Parry out at Liverpool; I repeat, Rick Parry is out at Liverpool

Quickly, the papers before my thoughts:

The Telegraph
The Guardian
The Times

Now, having learned this news less than 5 minutes ago, my first-blush impressions:

Wow, guess it's about time I apologize for this.

After letting it digest now for, oh, about 10 minutes, it's encouraging to see the owners and the board are picking a direction and going with it, for better or worse. It's funny, because last night after watching the match, going to work and thinking about a possible post, I was about to write my thoughts on how I didn't consider winning at the Bernabeu to be all that big of a deal. Sure, all the papers heralded it as yet another major Benitez triumph against a European colossus. But Liverpool are simply better than Real Madrid. I expected a 0-0 at worst. I didn't see why everybody was making such a fuss.

It's a good thing I was too tired to post those thoughts.

It appears we now know with relative certainty where that asinine "Rafa will quit/be sacked before the weekend" rumor came from, don't we? It's really astonishing, as the Americans seemed incapable of tying their own $450 shoes, let alone figuring out what direction to take the club. Now they've chosen Rafa.

So what does this mean? I've been shattered by the inability to keep pace with United in the League after such a golden opportunity through the first half of the season. But lately, I've come to simply accept that, for now, surpassing United in the League is what it is – a bridge too far. They're the class of the world on most nights, and Liverpool has been brilliant in making the progress it has so far.

Hey, whatever gets you through the night, right?

Another train of thought that made me reconsider my anti-Rafa position was this Paul Tomkins article from the official site. It's not so bad, no matter how much it hurts to be 7 back of United in late February after leading ever since the 2-1 mega-tension-anxiety-release at Anfield back in September.

So what then? It's going to be Rafa for the foreseeable future. The Telegraph report above has this interesting nugget:

Hicks established what is effectively a shadow-executive, led by commercial director Ian Ayre and finance director Steve Nash, who operate out of a city centre office away from Anfield. Ayre and Nash will be among the favourites to replace Parry.

A guy in advertising and a bean counter. Hmm, not quite player personnel experts, are they? Soon, I'm almost certain, there'll be news of Rafa getting the satisfactory level of control in a written contract offer and it'll be time to get on with things.

Incredible. It really is. Benitez, the man who can't walk out the door without having the neighbor kid ask him if his contract situation is distracting the team, won the nastiest, most-prolonged power struggle at a team in some time. The wound-up bastard won it – on the field, apparently – by proving he will lead the club past the giants of European football on a consistent basis.

Now, about beating United over the course of 38 matches ...