Former Liverpool winger Ryan Babel has hit out at his former boss Rafa Benitez by saying that the Spaniard is the reason that he did not perform well with the English club.
Babel came to Merseyside as a highly talented winger from Ajax. He was only 20 years old, but Liverpool were extremely confident in the player’s ability that they parted company with £ 14 million back in 2007. It remains an incredible sum of money more than a decade ago.Babel had an excellent first campaign after scoring 10 goals in 49 appearances, but his performances started declining thereafter.
Towards the end of the 2010-11 season, it was clear that the player would no longer be a first choice player at the club. It was largely down to the managerial change that saw Kenny Dalglish come to the club as a replacement for Rafa Benitez. Babel has since failed to get his career back on track even after going through several clubs like Hoffenheim and Ajax.
After several years in even bigger wilderness like the Arabian league, Babel has once again returned back to mainstream European football with Deportivo La Coruna.The Dutch winger says that one of the reasons for his failure at Liverpool was being badly coached.
Benitez, though, may argue otherwise as the player has never recovered since then. “I think I was badly coached. Neither the coach nor the coaching staff advised me well. I was 20 years old went I went to the Premier League. When you are 20, you need help from other people, you need people to talk to you. But when I went over there, nobody helped me. I was alone, and that’s difficult for any young player. Not everyone is Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Even Cristiano Ronaldo’s first years at Manchester United were quite difficult,” said Babel.