it doesn't look good after reading this article,sounds like he has been tapped up while on international duty?
BENITEZ PATIENCE WEARING THING WITH KEWELL
Daily Post 09 March 2005
Ask Rafael Benitez what is in store for Harry Kewell, however, and suddenly dark clouds appear to cast uncertainty over the Australian's Anfield future.
The Liverpool manager usually refrains from singling out individuals for praise or criticism, preferring to concentrate instead on the team ethic that must be paramount if he is to bring success back to Anfield.
Yet Kewell has become the exception in recent weeks, and the tributes Benitez bestowed on the mercurial midfielder while he toiled earlier in the season have begun to fall silent as regular injury announcements drive him to distraction.
Tonight Liverpool enter the BayArena on the precipice of the European Cup quarterfinals. Protecting the first leg 3-1 lead is the over-riding aim, but Benitez's game-plan also calls for goals and in that department he needs all the help he can get with Fernando Morientes, Djibril Cisse and Neil Mellor all out.
Despite requests to play even if he is only 80 per cent fit Kewell insists he cannot answer the manager's call. And while Benitez would not admit he feels let down by the 26-year-old, as he digested Kewell's latest drop-out yesterday the clock was almost certainly ticking on the player's Anfield career.
"I think Harry is injured," Benitez pointedly said. "But he won't be going with the team and he will not play. I was confident he would be fit for this game three days ago but he says he feels something and cannot play.
"We are talking with the doctor again to look for solutions to the problem, but it seems the problem changes every week. It has been a long time now.
"After the last national game we thought he would need to rest for two months. But three months later he still has a problem and we don't know what it is. Sometimes it is his groin, his ankle, I don't know.
"One day he's fit, the next day he says no. It is very important for us that we have Harry available but he needs to have confidence in himself."
That final remark appears to be at the root ofBenitez's problem with Kewell. Before the midfielder returned with an impressive display in the first leg victory over Bayer Leverkusen the Liverpool manager was involved in an uncharacteristic spat with the player's agent, Bernie Mandic, and Australian national coach Frank Farina over their alleged interference in Kewell's treatment.
"Harry went to play for the national team and I don't know exactly what happened when he was over there but when he came back something had changed," he said yesterday.
Benitez kept faith with Kewell in the Carling Cup final five days after the Leverkusen triumph, upsetting Milan Baros in the process, and was rewarded in the 57th minute when the former Leeds star asked to come off following a blow to both ankles.
"I don't know if the problem is a mental one exactly but he does need to have more confidence in himself," added the Liverpool manager.
"I told him that even if he is only 80 per cent fit he would still be very important for us because we don't have many strikers for this game. But he said he feels something and isn't fit to play.
"I spoke with him this morning but he says he isn't fine so we have no choice but to find other solutions.
"It is becoming frustrating. All year I have been talking well about Harry and telling people how important he is for us and he is, because he is a fantastic player. But if he is not fit and we are always waiting for him to reach his level then maybe we need to look for other solutions.
"I would like him to be playing in this game because we don't have many strikers for Champions League games. Even when we had Cisse and Baros earlier in the season we were talking about needing more strikers and now we don't have Xabi either."
Benitez's patience, as if you haven't already guessed, has worn thin with Kewell and the three years that will remain on his lucrative contract this summer is perhaps the only reason why it has not snappedcompletely.
He said: "I spoke with the doctor again yesterday and we may try to look for another opinion before we decide what to do next.
"If he doesn't have confidence in himself then it's a problem because we cannot keep waiting for him and changing our ideas about the team, about training and about tactics.
"Before the Newcastle game we lost Morientes, Traore, Dudek, Hamann and Kewell and so we had to change our plans for that game. But I was waiting on Dudek, Hamann and Kewell because I thought they would all be available to play in this game. Dudek and Hamann are, but Kewell says no so we will have to use more young players like Raven, Le Tallec, Welsh and Potter."
Home 