And if you ever needed evidence that the leaving of Liverpool has not yet remotely erased the city from Benitez’s heart and soul, it was all laid bare here in Milan with this extraordinary message in a milk bottle, in which the Inter boss offered both a rousing defence of his reign at Anfield and an attack on Liverpool’s supposed new hero of the hour, managing director Christian Purslow.
We cannot claim that it all came completely unprompted because, twice at the start of a gentle press conference at Inter’s La Pinetina training base when asked about Liverpool’s takeover, Benitez politely batted the ball back, explaining how he really didn’t want to talk about it because he had to “concentrate on this very important game against Tottenham”.
