not harsh benitez was the start of the rot millions wasted that the club are still paying for
the whole problem benitez had was hicks & gillet - they didn't give him any money to spend in his last 2-3 seasons, where he did make poor signings because he always ended up getting his third or fourth choices like Riera, Babbel and N'Gog rather than Silva, Alves, and Villa
I'm not going to claim that benitez reecord in the transfer was anything other than 'mixed' but he snapped up the likes of torres, reina, alonso, arbeloa, mascherano and lyis garcia for good prices and he would never have stumped the ludicrous money we paid for henderson, carroll and downing
be fair on the man at least