Ian McCulloch has called on Rafael Benitez to leave Anfield after accusing him of 'demoralising' captain Steven Gerrard.
The outspoken Echo and the Bunnymen frontman is a well-known Liverpool fan and launched the attack on Benitez less than a fortnight after the end of a season that saw the club fail to securing Champions League qualification for the first time in seven years.
McCulloch, 51, claims Benitez is a headmaster-type manager with a lack of understanding of the club's culture and refuses to play attractive football.
He also believes that Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp would have guided Liverpool to the Premier League title in the time Benitez has been at the helm and fears that Gerrard may leave Anfield for pastures new.
He said: “I think Steven Gerrard is demoralised, but I still think he’s got to remain true, otherwise ... I don’t know where he goes after Liverpool.
“Rafael Benitez doesn’t seem to like people getting any praise and he doesn’t seem to like flair. I want him to be gone.
“I think Harry Redknapp would have won the league. And if Alex Ferguson had been in charge of the players we had in the ‘90s – AND in the last five years – we would have walked everything.
“To me, Benitez seems like a headmaster who doesn’t know his students well enough. I think he’s in the wrong school. It’s as if he’s come in and thought he could absorb the history, culture and character of the club.
"But places like Anfield and Liverpool have a wit – and I don’t think he understands the soddin’ wit.”
McCulloch has also accused Benitez of single-handedly losing the 2007 Champions League final against AC Milan, two years after Gerrard steered the club to the trophy against the same opposition and has tipped either the skipper or vice-captain Jamie Carragher to succeed him.
Fears over Fernando Torres leaving the club this summer have been allayed slightly by Barcelona's capture of David Villa from Valencia and McCulloch, for all his criticism of Benitez, credits the Kop boss for accelerating the striker's development since arriving in summer 2007.
“Steven Gerrard won that – big time. And I think Benitez lost us the second one. It’s made me want to cry. I’d say to Gerrard – player/manager. Or Jamie Carragher," he added.
“If Fernando Torres ends up going because we had a crap season he won’t be the man we thought he was. To be fair to Benitez, he spotted him and made him into maybe the best striker in the world.”
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