COMMENT

FORGET the Champions League.

Forget the Europa League.

Forget the FA Cup.

For Liverpool, nothing now is more important than the Premier League. The very future of the football club depends on where they finish in the table in May.

The crass stupidity of the leveraged buy-out that gave control of the club to George Gillett and Tom Hicks is now laid bare for all to see.

Liverpool are at least £350m ($804m) in debt and there are already doubts at the bank about the ability of the club to continue as a going concern.

Any profits made by the club are instantly swallowed up to pay the interest incurred when the Americans borrowed money from the club to...erm...buy the club.

Take the Champions League money out of the equation and those interest payments will swamp them.

Sell the big-name players to make the payments and the club will slide out of contention for even the Europa League.

Want some more bad news? Champions League qualification isn't even as simple as just finishing fourth anymore.

Michel Platini's restructuring of the competition means that only the top three will automatically qualify. The fourth-placed team drop into a nightmarish play-off with any number of big clubs from the other top leagues in Europe.

Would you back Liverpool in a play-off with AC Milan? Valencia? Bayern Munich?

In one two-leg tie to make or break the football club for ever, would you even back them against Celtic right now?

And yet, this is not the time to change the manager. Of the squad that finished second last campaign, only Xabi Alonso has departed. For all the accusations that players like Dirk Kuyt and Fabio Aurelio are limited talents, they certainly seemed to do alright last season.

Injuries

Liverpool's abject start to the season is due to a combination of factors, not all of which are Rafa Benitez's fault.

Injuries to Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have been critical.

The lengthy rehabilitation of Alberto Aquilani has hampered efforts to replace the creativity of Alonso.

Jamie Carragher has dropped out of form.

Beachballs have deflected footballs.

Teams like Birmingham have withstood batterings to scamper away with a share of the spoils.

With two wins in 11 games, there is little for Liverpool fans to be proud of, but equally there isn't much to beat the manager over the head with either.

This is football and it doesn't always go according to plan. The only difference is that, thanks to the Yanks, Liverpool can't slip up.

The club can't even afford to sack Benitez anyway. They can't afford to lure an already-employed big-name manager to Anfield and, even if they could, they couldn't afford to fund a transfer kitty for him either.

And, of the free agents, who would you hire? Kenny Dalglish? Kevin Keegan? Don't be silly.

Besides, Benitez has been here before. If anything, Liverpool were even worse than this in 2007/08 when they were languishing in mid-table as late as January.

The Spaniard galvanised them, they went on a long run losing only one more game all season and finishing fourth with distance to spare. You couldn't pick a better manager for a situation like this.

Right now, they have more chance of survival with Benitez than they do with anyone else, but make no mistake; the situation is desperate.

If Liverpool don't recover, it won't just mean the end of Rafa. It will mean the end of Liverpool FC as we know it.

Wenger: You cannot lose at home

FIERCE rivals they may be.

But Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger maintains he takes no pleasure in seeing Liverpool failing to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League.

The Reds' disappointing campaign has hit its lowest point - despite Rafael Benitez's side winning its own Group E encounter 1-0 against Debrecen in Budapest - Fiorentina's victory over Lyon sent the five-time European Cup winners into the Europa League.

Wenger, though, insisted there was no sense of satisfaction in seeing another English club, and potential threat later in the competition, crash out.

'If you say to me I want all the big teams to be out, it is impossible,' said Wenger, whose own team qualified with a match to spare after the Gunners beat Standard Liege 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium.

Strong

'I believe you look at your own performances and if Liverpool are out, somebody else strong is in.'

Wenger continued: 'When you depend on the results of another team, you are in a bad position.

'They did the job against Debrecen but you always favour Fiorentina at home against Lyon, especially when they are on a good run and have an opportunity to qualify for the first time in their history if they win at home.

'I believe it is important to win your home games because what happened to Liverpool was that basically they lost at home to Lyon in the last minute.

'That cost them the qualification. If they had drawn that game, Lyon would have two points less and Liverpool one point more. In the Champions League qualifying group, you cannot lose at home.'

PA Sport