tell me about it

Rafa Benitez will consult his lawyers after claims made by Neil Warnock over his team selection.

Benitez was speaking after his much-changed Liverpool side beat relegation strugglers Fulham 2-0, almost exactly a year after he fielded a weakened team against the same side.

On that occasion Fulham won, leaving Warnock furious that Benitez had disrespected his Sheffield United side, who were eventually relegated.

Warnock brought up last year’s game again in Saturday’s Daily Mail, saying he hoped Liverpool would never win another trophy under Benitez.

He said: “My advice to Reading, Bolton and the rest would be, if you’re expecting any favours, don’t hold your breath. They will have to do it themselves.

“The fact of the matter is that if Liverpool were already out of the Champions League and needed to win to get fourth spot, they would play their strongest side.

“Instead, I fully expect them to play a weakened team at Fulham.

“It’s part of a big club’s mentality. They look after themselves and they don’t bother about anyone else. The whole story that Sheffield United were going down and me having a pop at them afterwards was just treated like fish-and-chip paper by them. Liverpool didn’t care because they weren’t the ones getting hurt by it all.

“I’m still very bitter about it and personally I hope Liverpool never win another trophy under Benitez. I like them as a club but I would be very pleased to see them win nothing.”

Honestly - of course it’s a club mentality to look after themselves. When has the English Premier League become a charity cause for the lower-ranked clubs? All’s fair in love and soccer - you can’t expect any club at all to take pity on you because you’re fighting relegation. Benitez got it right when he said there are 38 games to play, and if you can’t yank yourselves out of relegation in 38 games of protracted play over almost six months of games, and if you have to blame another team and one single game for your own descent into the Coca-cola Championship, you’ve got to be one heck of a shitty manager. Seriously.

Wake up, Neil Warnock, would any other team play any different? It’s not about not giving the other team respect. It’s about selecting the team that will suit the game best - should Liverpool flub their chances of winning the Champions League to ensure your team don’t get relegated? We didn’t play our second-string team last season because we wanted to lose - in fact, I was pissed that our second-string team couldn’t win against Fulham. We should be better than that. You can’t possibly think we went out there to lose. We didn’t. So your argument holds no water - just sit down and swallow your sour grapes quietly.