my liverpool fc

Rafa Benitez: “Robbie Keane is not injured – he was not selected. Ngog was in because he scored two goals for the reserves and we had Kuyt and Babel too. That was four strikers in the squad.”

Wow. We knew things were bad for Red Rob, but to be grouped below the distinctly un-Deadly Dirk in the non-scoring "strikers" club must be a new low.

Kuyt may have been a striker once. But it seems Rafa has doggedly coached all those selfish instincts out of him, so that the Diggler now enjoys tracking back and winning throw-ins more than scoring goals.

No one is suggesting Keane has played well at Liverpool. Air-shots do not a career make. But Benitez’s treatment of him also seems less than exemplary. If Rafa wants rid, then jet-blasting any remaining shred of confidence off Keane can only lower his transfer value.

And the whole weekend was yet more evidence that Rafa is juggling too many plates.

Not only is he playing mind games with his own players, compiling dossiers on Fergie, contract-wrangling with the club's owners, playing politics with the club's possible new Arab owners, trying to plot Liverpool's first title race in decades and battling a vicious attack of the kidney stones, he's now picking on David Moyes too.

"They were coming for a draw and we were trying to win," said Benitez, whose teams, of course, are famously gung-ho and cavalier when playing away from home...