Ryan Babel claims his efforts to resurrect his Anfield career were stifled by Rafa Benitez.
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Ryan Babel has pointed an accusing finger at Rafa Benitez over the problems with form and fitness that have blighted his time at Anfield.
The Holland forward has struggled to justify his £10million price tag, since joining Liverpool from Ajax, and has used his Twitter site to pin much of the blame on former Anfield boss Benitez, who took over at Inter Milan in the summer.
Claiming Benitez repeatedly prevented him putting in extra shifts on the training ground, following a series of ankle, foot and hamstring problems, Babel tweeted: ‘I wasn’t allowed to train extra under our former manager. Even when I wasn’t involved.
‘I begged lots of times but it was simply not allowed. And during the season u don’t train very hard cause u have lots games so most sessions we had were without sweating.
‘But if I wanted to do some extra which I asked 4 every single day. I didn’t have the permission. I even tried to train extra by doing it sneaky lol .. But nope. And I had to get used to that cause in Ajax we were staying for 1 or 2 hours longer on the pitch by ourselves.’ (Daily Mail)
Ryan Babel is something of an enigma amongst us Liverpool fans.
There are times when he will go through a game constantly picking the wrong option, and for someone who appears to have a clear talent with a football this is immensely frustrating to watch.
There are other times when he actually demonstrates this talent – such as his sublime finish against Trabzonspor in the Europa League this season.
There’s no way of knowing whether he would be a great player with extra training – nor if his accusation of Benitez is true or not at the moment.
What he is implying is that Roy Hodgson doesn’t stop players from putting in extra effort and that has to be applauded.
I just wish both we and Rafa could move on from the Benitez era.
Leaving aside whatever feelings or faith I have in Roy, it’s hardly doing anyone any good to stay in the past the whole time.