Three reasons why Rafa will not be sacked

We just don't seem to have any luck at the moment do we? 11 players come out and give there all for 90 minutes, dominating possession and playing football that some nay-sayers would question whether we were even capable of, with so many of our 'top' players missing.

I keep repeating the same mantra at the moment. Our full strength team, in form, can beat anyone in the world. For those interested I would have that team as Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio, Kuyt, Mascherano, Aquilani (hopefully), Riera, Gerrard and Torres.

Although mooted by recent standards the rumblings from some quarters still bring Rafael Benitez's career with LFC into question. For a man who has shaped our team into the one above and with a history of winning throughout his career this is, in my opinion, ill founded and laughable. Who exactly are we planning on replacing him with?

But before Rafa's future can even realistically be called into question at least two of the following need to happen.

Losing the backing of his players

One thing that was abundantly clear to me last night was that 11 men went out there to give there all for the club and their manager. Even those who do not get regular games gave their all. The one player who did pick up some criticism was Voronin but he was chasing everything and to be honest I thought he was just trying too hard, and thus forcing himself to make mistakes. I think the same is true, in part, of Benayoun. He was his usual skilful bag of tricks but at times near the end he looked like he just wanted to do it all. They were all giving their all.

Then I noticed something interesting following each near miss. Everytime something didn't quite go right there was a look to the bench; an apologetic look? Maybe it's just me but I took some of these desperate looks to Rafa as a sign of 'I'm so sorry'.

Managers who have lost their team do not play like our team did last night.

Losing the backing of the club's mangement

Well we can nip this one in the bud quite quickly can't we? There aren't many left in the upper echelons of the Anfield hierarchy to come out and publicly give Rafa their backing. George Gillett, Kenny Dalglish, Christian Purslow have all come out and backed Rafa and confirmed that he is there for the long haul and that, at the moment, we must all pull together and ride the storm.

Mention should also be given to other Premier League managers who have all come out and backed Rafa. Talking about the lunacy of a manager with Rafa's record attracting this kind of speculation. I agree with Paul Tomkins that Arsene Wenger needs a special mention for what he has recently said.

Losing the backing of the fans

They're fickle things some of them fans, always have been always will be. Ever demanding with aspirations that must be met, failure should not be an option. It's amazing that some think 11 games in and 9 points behind the leaders and 7 behind last season's champions is failure. We are nowhere near calling anything failure yet!

The short term view taken by some is astounding and I will ask again, where are we getting anyone better from? Rafa has a record admired by most, before and during his tenure at Liverpool, under what have been difficult circumstances. Then, despite the barrage of criticism from the media and some sections of the fan base, he comes out confident and quoting you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone unless you don't win the next few games? Doesn't sound like the Liverpool way to me!

Despite all of the above Rafa continues to enjoy support from the majority of fans. I have been in all sorts of forums over the past few weeks (enough to make my head spin) and I am confident that this is true. There are pockets of nay sayers, aren't there always? But on the whole he has not lost the fans' support. I always find it ironic that the press continue to talk about his cold, hard demeanour and yet he is idolised and /or respected by most of us.

So there you go 0 out of 3 at the moment and I don't see it changing anytime soon. I'll leave you with one final thought every Man U and Arsenal fan I know keeps going on about Rafa's time being up. Interestingly I was saying and hoping for the same thing when Ferguson's and Wenger's names were in the spotlight! When they start telling me we should give him a bit longer I'll start worrying.