Keane baffled by treatment from Benitez

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:ROBBIE KEANE has admitted he was "baffled" by his treatment at Liverpool by Rafael Benitez and he believes that he would have been a success at Anfield if another manager had been in charge.

The Republic of Ireland striker, who is now back at Tottenham Hotspur as captain and is preparing for tomorrow’s north London derby against Arsenal at White Hart Lane, painted a picture of Benitez as resolutely non-communicative.

He said that the Spaniard did not explain why he had omitted him from the squads that faced Everton in the FA Cup and Chelsea in the Premier League towards the end of last month, and that he had not even told him why he had decided to sell him back to Tottenham on Monday.

Keane’s stay at Liverpool lasted 189 days and was pock-marked by the frustrations of being played out of position and substituted.

“I never regret anything I have done,” said Keane. “Never, ever. It wasn’t a mistake for me to go there, it just didn’t work out for whatever reason. I didn’t fit into the way that Rafa plays football. With a different manager there, maybe it could have worked.

“I was doing everything I possibly could to play football and do well for the team, which is the most important thing. I wasn’t going there to do well for Robbie Keane, it’s about the team.

“I never had one bad word to say about anybody there, I didn’t have a problem with the manager, I never had a fallout with the manager . . . I was never late for training, I trained every day and I worked my socks off. It’s as simple as that. You’re probably as baffled as I am.”

Keane was asked directly whether Benitez had shown the guts to tell him that he was jettisoning him, even though he would not sign a replacement striker. “I said before that I didn’t speak to him,” Keane replied. “Get the train up to Liverpool and ask him.”

Keane has swapped a title challenge for a battle against relegation and, ironically, he could yet collect a Premier League winners’ medal and go down in the same season. Any medal which may yet wing its way down from Merseyside in May, however, would feel wholly unsatisfactory.

“It would not mean anything at all,” he said. “The way I look at it is . . . if I was there (at Liverpool) and in and out of squads, it probably wouldn’t mean as much to me because as a player you want to be a part of it. When you are left out, sometimes you don’t feel a part of it.”

Keane is cup-tied in the League Cup, courtesy of a three-minute cameo as a substitute against Crewe Alexandra in round three and, consequently, he will miss Tottenham’s showdown with Manchester United in the final on March 1st. But he added: “It would mean more to me if Spurs won the Carling Cup (than if Liverpool won the league), even though I won’t be playing at Wembley. I am a Spurs player now and Liverpool is gone, it’s in the past.”

It was clear that being dropped from those two match days squads, with the unproven youngster David Ngog being preferred on the bench against Everton, represented the breaking point for Keane. “I’ve never been left out of a squad, ever, in my career,” he said. “I think I’ve proven over the years that I’m quite capable of doing a job and scoring goals and no disrespect to anybody but if you look at my record compared to most of them, it’s probably a little bit better.”

Benitez has suggested that Keane was not up to the challenge of playing for a club of Liverpool’s prestige. “That’s up to Rafa to say that,” replied Keane, biting his lip hard. “I am not getting into a feud with anybody. I am too big for that. I have too much respect for people.”

Keane now simply wants to prosper under Harry Redknapp, and get back to being the player he was when he left White Hart Lane. “Harry has a record of having a great relationship with his players,” he said. “He speaks to the players and when he gets a player in, he certainly gives them an opportunity and that’s something I’m relishing.

“Obviously, I feel fresh and that’s a fact. You don’t become a bad player overnight and I believe I could have brought a lot to that (Liverpool) squad. But it was the manager’s choice. With a different manager, it probably would have worked.”

GuardianService