Cleveland is the Reason

A fair bit to get through today, Champions League draw, Fulham game and Sir Alex pointing out some facts to Benitez.
First off then, The Champions League draw, and there's no denying our draw was kind, to say the least. Not only Porto, but a Semi against Villarreal or Arsenal. Couldn't have asked for much more than that. Sir Alex: “This is a good draw for us. We’re happy and we’re looking forward to the tie.” Rio Ferdinand talks of "unfinished business" from 2004:

"We have unfinished business with Porto," said Ferdinand.

"I'm excited about the game and looking forward to it.

"It's a decent draw but at this stage of the tournament whoever you play is going to be difficult. I'm pleased to have avoided the English teams."

Why Benitez felt the need to comment, "United have a better draw," is beyond me. There's also the usual raft of stories moaning about the same teams being in the competition. Kevin McCarra in The Guardian has this to say:

These encounters will keep cropping up because the outstanding footballers now congregate at a handful of clubs. Whatever has vanished in diversity will have to be compensated for by the quality of the elite. The single doubt must be over the capacity of these clubs to surprise one another and, in the process, jaded spectators.

I thought it was the Carling Cup one found jaded spectators? Or was it the FA Cup? Although having said this I think everyone must be feeling pretty jaded at having to watch another Liverpool - Chelsea game...
Onto the press conference yesterday and Sir Alex looks at the reasons for the loss against Liverpool, from The Guardian:

"Before we go to Fulham, I have to be clear in my mind as to the reasons why we lost," he said. "We suffered from self-inflicted wounds and mistakes you don't expect.

"For weeks we had to listen to eulogies and take compliments on how good this side of ours was. I kept deflecting that and said how tough this league is and Saturday was just a reminder.

"In a way it will help us because we realise there is a lot of work to be done. To win the league we have had to go to the last day of the season on three or four occasions and now we have to get the show on the road again.

"We had some tiredness after the game with Inter, there is no doubt about that. Then we suffered another blow when Darren Fletcher, who was down to play against Liverpool, picked up a virus on the morning of the game. I had to play Michael Carrick, who had already played so many games. One more proved a hard task for him."

This, remember, a Michael Carrick who passed the ball as well (or better - they both had 73% pass success but Carrick made more passes) than Steven Gerrard in that game - even a tired Carrick passes better than Gerrard. And while we're on the subject of stats, I wouldn't normally bother to quote Terry Venables but look at this:

Their defenders wanted far too many touches on the ball and, as I predicted, the likes of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres closed them down like lightning and made them pay.

To follow Terry's lead in sentence construction and self congratulation; our defenders had 2 of the best pass success percentages on the pitch, as I noted, Liverpool chancing goals from big hoofs up field and having nothing to do with them being closed down.
The Telegraph has quite an interesting read on why Sir Alex is successful:

How does Ferguson do it? Many believe his psychological hold over rival managers is central to his success. One former coach of mine used to say excitedly that Ferguson was "king of the mind games", as though he could undermine the entire opposition team by out-manipulating their manager. ...
Though it is occasionally amusing and fills column inches, I think what managers say in public is less significant than the media wants us to believe. In sport, unlike politics, the facts are not open to much debate, and the facts are delivered on the field, not in television interviews. Those facts have proved Ferguson's case very eloquently. So I think Ferguson has won the 'mind games' because he won the football matches, rather than winning the football matches because he won the mind games.
Ferguson's footballing vision, I suspect, is very simple. Winning. Winning is always good enough for Ferguson, which may explain why he has been so good at it.

And onto Sir Alex's criticism of Benitez, which I won't quote here, having already posted it here. I'll just look at the way the papers respond to it. Having seen the video of his comments and the look of mild amusement on his face for most of the time he was saying it, I was quite surprised to the papers using words like "rage", "fumes", "outrage", to describe it. One of the words The Independent uses sums it up much better - "ridiculed".
And then you look at the figures and every paper has different ones; The Independent - "he has actually spent over £170m gross on players since he arrived at Anfield in 2004, against the £164m Ferguson has laid out on his 18 acquisitions", The Guardian and The Sun have the same figures- "Liverpool have spent £191.9m, while Manchester United have spent £172.25m in the same period", The Times - "United’s gross spending since June 2004, when the Spaniard arrived at Anfield, totals £221.95 million compared with £212.6 million by Liverpool", although The Times report contains a rather bad mistake, so I don't see how their figures can be trusted, look at this for bad copy -

“Check the figures,” Benítez said. “It doesn’t matter what Ferguson says about money. They [Liverpool] have more money and can spend more than us, so we have to manage and do our best in every single deal.”

So Benitez is either talking about his own club in the third person and completely contradicting his point, or, The Times have made a schoolboy error (a petty point, but given we're talking figures, accuracy is important.)
Whatever the actual figures are, the point being that the spending power of Liverpool is similar to ours. And I don't buy all this talk of net spend over gross spend, simply because Liverpool under Benitez have bought so many awful players that they've had to offload. If we kept buying rubbish, we'd have made more money from transferring people out as well... Plus, if Ronaldo ever does leave, these net figures will be a little different...
It is The Telegraph which concentrates mostly on the net figures, simply because the article takes the position that Benitez is right:

[Benitez] would no doubt rather the Manchester United manager spent his free time bringing his maths up to scratch. ...
Benitez has financed much of his spending through player sales, systematically upgrading and replacing his squad as he was able. His wheeling and dealing have raised some £108 million for Liverpool, giving a net spend in his time at the club of £72.22 million. ...
It may not be the £100 million Benitez sardonically suggested in the aftermath of his triumph at Old Trafford, but his point was sound. It is unreasonable to expect Liverpool to catch up on the field as they lag so far behind off it.

So let's look at this - first paragraph - I've already shown how many figures the papers have come up with so let's not have a go at Sir Alex's maths. Second paragraph - "systematically upgrading and replacing"? Really? From where I'm sat there doesn't seem to have been much of a system, the amount of bad buys there've been, it seems more hit and miss than systematic, and given their continued and pretty absolute, reliance on Steven Gerrard, there hasn't been much upgrading. Third paragraph - "unreasonable"? Is he having a laugh? The article ends with this:

Even Ferguson at his most obtuse would not suggest for a moment he has been suddenly cast in the role of Premier League pauper.

And to suggest the same thing about Liverpool is just as preposterous. Regardless of the question of whose spent most, Liverpool have spent a shedload of cash. No debate. Unreasonable...