By SPORTSMAIL REPORTER
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Rafa Benitez has hit out at former Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett for denying him funds to strengthen his squad for a Premier League title challenge.
The Spaniard spent six years at the Anfield club, winning the FA Cup and Champions League, before leaving two years ago.
And the 52-year-old has revealed he was not given the support to mount a title challenge in his final season at the club.
Lashing out: Rafa Benitez claims he was not supported in the transfer market
‘Attempting to work in the transfer market that summer was almost impossible,’ Benitez said in his new book being serialised in the Daily Mirror.
‘We knew we would need cover and support for Fernando Torres, as David Ngog was still developing, and we had raised the cash to find it.
‘The player we identified to fill that role was Stevan Jovetic, a young Montenegro forward playing for Fiorentina in Italy.
‘The funds we thought we had available would also have stretched to another central defender, to provide cover for Jamie Carragher, Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger.
Missing links: Matthew Upson (left) and Sylvain Distin were targets for Benitez
‘The two players we had identified were Sylvain Distin, then with Portsmouth, and West Ham’s Matthew Upson, both boasting abundant Premier League experience.
‘Signing one of those two, plus the tall, powerful, intelligent Jovetic, would have given Liverpool the squad we needed to build on the previous year’s title challenge, when we had run Manchester United so close.
‘Liverpool, though, was no longer a football club. It was a business.
‘The money, which we wanted to use to take Liverpool on to the next level, was all gone.
Main man: Stevan Jovetic (right) was highlighted as a top target
‘We would be punished for the disappearance of that money - and our failure to sign Jovetic - again and again that season.
‘That was supposed to be our year, the season it all came together. Instead it was a long, hard campaign, a battle from start to finish.’
Benitez paid the price for Liverpool’s seventh-place finish in the Premier League when he left the club by mutual consent.
And he lays the blame for the club’s demise squarely at the door of Hicks and Gillett.
‘For five years I had been a football manager at Liverpool. By the start of my sixth, it was clear I had become something else entirely. I was suddenly supposed to be a bank manager.
‘Decisions were being made to appease the banks, not the fans. That is how serious the situation with the owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, had become.
‘At the end of April, Tom Hicks and George Gillett at long last agreed to put Liverpool up for sale to end their involvement with the club altogether.
‘They had been forced by the banks, as a condition of their latest loan, to appoint Martin Broughton, a Chelsea fan and the chairman of British Airways, to the same position at Anfield.
‘As the season drew to a close, I was informed on three occasions that I would have a meeting with Mr Broughton.
Blame game: Former Liverpool owners George Gillett (left) and Tom Hicks
‘When we did eventually meet, after the final game of our campaign, it was clear that we did not share the same vision for the future of the club.
‘It was at that point that it became evident what was about to happen. It was obvious that they had decided that my time at Anfield was up and wanted to come to an arrangement as quickly as possible.
‘I was not in a hurry to leave Liverpool - quite the opposite, I wanted to stay.
‘It was while I was on holiday in Italy that I next heard from the club.
‘It was while I was on holiday in Italy that I next heard from the club.
‘Their lawyers had contacted mine to offer me a settlement.
‘It was confirmation that the directors of the team I had worked so hard to turn into a force at home and abroad no longer wanted my services.
‘I was disappointed, hurt and sad. I would not be given the chance to try to solve the problems that had arisen during the season, to complete the six years of work I had put into the club.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2201463/Rafa-Benitez-blames-Tom-Hicks-George-Gillett-Liverpool-decline.html#ixzz26DDVDonR
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