Rafa Benitez's departure: I revealed it would definitely happen a month ago

The news that the club wants to pay off Rafa Benitez to leave the club has been leaked to the press tonight, but I revealed that Benitez was definitely on his way out of Anfield a month ago, on the site's Facebook page.

Even before last season ended, certain influential members of the board had completely lost confidence in Benitez. He retained slim support from one particular board member (I cannot name this person for obvious reasons), but that support has completely vanished over the last few weeks.

Over the last month, the hierarchy at the club has been trying to negotiate a way for Benitez to leave the club that didn't involve having to pay off a huge chunk of his existing contract. There was never any serious possibility that Benitez was going to stay, despite what the media has been reporting. This is the message I have been pushing on the site's facebook page during my absence from the site.

On May 4th, Benitez's agent released a statement saying that 'Benitez's aim was to stay at the club'. Due to information I had received, I knew that this was not going to happen, and I was emphatic about this in my facebook post that day:



re the idea that Benitez was going to say, I stated: "Thankfully, unless there is a serious mistake, that is not going to happen".

The 'serious mistake' I referred to there was any potential derailing of the negotiations going on behind the scenes at the time. I'd been led to believe that everything was progressing as planned, so the only way things would change is if there was a serious mistake in the strategy. Clearly, there wasn't.



I also stated that if Benitez was going to be compelled to leave, it would be in June (above). Then, around the time that Benitez was having meetings with Martin Broughton, I posted the following:



Again, note the emphatic language: WHEN Benitez leaves. The confidence in Benitez ultimately leaving this summer came from the knowledge I had of what was actually going on behind the scenes. And as I've proved time and time again, the information I receive is accurate, and is almost always proven to be accurate.

Since I made these comments on Facebook (principally the first of the three), countless people have challenged me over them, just waiting for the new season to start with Benitez in charge so that they can accuse me of being wrong.

Well, I was not wrong. I was emphatic for a reason: I knew that the club's ultimate endgame was to facilitate the departure of Benitez. And that is now (finally) going to happen.

I very rarely reveal when a point I'm arguing is based on information I've received from someone connected to the club. Sometimes I do, but only when its related to financial information (i.e. club debts etc), and that's mainly because most of the information is already in the public domain.

This explains why I am often so forthright about certain LFC issues - I'm like that because I've often heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

Anyway - Despite what my detractors try to argue, my criticism of Benitez has never been personal; I have only ever been critical of his professional role as manager of LFC.

I will always be the first to admit that Benitez has done some great things for the club in the last 6 years, however, there is no room for sentiment - Liverpool need a change, and Benitez's time us up.

Don't buy into the doom and gloom that will inevitably saturate the media over the next couple of weeks. There will be plenty of top managers lining up for the privilege of managing Liverpool.

Yes, the Ownership situation still needs to be resolved - Like Benitez, the time is right for Tom Hicks and George Gillett to leave the club, and that will also happen in good time.

The future is bright, and we can now approach next season with renewed optimism.

Jaimie Kanwar