Reds at fault

8:21am Tuesday 19th February 2008

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LIVERPOOL fans have been up in arms with the club's American owners an awful lot this season but the manager and players must take a lot of responsibility for the club's current crisis.

Losing to Barnsley at the weekend was a big surprise at Anfield, although I feel that was a little unfair on the Championship side, who performed brilliantly.

Rafa Benitez's rotation policy, though, is not my cup of tea and, while people have objected to the owners talking to other managers such as Jurgen Klinsmann, that's the nature of the game I'm afraid.

You will not convince me that Sheffield United did not line Kevin Blackwell up before appointing him the morning after Bryan Robson left last week. If you aren't winning games, then chairmen start sounding people out especially at Liverpool where expectations are rightly high.

Players should not look for off-the-pitch excuses either. The Liverpool lads are being paid enough to concentrate on their games.

In my experience, the only time off-the-pitch matters really impact on performances is when players aren't being paid.

That happened after I went back to my first club Hartlepool when Viv Busby, who I'd loved working with at York, was manager in 1993. We had big money problems though and it got to the stage where, at the end of games, they used to carry in the takings and you would queue up to receive your weekly wage with the lowest earner at the front and the highest paid at the back.

I was always last in line and I can remember once they handed over a big bag of 50p pieces and £1 coins. I couldn't carry it and asked them to leave it in the safe but when I went back home my wife went mad because she didn't think we would see the money again.

After a while, we weren't getting paid at all and the chairman wouldn't answer any phone calls. At that point, the players went on strike.

They stopped training for matches which I couldn't really relate to. I still went in on my own with my kit, running up and down the stands and shooting into an empty net.

Unsurprisingly, we lost by some big, big scores and ended the season relegated. Rotherham beat us 7-0 and we went down 8-1 at home to Plymouth. So when you've got nowhere to train, a stand missing and no wages, as was the case at Hartlepool, results are affected by the club's lack of stability, but Liverpool's players should not be unsettled by speculation over the manager's situation.

What Barnsley's win did highlight for me, though, like many other FA Cup ties this season, is the number of good English players in the Championship not getting a chance to play higher up.

Brian Howard is the latest to catch the eye and you would struggle to see a better goal in the Premier League than the one he scored to knock out Liverpool - it was a terrific strike.

If he was given the opportunity to play higher up then who is to say he wouldn't produce the goods on a regular basis with the motivation of playing on the biggest stages.

On a different subject, the best idea I have heard for ages has been offered as a response to the Premier League's plans to play games on the other side of the world, which I discussed in last week's column.

There's been talk of introducing a "Fans Day" when every supporter in the country would boycott a programme of games and matches would be played in empty grounds. I think that would be a fantastic way for fans to make a stand together and reclaim their game from the money men.

I'd love to see it and it would be a great way to make the power-brokers sit up and take notice because if you haven't got any supporters, you haven't got a product any more. It's the only way of making the big clubs appreciate their fans more.

I hope York supporters turn up in their droves, however, for Saturday's FA Trophy quarter-final trip to Rushden to cheer their team another step closer to Wembley. It's a target that is well within their reach and would be a great way to end the season.