Any behavioural analysis of Rafa Benitez is a fruitful area for research.
He has personally overseen the deconstruction of an institutionally backed campaign to install the Texas Reds in the Premiership title race, via a form of serial self-harming rarely seen in positions of power.
And in the public space too...
Yet, through the power machinations in the Liverpool hierarchy, this Monday morning finds The Crackpot entrenched at the top of the hill, with strong defences and ramparts, protected by shark infested waters.
Rafa has managed to concoct a short-term teflon hyperreality for himself.
By siding with Tom Hicks against George Gillett and Rick Parry in the power struggle, Rafa, in his desire to have omnipotence in the area of transfers, has split the club in two.
###############################################################################
###########################################################################
##############################################################################
The owners no longer speak to one another.
Parry is leaving after 12 years with the club.
Still no sign of the new stadium.
The club are massively indebted to Wachovia/RBS to the tune of some £350 million.
The debt is being rolled over at cost.
The squad is weak compared to the others at the top of the league and Rafa's transfers are frequently ill-judged both in quality and price.
But the primary issue with Benitez is his determined desire to avoid anything so restricting as strategy.
The Big Picture is not for Benitez.
He prefers the minutiae, the peripheral tinkering with irrelevancies, the micro and the incremental rather than the innovative and the revolutionary.
His behaviourly based stubbornness also prevents him from seeing the issues unfolding on the pitch in real-time. Think Skrtel - the bizarre selection and persistence in a man receiving a skinning every time Downing sped past him at the weekend.
At the start of the season, it was decided by the Texas Reds hierarchy that the ScudamoreWorld Premiership should be the primary focus for the new season.
This strategic choice was magnified and made public by the team selections around the early Champions League windows.
And the selection was the correct one in a sporting world dominated by the fake.
For Liverpool have received a marked positive handicap to be added to their Real points totalisation this season.
Below is the top of the table as it should appear this morning, with the negative and erroneous impacts of the PGMOB officials removed. The figure in brackets is the handicap ie. how many points better/worse off a team is in ScudamoreWorld.
1. Chelsea 27-60 (-5)
2. Manchester United 26-59 (+3)
3. Arsenal 27-52 (-6)
4. Everton 27-48 (-4)
5. Liverpool 27-44 (+11)
6. #########################
7. #########################
8. #########################
9. #########################
10. Aston Villa 27-37 (+15)
The astonishing biases towards Liverpool and Aston Villa deserve closer scrutiny.
And explanation, too...
Both clubs are American-owned and, interestingly, the only other positive handicap in the top ten teams is Manchester United, also owned by our imperial cousins across the sea.
The impacts of this handicapping are a major adjustment to your Realities.
We should have a title race between Chelsea and Champions of Everywhere.
We don't.
Liverpool should be battling with Merseyside rivals over the 4th spot while Arsenal could concentrate on the Champions League, knowing that they possessed an eight point cushion on their Champions League place.
Aston Villa should merely be battling for a top ten finish rather than sitting six points ahead of the Gunners in the race for the 4th place threshold.
This whole ScudamoreWorld pretence is a nonsense.
In previous years, there have been biases built into the competitions in England. For example, the systemic support received by Man Utd in the BSkyB early years, ###
########################################################################
#############################################################################
#########################################################################
#####################################################################
############################################################################
########################################################################
Anyway, back to The Crackpot.
Around the time of his unstable and informationally embellished rant, Rafa was really in need of a couch, a gentle recline and a soothing voice allowing some person-centred counselling to explore the nether regions of the man's psychological disorders.
Liverpool have since imploded.
There was Gerrard and ##################################
Robbie Keane was sold at a loss, leaving the squad threadbare upfront - Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez versus Torres, Kuyt, El Zhar and Ngog...
Get Real...
In 7 Premiership matches since the bottom fell out of his rationality, Liverpool have picked up two wins (courtesy of external input from Calamity and the Kipper), four draws and a defeat.
United have notched up eight wins in the same window.
Rafa hyperrealised his errors and changed course.
Although his senseless platitudes surreally claimed that the title race was a Reality, the man altered his strategic focus to the Champions League, a more comfortable territory.
Exactly why he believes that a team that has failed, despite possessing a 17 point handicap advantage over Arsenal, 16 over Chelsea and 8 over Manchester United, is going to be able to compete with these same teams plus Barcelona, is a narrative yet to be told.
An observer might be tempted to surmise that Rafa was deliberately involved in undermining his football club.
His tactics have been, at best, haphazard and, at worst, chaotic and self-destructive.
Rafa has become a liability.
* All posts labelled # are only available by subscription.
The annual fee is £15 for 150 posts.
Football Is Fixed - "In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" - George Orwell.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
