Stop all the whingeing, Rafa, when you're the one at fault

Certainly it is true of Luton manager Kevin Blackwell's ridiculous ravings made prior to his side's FA Cup replay at Liverpool last night, that Reds owner Tom Hicks had "the morals of an alley cat" for talking to Jurgen Klinsmann about the manager's job.

Hang on a minute. Rafa Benitez started all of this when he publicly challenged Hicks and co-owner George Gillett over their mid-season transfer spending freeze. The Liverpool boss was happy to imply that if Hicks and Gillett didn't change their minds he might go, but they called his bluff.

Quite right, too. And now Benitez is squealing like a stuck pig, and people like Blackwell are rushing mindlessly to his defence.

Hicks says he spoke to Klinsmann as an insurance policy in case Benitez really did walk out. What's wrong with that? Any prudent owner with hundreds of millions at stake would do the same.

Or perhaps Hicks and Gillett really have lost confidence in Benitez, and want rid of him. No impartial observer should be surprised if they have.

Benitez did win the Champions League but as more and more time elapses since that unexpected triumph, it becomes increasingly obvious it was a flash in the pan.

A decent run in Europe is no compensation for a persistent failure to mount a proper challenge for the Premier League, which Liverpool under Benitez have never done and aren't doing now.

Already they are 12 points adrift of Manchester United and Arsenal; a shocking display from a squad that cost so much to assemble and must at least in part be blamed on Benitez's Ban stupid rule bizarre rotation policy. Managers these days are paid a king's ransom for their services and must expect to be judged on results. If that judgement is often a short-term one, managers have only themselves to blame for putting so much financial pressure on owners.

Furthermore, no chief executive of a top business could get away with publicly embarrassing his board the way Benitez did.

Benitez's problem is that he whines and postures in public too much for his own good. He did it in Spain and now he is doing it here.

He is also far too inclined, as so many managers are, to assert that success going forward depends on spending yet more money. But why should it? The role of a top coach is to bring the best out of the squad that he already has. And Benitez is the last man to complain he has been starved of resources because he hasn't been.

Whether he has always spent the club's money wisely is another question altogether.

I don't think Benitez will be at Anfield next season and if he wants to know who to blame for that, he only has to look in the mirror.