Rafa’s Rant: Part Deux?

It was a cold Friday afternoon in January, his team was sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership, eight points clear of us way down in 4th spot. But rather than enjoy his position at the summit and concentrate on staying there, Rafael Benitez had other ideas.

He chose to reel off a bizarre series of ‘facts‘, which later turned out to be as truthful as the man at the fairground who says “Honest guv, the game’s not rigged”. He sat there in front of a packed press room, trembling as he spoke, stuttering his lines, sweating like Arsene Wenger on a schoolbus and speaking with as much composure as Phil Neville in front of goal.

Has he cracked?

It was clear to see that he was cracking up. The press could see it. The fans could see it. But most importantly it became clear that his own players could see it as their league form immediately fell apart. They surrendered their lead at the top of the table and we were soon looking down on them from above. And we haven’t given up that position since, except for a couple of hours when they played before us.

Maybe there was an ulterior motive to his rambling. Maybe he was trying to unsettle us. Well the facts speak for themselves. René’s rant came the day before we played Chelsea at Old Trafford and a loss for us would have left us with a huge mountain to climb if we were to close the gap of our Merseyside neighbours. As it happens, his rant had the complete opposite effect he’d been hoping for. We thrashed Chelsea 3-0 (After a red had set off the fire alarm in their hotel at 5am ) and took the maximum 27 points from our next 9 league games, breaking a few defensive records in the process.

Undeterred by the effects of his initial rant, he seemed keen to prove his competence at mind games and show us he still has a few marbles left in his bag. In his post match interview after a 0-0 bore draw with league strugglers Stoke City the day after his mad rant, Benitez had this to say:

“I don’t regret what I said and I don’t think it had an effect on the players today.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was busy laughing their socks off at the obvious mental breakdown of a man that was previously known for being calm. He wouldn’t have looked out of place with a pair of Y-fronts on his head and a pencil up each nostril.

Things got worse for Rafa over the next two games as his team was obviously affected by his ravings. They played out two more draws at home to Everton and away to Wigan, dropping four points in the process, making that six points dropped in three games.

We won all three of our games in that time and were now leading the table by two points with a game in hand still to play. Fergie’s plan was complete in just a few weeks. The unflappable one was now flapping like a pigeon with one wing.

It’s far from over though. There are still plenty of points to be won before we can crack open the champagne , luckily for us Fergie isn’t getting complacent and he’s already laid down some traps for Rafa by commenting on his ‘arrogance’ and ‘contempt’.

I doubt it’s a question of IF Rafa will react to Fergie’s latest wind-up attempt, more a question of WHEN he will react. So standby for Rafa’s rant part deux, coming soon to a press conference near you.