Carragher bombshell - Liverpool star's autobiography opens old wounds

Having his say: Carragher criticised Benitez for provoking the club's owners

He would prefer any questions about a united front to relate to Saturday's Anfield opponents, but Rafa Benitez once more finds team matters taking a back seat to his relationship with Liverpool’s American owners.

The Liverpool manager might have hoped he had heard the last of his fall-out with Tom Hicks and George Gillett after spending the first half of this year repairing the damage.

Instead, he has been forced to accept that the most remarkable chapter in recent Anfield history is back on the agenda following the publication this week of Jamie
Carragher’s outspoken autobiography.

Carragher, the most influential dressing room voice at Anfield after skipper Steven Gerrard, pulls no punches as he accuses Benitez of misjudging the extent of his power when he took on Hicks and Gillett over transfer funds in the wake of Liverpool’s Champions League Final defeat by AC Milan in 2007.

Reflecting on the outburst, Carragher, who also claims Benitez was partly to blame for the animosity after ‘undermining’ the owners, says: ‘In most walks of life, there is a basic rule that you don’t go into work and slag off your boss.

'Such was Rafa’s popularity, he must have felt it was a risk worth taking and that if Hicks and Gillett fired him, after a second European Cup Final in three years, they’d have faced a serious fans’ revolt.

‘Rafa thought he was arguing from a position of strength, but while I put his critical comments down to the disappointment of losing the final, I guessed the owners would not be so sympathetic.’

Carragher relates how they bided their time and waited for a more opportune moment to punish Benitez, who had had sought assurances about January transfer plans and wanted to sign centre half Kakha Kaladze from AC Milan but was told to focus on coaching until a planned meeting in December.

Carragher says: ‘I believe he suspected a plan was already in place to sack him and the owners were holding back funds for his replacement.

Playing with fire: Benitez took a big risk taking on Hicks and Gillett

'The criticisms of the hierarchy were given another airing at Newcastle two days later, and he was effectively daring the owners to arrange his funeral, especially when Hicks ended the boardroom silence by telling him to shut up on the front page of the local paper.

‘It was more than rumour by this stage, and Rafa must have known how close he was to the sack. To my mind, everyone was trying to be too clever, playing politics with
little regard for how much damage it was doing. Never mind about not washing your dirty linen in public, Anfield was beginning to resemble a launderette.’

Carragher, who has a reputation of being one of the game’s straight talkers, also describes how Gerard Houllier underlined his authority by tearing a strip off Paul Ince but ended his reign a broken man after being struck down by a life-threatening heart condition.

‘Ince was the unwitting victim of the most brutal exhibition of management I have seen at Anfield,’ he says. Liverpool were leading an FA Cup fourth-round tie at Old Trafford
1-0 but, after Ince limped off, United fought back to win 2-1.

‘There was a team meeting a week later, and Ince decided, as club captain, it was time to take Houllier on. He questioned training methods and the response was furiously impressive.

‘Fixing Ince with a stare, Houllier asked: “Since the day I arrived, how many five-a-sides have you won? I’ll tell you — four in six months.”

‘Ince was bewildered, as we all were, by Houllier’s memory and grasp of detail, and it didn’t end there. “Now perhaps you can explain to the lads what happened to you against United. When my team are 1-0 up at Old Trafford in a cup tie, I don’t expect my captain to limp off with an injury. If he has to come off, I expect it to be on a stretcher.”

‘A few years later, the Houllier I saw was a pale imitation of the man who had taken on the most powerful player in the club. The illness had taken its toll, and he started asking Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen who he should pick.

‘I had a hollow feeling inside. I knew he had to go. The man needed a break and when his time was finally ended it came as a relief.’

Carra: My Autobiography is published by Bantam Press, priced at £18.99.