannot leave them outside the starting lineup. In order to support the player, you must keep him on the field, as making changes won't achieve anything.
The Spaniard is a good forward, capable of seizing opportunities, as his career also shows. Wherever the forward played, he scored goals. Now he needs more confidence. To achieve that, he needs to play."
Liverpool's attack is causing concern for both R. Benitez and the supporters. More than once in the past, the UEFA Champions League winners managed to score more than one goal - last time on December 28th against . The key to the success of the legendary English team "The Beatles" lies in excellent defense. This year, they have not conceded any goals in 28 matches. However, now even R. Benitez, who has been quite calm on this issue so far, begins to show some concern.
"For the match against Man City, I chose F. Morientes and P. Crouch because they understand each other well. And they played well. Both worked hard, created chances, supported and distributed the ball to their teammates, but the problem is they need to score more. When that happens, confidence will grow.
This starts to annoy me. Winning, three points, and not conceding goals is good. But creating so many chances requires scoring more goals. It creates unnecessary pressure, as players lose confidence if they don't score more goals, lose the ball, and it negatively affects the team. Making a mistake makes you nervous, and being nervous makes you make more mistakes. It's a vicious circle. The only way to break it is to score a second goal if you've already scored one.
Fernando plays well outside the penalty area - he supports and distributes the ball, creating various opportunities for us. But inside the penalty area, you need to take advantage of opportunities, and he needs to play a bit more selfishly."
This season, F. Morientes scored six goals - 3 in the English championship and the same in the Europa League. Throughout his career at Liverpool, the Spaniard played 49 matches, but managed to defeat opponents' goalkeepers only 9 times.
Next week, whether they like it or not, Liverpool will have to both defend and attack - in the Champions League quarter-finals at home, they will face the Lisbon team, to whom they already lost 1-0 away.
