Rafa Benitez has had a roller-coaster of a season with the lows sadly outnumbering the highs. He has at times had Liverpool supporters pulling hair from their heads wondering why certain players have been rested and at some of his rather strange substitutional decisions.

We cannot be 100% sure that our points tally would be different had he not rested some of our better players early on in the season. But Fernando Torres would have put much more fear into the so-called lesser teams than Andrei Voronin or even that player who is ever hard-working but totally inept at finding the back of the net. I'm referring to Dirk Kuyt.

The table shows that if we had won two or three of our 11 drawn games, we would still be right amongst the challengers for the title. But also, if Torres had played all the early games, would he have been as settled as he is now when we had the very bad run in January?
 
These are all ifs and buts, but I think most will agree that Benitez's decisions have cost the club some very valuable points. Some may say that Liverpool's recent great form has been in some way due to Rafa's resting of players early in the season. But to them I would say that those dropped points are as valuable as the points we are winning now, and it seems a bad gamble risking our season so early on.

'it would be quite reasonable for the Liverpool faithful to be calling for the Spaniard's head by now. But on the contrary'


Taking all this into account, it would be quite reasonable for the Liverpool faithful to be calling for the Spaniard's head by now. But on the contrary, as shown in the very public, very un-Liverpool-like battle between the American owners and Benitez, the fans made it very clear that they overwhelmingly came down on the side of Benitez.

I think this is because, despite his mistakes, most fans realise that Rafa is a top-class manager as he often proves with his exploits in Europe - and that, given time and resources, he will bring the title back to Liverpool.

There are also other reasons why he should remain at the helm at Liverpool. The first is that he is finally learning from his mistakes.

He now seems to be rotating less; maybe he has come to the conclusion that the Premier League is not the same as La Liga. At Valencia he rotated his players just as he did here and the formula worked - winning La Liga twice in three years. So it is easy to see why he stuck to his rotation policy.

But perhaps in Spain he could rest key players against weaker teams and still win, while in England every year the so-called weaker teams are getting stronger with improved finances from TV money and foreign owners investments.

It must be very difficult for him to let go of his beloved rotation system that saw his Valencia overcome the big guns of Real Madrid and Barcelona twice.

The final reason for backing Benitez is that we all seem to have short memories. Before him, the truly great players were not interested in joining Liverpool. The very best like Fernando Torres are wanted by all the big clubs who will all make big-money offers, so these players pick the clubs where they feel they can win medals and develop as players.

I am sure that if Benitez had not been our manager when Torres became available, he would not be a Liverpool player today. Also, if Rafa goes, other players of Fernando's calibre who would have signed for Benitez will simply decide to ply their trade in other footballing Meccas in Europe. Good players want to play for good managers.

With Rafa Benitez as manager it has been a roller-coaster journey, but he is taking our team in the right direction and not winning the league this year will not be the end of the world. Perhaps expectations were too high; we are improving but so are the other top teams, so it makes playing catch-up just a little harder and takes a little bit longer.

So maybe we have to learn something from our biggest foes and give Benitez the time that Manchester United gave Alex Ferguson after his very shaky start. It has not worked out so badly for them, so maybe we can afford to be a little bit more patient with our Spanish enigma.