Craig Bellamy played for Liverpool over two different spells during his Premier League career.
Craig Bellamy has shared the warning he was given by Mark Hughes about joining Liverpool and working under Rafa Benitez in 2006.
The former striker, who was at Blackburn when he made the Liverpool switch, was told by his manager that Benitez ‘isn’t for you’ because of how he plays and the type of character he is.
Bellamy, who played for Liverpool over two different spells, lasted only one season under the Anfield legend before moving to London and joining West Ham.
Speaking to Jamie Carragher on The Greatest Game podcast, Bellamy shared what happened during the early stages of his first Liverpool move.
“I spoke to Mark Hughes [Blackburn manager at the time]. I thought he’d be like ‘no problem, I appreciate this’,” Bellamy told Carragher’s podcast. “He was the complete opposite saying, ‘I don’t understand why you are going’. But I am like, ‘It’s Liverpool’.
“He then said, ‘I get the club, but Rafa isn’t for you, the way you play, the way you are as a person and the way Liverpool play and the way he is as a manager, I think you’re making a mistake’.
Carragher then asks Bellamy whether Hughes was right: “Oh, he was spot on. Even when I went into a meeting. My first meeting with Rafa. He straightaway had clips out of me being angry and he is like, ‘what’s this?’. I was like ‘I have just got pushed in the back’.
“He showed me the formation and asked ‘what do you think of this and what’s wrong with it?’. I thought I had given the right answer. But with Rafa it was never the right answer, it was only his answer. And this was all in my first meeting with him.”
Bellamy is a fiery character, who would divided opinion during his playing career, and he definitely had an edge to his game on the pitch.
On the other hand, Benitez has always been the type of manager and character that likes to be a calming influence on the touchline and on the training pitch.
Therefore, it isn’t a surprise that Bellamy’s time at Anfield didn’t last long under Benitez because it was something that was simply never going to work, regardless of what club they were at.
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