Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher believes Rafa Benitez misread his influence in his battle with the club's American owners.
In his autobiography, 'Carra: My Autobiography', Carragher pulls no punches as he accuses Benitez of misjudging the extent of his power when he took on Tom Hicks and George Gillett over transfer funds in the wake of Liverpool's Champions League Final defeat by AC Milan in 2007.
Reflecting on the outburst, Carragher, who also claims Benitez was partly to blame for the animosity after "undermining" the owners, says: "In most walks of life, there is a basic rule that you don't go into work and slag off your boss.
"Such was Rafa's popularity, he must have felt it was a risk worth taking and that if Hicks and Gillett fired him, after a second European Cup Final in three years, they'd have faced a serious fans' revolt.
"Rafa thought he was arguing from a position of strength, but while I put his critical comments down to the disappointment of losing the final, I guessed the owners would not be so sympathetic."
Carragher relates how they bided their time and waited for a more opportune moment to punish Benitez, who had had sought assurances about January transfer plans and wanted to sign centre half Kakha Kaladze from AC Milan but was told to focus on coaching until a planned meeting in December.
Carragher says: "I believe he suspected a plan was already in place to sack him and the owners were holding back funds for his replacement.
"The criticisms of the hierarchy were given another airing at Newcastle two days later, and he was effectively daring the owners to arrange his funeral, especially when Hicks ended the boardroom silence by telling him to shut up on the front page of the local paper.
"It was more than rumour by this stage, and Rafa must have known how close he was to the sack. To my mind, everyone was trying to be too clever, playing politics with little regard for how much damage it was doing. Never mind about not washing your dirty linen in public, Anfield was beginning to resemble a launderette."
