It wouldn't be a normal day without a large chunk of column inches dedicated to good old Rafael Benitez and his troubles at Liverpool.

Today, we start with the Observer and Paul Hayward's assessment of the situation.

Paul, strangely, seems to have a little sympathy with Rafa, believing that there is always a manager who is in the line of fire. And this year it is Liverpool's Spanish boss.

Football's most sadistic sideshow is watching a big-name manager thrash on the hook of impending ignominy. "Sacked in the morning" becomes the opposition's default grandstand chant and the industry presses its nose to the screen to see whether the vortex will take the poor sod down.

Rafa Benítez is this season's dangling man. He is condemned by Liverpool's early Champions League, Carling Cup and FA Cup exits to be followed around by those who recite the last rites for managerial reigns. You will have noticed by now that Benítez's future, or lack of it, has eclipsed Liverpool's deep structural weaknesses as the primary source of interest. The cult of personality dictates that embattled managers provide the crisis-narrative.

He goes on...

The obsession with Benítez as the chief protagonist in the drama is sustained also by the sense that he sees football as a chance to make self-aggrandising decisions. Squad-rotation, odd tactical changes and the habit of marginalising good players such as Peter Crouch, Robbie Keane and Ryan Babel all fall into this category. His handling of Alberto Aquilani is already causing consternation on the Kop, though Benítez insisted here that he left his £20m acquisition on the bench only because extra-time against Reading had been gruelling for him on his gradual return from injury.

Liverpool left out Aquilani in favour of a full-back (Philipp Degen) they would gladly sell, and scored with an ugly goal from a stand-in centre-half bought from AEK Athens for £1.5m. Benítez has not had much luck with ponytails, so this contribution bucked a trend. Andriy Voronin, the long-maned Ukrainian striker, was an abject let-down and left last week for Dynamo Moscow. To Liverpool's supporters Kyrgiakos is emblematic of the club's failure to recruit enough players of title-winning calibre. Hired to replace Sami Hyypia.

And to sign off...

Mediocre players, mostly. By Liverpool's standards, anyway; by Premier League title-winning standards. Effort is no substitute for talent on the high ground where Liverpool belong.

Our other selection comes from the Sunday Mail who, like many, calls for Rafa to get the chop.

In Rafa We Trust, says the banner. Liverpool fans have waved it with conviction throughout this troubled season. Only it’s looking decidedly bedraggled now.

The enduring devotion to Rafa Benitez has become little more than an exercise in blind faith, the sort lemmings display as they charge headlong off a cliff.

If it really does come down to trust, then Liverpool fans have to ask themselves if they truly believe Benitez can rescue this season and claim the fourth place he has ‘guaranteed’.