There is no let up for Rafa Benitez in the morning's papers, even despite the Liverpool manager turning his hand to comedy yesterday when parodying his own "facts" rant last season.

With Liverpool's season imploding, and a tricky trip to Stoke coming on Saturday, the Independent's James Lawton argues that a change of manager is required at Anfield, with Jose Mourinho and Guus Hiddink top of his list.

"It is that what happens on the field, assuming that players are paid according to their contracts and that team-building finance has been provided, will always be in the remit of the manager. It is his ability to inspire players, to make them a coherent unit, most basically of all, give them the desire to play not only for themselves and their fans but also their boss, the man who ultimately will decide on their futures.

"How long is it since Rafa Benitez was able to create any degree of confidence that such a dynamic was in place? Not consistently, you have to believe, since the waning of his undoubted knack of turning impressive survival instincts into stunning, if not easily analysed success at the highest level of the European game – and in no way of consequence at all since the failure of his most promising challenge in five attempts for the Premier League title and the rather brutal exclusion from Europe at the quarter-final stages last season at the hand of Hiddink's Chelsea.

"The rest has, of course, been an unmitigated disaster, a separation from any sense of meaningful progress, a process underlined most damagingly by the sale of Xabi Alonso and the purchase of Alberto Aquilani.

"In Rafa We Trust, proclaimed the Kop, but surely not on the evidence unfolding before its eyes."

Strong stuff indeed.