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Work it out, Rafa - Stelling

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Acclaimed Soccer Saturday presenter Jeff Stelling gives his take on the world of football every week.

Catch Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday, every week on Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports News.

There is a rumour swirling around Merseyside and beyond that Rafa Benitez is using the lyrics from Beatles songs to enhance his understanding of the English language.

If so, he'll be familiar with the line: Help, I need somebody....

Before the start of the season, I met dozens of Liverpool fans who were genuinely optimistic this would be the year that they would return to the Premiership's elite group.

Two months in, with Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton (ouch!) in the top three, they look, to me, further away from breaking into that bracket than ever before.

Performances at Bolton, Manchester United, Olympiakos and Chelsea were anything but a fab four. In fact, they were among the most insipid I can remember from a Liverpool side.

They barely mustered a shot on goal in those 360 minutes of football. But I don't blame the strikers, Milan Baros and Djibril Cisse. In the absence of Steven Gerrard, the midfield is as grey as the waters of the Mersey.

Don't get me wrong, given time Benitez will prove an exceptionally talented manager, but the squad he is working with is one of the thinnest in the Premiership.

Unless they take the opportunity to strengthen in the January transfer window, I can see them slumping to a mid-table finish. That is nowhere near good enough.

The major problem is, despite all that talk in the summer of multi-million-pound takeovers and Thai prime ministers, there's not another peseta for Benitez to spend.

But every problem has a solution, though the one I recommend will be unpalatable to fans I rank among the best in the world.

Just as Everton had to cash in on Wayne Rooney, I think Gerrard should be sold by Liverpool. And I can see it happening in the New Year.

I can't help but remember his face in the summer when he signed that contract extension instead of a mega-bucks deal at Stamford Bridge.

Rather than looking satisfied with the outcome, he looked like he'd swallowed a wasp, as he all but ran out of the press conference to announce the signing.

It has crossed my mind more than once since then that what he was actually doing was a huge favour to his home-town club.

By signing on the dotted line he thereby guaranteed them a much bigger transfer fee if he was to depart. 

Gerrard loves the club, loves the area. Of that there is no doubt. He would also remember the way Steve MacManaman was castigated for denying the club millions of pounds by leaving for Real Madrid on a free.

So, in the summer, was there a conversation that went something like this: 'If you sign, we get money we desperately need and it makes it easier for you to leave in January - and come back in the future'.

Maybe not. But, with money raised from the sale of Gerrard, Benitez will be free to show he is a top boss capable of finally delivering to Anfield what it wants more than anything else - the title.

But if there is no sale - and subsequently no cash from investors or anybody else - the Spaniard may ruefully recall the words of another Beatles classic.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it look as though they're here to stay...