Sam Allardyce has confirmed that former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez was the most irritating he ever faced in the Premier League.
Having taken charge of over 500 matches in the division, Allardyce has faced hundreds of managers while in charge of eight different teams.
But when asked by Paddy McGuinness on The Good, The Bad & The Football to name the most annoying on the touchline, the 71-year-old did not hesitate to name Liverpool‘s Benitez.
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Allardyce did not enjoy Benitez’s antics
Allardyce took charge of three different Premier League teams during Benitez’s six-year spell with Liverpool, leading Bolton, Blackburn and Newcastle.
With his teams well-known for playing physical, long-ball football, Benitez was no fan of Allardyce.
And according to the one-time England boss, the resentment was mutual, as he told McGuiness, he ‘just couldn’t be doing’ with Benitez’s mind games.
“Rafa. I had a lot of fallouts with Rafa and Arsene Wenger,” he said.
Newcastle United V Liverpool, Premier League
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“Total respect for them as managers and what they did with their teams, but I just can’t be doing with what they try and do to me. Try and do something to me and you’re not going to win. Or I’m going to go for you.
“He [Benitez] did a two hour video of us timewasting, as if he didn’t time waste! As if everybody doesn’t. It’s pathetic!”
With time-wasting back in vogue in the Premier League this season, Benitez would have found a few more managers to annoy that’s for certain.
The Spaniard was certainly not everybody’s cup of tea, but for what he achieved with Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League, he will always be a legend on the red half of Merseyside.
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