Premier League: Chelsea have hired wisely with Benitez

Rafael Benitez hasn't worked since leaving Inter 23 months ago

Michael Lintorn defends Chelsea's unpopular call to bring in Rafael Benitez until the end of the season...

Rafael Benitez is not just disliked but viewed as a figure of ridicule by many in England, with Chelsea fans among the least impressed. But while two years out of work and poor ends to spells at Liverpool and Inter have been used to smear the Spaniard, there are plenty of positives being overlooked too...

His work at Liverpool
Failure to land the title that they arguably deserved in 2008/09 and the dire campaign that followed have overshadowed Benitez's first five years at Liverpool, surely their greatest stretch of the Premier League era. In a period in which the division was at its peak, with Chelsea at their most dominant, Manchester United still fuelled by Cristiano Ronaldo and Arsenal capable of the occasional title challenge, he achieved four straight top-four finishes, reached two Champions League finals and led them into the knockout rounds in five successive seasons. Kenny Dalglish had as much goodwill and money to play with during his recent Reds stint and couldn't come close to matching Rafa's feats.

He is a trophy magnet
In addition to the Arsene Wenger top-four trophy, Benitez wins genuine silverware with admirable regularity, claiming something of substance at all three clubs that he has managed in the last decade: two La Liga titles and a UEFA Cup for Valencia, the Champions League and FA Cup at Liverpool and the Club World Cup for Inter. Admittedly, that triumph wasn't enough to overshadow Inter's domestic shortcomings, yet that decline would continue in the 18 months after his exit, until Massimo Moratti finally saw the necessity to revamp a stagnant squad this summer.

Premier League experience
Remarkably, Roberto Di Matteo was the first boss with prior English top-flight managerial experience hired by Chelsea since John Neal back in 1981, and even his education only stretched to 25 games at West Brom. Roman Abramovich has preferred to recruit coaches who excelled overseas, with this representing the first time that he has turned to someone already accustomed to working at a high level in this country, so there won't be much acclimatisation needed.

European record
Benitez's consistent progression to the latter rounds of the Champions League with Liverpool appears even more laudable in hindsight, especially having seen a seemingly superior Manchester City side twice fail to even clear the group stage. He has reached the last 16 seven times in eight attempts and - though he is reliant on Shakhtar success to enhance that strike rate - he has often had good fortune on his side in Europe too. If, as is more likely, his main continental task is assigned on Thursday nights, he has positive memories of the B competition too, winning it with Valencia and reaching the semis with a collapsing Liverpool in 2009/10.

The Torres factor
The likelihood is that Fernando Torres will never recover the form that saw him revered as one of Europe's top strikers a few years ago and prompted Chelsea's 50 million splurge. However, if Abramovich is determined to have one last crack at extracting a return from his obscene investment, the closest thing to a guarantee that he can obtain is reuniting the striker with the man who earned him that valuation on Merseyside, and who he labelled "the most important coach in my career".

There was nobody better available
No elite manager would have abandoned their current club for the uncertain title of interim Chelsea boss so, realistically, Chelsea faced a choice between Benitez and any other currently unemployed tacticians. The most high-profile two on the market were Laurent Blanc, a brief hit at Bordeaux before faring reasonably with France, or Harry Redknapp, who has one FA Cup to show for a 29-year career and a media profile that can be problematic. Benitez's CV trumps theirs.

How well will Benitez do? He is 2.6413/8 to get started with a victory over the champions on Sunday, and 6.611/2 to deliver the Premier League title...