Benitez today backed Dirk Kuyt as the player comes in for a bit of stick for his recent wastefulness in front of goal.
Kuyt has been criticised for failing to put away a number of chances at Blackburn and, derby penalties aside, has never looked like being able to find the net in recent months.
Benitez has come out in support of the Dutchman and praised his hard work in front of goal, trotting out some classic cliches in the process:
“When you miss chances and you have two or three, it means you are there. If you are not there, you cannot miss the chance,” said Benitez.
“I will not criticise Kuyt because he plays a lot of games and over 90 minutes his work rate is fantastic.
“He is creating chances. When you have a player who can create three or four chances for himself, normally sometimes he will score, so I think I must be pleased and positive with Kuyt.
“We need to profit from the work he is doing up front and it will be easier for him to score if his team-mates can score the first goal.”
So that’s it then – we can’t expect a striker to score the first goal – one of his team-mates has to do it. Either way, somebody, and I don’t care if it’s Reina at this point, HAS to find the net on Tuesday.
Its only natural for a manager to back his underperforming striker, but what i feel most is what its doing to the team itself. Its mind boggling and moral affecting when someone in your team plays badly, or, in Liverpool pretext, not performing at all. Blah, I wont even make Kuyt play in midfield or in any other position now. Maybe he needs to replenish his oxygen levels just like Raul of Real Madrid did. It worked it seems.Sell Kuyt, bring in Berbatov.Period.
I agree that Dirk Kuyt is a hard worker and does alot more than many other strikers in temrs of work rate but a strikers main job is to score goals and if he is not doing that then i think no matter the work rate he is putting in, if he is wasting good chances which cost us points then he aint doing what he is there to do which is be a striker and score goals frequently….cum bak fernando from injury – sooner rather than later before we are out of every piece of silverwear up for grabs!! And Rafa…do us all a favour and piss off! lol get a good manager in who isnt afraid to attack awya from home and who doesnt play to holidng midfielders together! change ur ways rafa or get out lol
Rafa was the one who bought Kuyt, and most probably he will stick with him regardless. I think Rafa should just concentrate on getting Kuyt upfront more and improving him as a striker. At this rate, even Sheva will outscore him in the long run now that Chelsea are banging them in for fun.
I hope that when Rafa bought him for Liverpool, he was not looking for a midfielder!!!
Kuyt is a bit of a joke at the moment – the minute Crouch enters the field, we play a lot better. I think this is half the reason why we won’t progress in the CL and why we’re falling behind in the league – purely Rafa’s stubborness in proving ‘I’m right’.
There’s talk about selling crouch in January – i can’t see why, he offers something different to the team. Kuyt just offers work rate, but he’s a striker, his job is to score goals. I’d prefer someone up front who put the ball in the back of the net 20 times a season and done nothing else than a striker who runs around like a blue @rse fly and never scores.
We are really fedup with this bullish comments of his.he thinks he is different from the whole world of football,while he is very far away from it.Look what happened after Paco left,we are craving to see a good “ball holding” football.