Most importantly, our league challenge (for fourth place) could be over by September or, more worryingly, before the transfer window shuts. With tough early fixtures against top sides and bogey teams, Hodgson’s budget honeymoon may come to a shattering end.

We can also be fairly certain that Liverpool FC will have new owners at some point during the year. The Hicks and Gillett LBO nightmare is playing out its final stages but we don’t know whether the new owner will be a rich knight, a dodgy speculator or RBS.

There are rational reasons to be optimistic for the team’s chances. We haven’t signed bad players; as a unit we know they are almost as good as any other (it’s not a wholly different team from the one that finished second) they can’t be as bad as last year and whatever happened last summer (remember how bad pre-season was as an omen) is now consigned to history. None of the other top sides – Manchester City excluded – are demonstrably stronger this year.

But there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the team’s chances. We haven’t signed particularly good players at the peak of their careers. You’d expect the early start to the season and a long Uefa Cup run will be damaging at some point. We will always be playing catch-up on a Sunday afternoon. More importantly, Roy Hodgson has been unable to deal with any of the most obvious weaknesses in the team:

• a lack of defenders that attack the ball,
• a lack of height in important positions
• fullback
• Second striker

There are a number of factors which are up in the air. A new medical team was recruited to lessen the prospect of soft tissue injuries – but when will they have an impact? Carragher says that training was as hard as he could remember in pre-season, but will that mean we fade away at the end of the season?

The factors that worry me most for the medium term are:

• Goalkeeping. The happiness of Pepe Reina is immensley important. And it’s one area where teaching all the youngsters in the same way was clearly having an impact. But now Hodgson wants to sign Brad Jones. And who is the goalkeeping coach?
• We don’t know what will remain and what will change of the team’s structure. Frank McParland has said that he hasn’t talked to Hodgson yet about what he wants from the young sides. Will they be playing the same formation as the first team? Or will LFC be abandoning 4-2-3-1 just as world football adopts it as a standard?
• We don’t know what chances there will be for young players coming through. Benitez or a member of his staff were always t reserve team games. Will Roy or Sammy be as committed?

A month ago, I would have settled with a 7th place finish this season. With the futures of Torres and Gerrard uncertain, not going backwards was the key objective. Now, I’m not so sure. But would any of the big players hang around if we finish again outside the Champions League places and fail to win a significant cup?

I haven’t lost that tinge of excitement at the start of a new football season. But I also know what an emotional investment it is; that it will end up in disappointment but there will be flashes of ecstasy and despair on the way. Will this season be worth it?

Related posts:

1. Liverpool FC Reserves: season preview
2. Liverpool v Leicester City FA Youth Cup Preview
3. Liverpool reserves v Wigan Athletic reserves preview

• the breakdown of his relationship with Xabi Alonso
• some poor mid-market signings
• Charlie Nicholas could never work him out (although Arrigo Sacchi did)
• last season

I’m past caring. Like Paul Tomkins I’m ambivalent – this last season has been tough. And after defending Gerard Houllier’s bunker to the end (in a fashion that would have made Peter Mandelson proud), reluctant to make the same mistake.

But Rafa’s departure has cut a wound in me that will not heel. Because the club, from top to bottom, has not behaved as it should – as it promised. It has treated a dedicated, hard-working, loyal servant in a shabby, underhand manner. In doing so, it has ripped at the bonds of affection I have for the club.

Supporting LFC isn’t a leisure activity for me.  I’m not sure I even like football. I’m not from Liverpool. I may never live there. For most of the life I remember it’s been a top 8 side rather than title-challengers. I’ve been the glory hunter with the worst sense of timing ever!

Instead, supporting Liverpool Football Club for me has always been an ideological endeavour. I support it for its values:

• Respecting the past but creating new traditions
• Maintaining principles based around Shankly’s ‘football socialism’
• Remaining loyal and discreet.
• Respecting each other, and servants of the club for more than winning silverware

These principles are no longer alive at LFC. Even though many of the fans still hold them dear there are too many in positions of influence and power who do not. For all his failings, David Moores ensured a respectful send-off to Evans and Houllier. Both were dispatched with succession in mind. This board apparently leaked discussions with Benitez whilst he was on holiday. Statements given to fans are now apparently untrue. And he was deprived a dignified send-off. Senior executives, having been brought in to achieve one task and failed at that, have moved on to more sexy tasks: negotiating with prospective staff, briefing journalists, opening up direct lines of communication with players.

This is not the first time the current leadership of LFC has disgraced itself. It is not the first time it has made a mockery of that ephemeral concept, the Liverpool Way. But for me, and perhaps for them too, Benitez’s departure is a new low. And if we can’t treat our own with respect, who are we?

I’ve seen in the Labour Party what happens to people when their levels of pragmatism and compromise are pushed to breaking-point; it’s painful. I make no grand statements for what I will or will not do next season. And I hope to be careful not to act out of spite less it cheapen the memories and be disrespectful to those who remain, loyal to the Liverpool Way. But win or lose, it won’t mean the same. And you can’t place a value on that.

Related posts:

1. Why Rafa Benitez will never be a media darling
2. George Gillett says sack Rafa? Don’t believe the papers
3. Why Rafael Benitez should part own the club

My Benitez revelation came stood at a bar, feeling smug about a recent up-turn in the fortunes of my own business. I was reflecting on Sir Clive Woodward’s maxim that when things go badly you should go and get piased and when things go well you should organise an early morning autopsy to discover why. The scientific approach (and the large number of Scousers in the pub) helped me draw the parallel.

I was then that I realised both how hard it was to follow success with self-criticism but also how it ran counter-intuitive with the grain of human emotion.

And that’s why Liverpool fans can never expect Rafa to be loved – or even admired – by the media. Like Sir Clive the best he can hope for is a ‘lucky professor’ tag.

Watching lots of historic games of football – and the characteristics of current Valencia manager Unai Emery -I had been wondering: does Benitez’s lack of obvious passion during a match matter? Most definitely – but only as far as gaining media approval. And if that’ a clincher for Liverpool fans, it’s also a litmus test for whether or not you are a proper Liverpool fan.

Related posts:

1. Why sacking Rafa Benitez opens a wound that won’t heel
2. George Gillett says sack Rafa? Don’t believe the papers
3. Why Rafael Benitez should part own the club

I can stand losing games. Even nine of them. It’s the good goals, the sharp tackles, the strength in adversity that I remember. Being robbed by bad referees, luck opponents, even beach balls has it’s own romanticism.

I can stand having bad years – we all do – and progress isn’t ever linear. As long as there’s some chink of light. Back in the early 1990s it was the emergence of Robbie Fowler. Pre Rafa it was Steven Gerrard carrying the team – a super-human effort that yielded more than we deserved.

Any even in bad years there’s always the cup competitions. You don’t need to win the cup necessarily, just win some high profile games in auspicious circumstances and have a memorable trip as a fan or a buzzing Anfield night under lights.

This year there’s been nothing. The good wins (Manchester United and Spurs at home) have only ever felt like a comma in a harrowing read. Great players haven’t performed and squad players have been diminished to mice. Recoveries from injury have only been accompanied by more injuries. The end of a tough run of games has been met only by slip-ups in 3 point bankers (eg. Wigan away).

And at the end of this 10 month torture of pulling nails against a blackboard, pre-season will see other sides spend lots of money as we struggle to not get weaker. And all the time supposed Liverpool ‘supporters’ will churn out the views of media pundits who support other teams an enjoy the ratings uplift from any article that criticises LFC.

All around me I see Arsenal fans who know that they are not good enough ad likely to fall short at the end of the season. But even after five barren years they get close enough to still have hope. How I envy them now.

It doesn’t take much to give me hope. I’d rather believe in the tiny glimmers than require a mountain of hard fact for the scales of cynicism to fall from my eyes. But we’re dangling off a cliff with nothing to hold on to. At least if we’re knocked out of the cup this week, we won’t have to endure another couple of games.

So thanks for asking how I feel this morning. You didn’t really want to know, did you?

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The price was a matter of concern to many Liverpool fans. Apparently £100,000 is chicken-feed for such a promising youngster. He did only have 18 months left on his contract and he was picked up on a free transfer. But supporters on forums did not believe that it was value for money, a meaningful contribution to the player budget (even at the Academy) or have confidence that the administrators (still with a small a) would have the expertise to demand performance bonuses if he went on to be a successful adult.

Others saw it as further evidence that Rafa Benitez was wrong to conduct the extensive overhaul of academy staff last summer. They examined the role of Malcolm Elias who was the scout of young talent we had poached from Southampton but has now moved to Fulham. This view was reinforced by rumours (which just won’t go away in Sky Sports parlance) linking striking hotshot Lauri Dalla Valle with a move in the same direction – a transfer for David Amoo was later added in the mix.

For an even more select few it was evidence that Liverpool is failing to nurture promising young players. For them, Dani Pacheco should have been in the first team squad ahead of players like Voronin and Buchtmann should have had more of a chance at reserve team level, after his promotion to Melwood on the summer. Some point to him playing on the right side of midfield for much of this year and conclude that he must have been mis-treated.

Thankfully in this case it could not be used as evidence of the managers blind faith in foreign talent over local lads. The player keeping him out of the reserve team was scouser Robbie Threlfall.

For another group it was proof that there are disciplinary problems at the Academy. They point to the early departure of fellow German Marvin Pourie – who appears to have fallen put with subsequent coaches – and presume Buchtmann must have been on the ale or just showing a lack of determination.

Rumours will always spread around a football community and Liverpool is a fertile city for gossip. But the presumption that there was an intriguing story behind the move reveals much about supporters confidence in the running of the club and the unchallenged rumours of yester year.

These are the same supporters who’ve read (unchallenged) reports that Nathan Eccleston was going to move to Blackburn after being promoted to Melwood only to be sent back to the Academy because the first team base was ‘full’. Rumours also suggested we lost centreback Robert Huth last year because no-one remembered to renew his contract. And we heard of splits in the dressing room and amongst the coaches which demoralised young players.

Appointing Kenny Dalglish to oversee the Academy and taking personal responsibility for the operation may have been a smart move by Rafa but it’s not enough to give fans confidence.

Football, particularly at this level is still an opaque world, where fans see a few YouTube clips, four of five youth cup games and suddenly know the quality of a player. Where the myriad of associates (family members of the 100+ players associated with the young sides) mean that many more people might be ‘in the know’ and where simple explanations are discarded in favour of incompetece and scandal.

What if Christopher Buchtmann just fancied a bit of extra money? Perhaps that’s what brought him here in the first place. Maybe managemet has more confidence in Threlfall and Mavinga and knew his opportunities would be limited. Maybe, as a short-ish full back who’s not much younger than Insua, he didn’t fancy the challenge. And maybe he wasn’t best pleased at having to develop his right peg. Or maybe it’s all the agent / girlfriend / national team’s fault.

But the story reveals important parts of modern football: that £100,000 profit on a teenager is assumed to be bad business; there’s that much interest in an under-18 player who has never played 2 full games at reserve team level. That a little transparency is not enough; if fans don’t know the facts they fill in the gaps.

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