Why Liverpool FC boss Rafa Benitez's Fernando Torres threat must not become a self-fulfilling prophesy

With the club's chances of progressing to the knock-out stages of this Champions League looking precarious at best and qualification for next year's group stages by no means a foregone conclusion, it is not hard to imagine the appeal to the owners in selling a player rated as one of the world's best should such financial catastrophes occur.

Bearing in mind the well-documented differences in the past between the manager and his American paymasters, the more cynically-minded might even suggest Tom Hicks and George Gillett could look at Benitez's comments here as offering them an obvious exit strategy for him, although even they must surely realise the ructions such a course of action would create.

No mention is made either of what the manager's reaction would be if the player himself - still without a club medal in his career - wanted to go.

Such scenarios of course will become moot if the team get their act together and started winning a few games which is what everyone connected with the club hopes does happen.

The club's financial predicament however is further alluded to by Benitez when he mentions how, "If we want to have money available, then we have to sell some players. We have to sell expensive and buy as cheaply as possible" and also how a £1.5m deal for Aaron Ramsey had been been agreed before the Welsh starlet's move to Arsenal only for the deal to 'stall' at board level.

Whatever you might think of Rafa Benitez's managerial abilities and his ability to spend what there is of the club's money (read here), the fact that he has withstood all the off-field politicking and is still able to remain bullish about the club's prospects says a lot about his character and his passion for LFC.

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