Rafael Benitez may have thought that his days of riding out attempted mind games were over when Jose Mourinho left these shores, but the Liverpool manager yesterday had to reject any implied concern from Sir Alex Ferguson about the treatment of Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of Sunday's game at Manchester United.
- In pics: Premier League action | Football fans' forum
- Telegraph TV: Premier and Football League highlights
- Alan Smith: Ronaldo is equipped to become the Best
While Gabriel Heinze, who came close to a move to Anfield before leaving United for Real Madrid last summer, is unlikely to be a topic of conversation when the duo meet at Old Trafford, there is no real history of tension between the two, partly because Benitez has never managed a league victory over Ferguson and his team have scored only one goal in seven previous Premier League matches.
But, with seven straight victories behind him, Benitez is in bullish mood ahead of the trip to United and refused to indulge the insinuation that Ronaldo requires any more care from officials than Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and he is sure that referee Steve Bennett will not be swayed by Ferguson's utterances.
Ferguson said: "I will continue to hammer away at the need for protection for football's most skilful players. The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger recently complained that his team are on the receiving end of more fouls than any other. I'm not so sure about that but what I do know is that Ronaldo must be one of the most fouled players in the league.
"These fouls are frustrating, especially for Ronaldo, and I have nothing but admiration for the way he picks himself up and keeps running at people. Time and time again he is tackled unfairly and often opponents try to indicate that he has dived.
Of course, when Ronaldo is running at full speed sometimes it doesn't take much to knock him over but the truth is that too many opponents don't know how to tackle properly and to disguise their shortcomings they accuse him of falling deliberately."
With the season reaching its closing stages, Ferguson deflected attention from United's 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Portsmouth with his comments about the referee Martin Atkinson and made an issue of Kevin Davies' style of play ahead of the 2-0 win over Bolton on Wednesday night.
But Benitez is unconcerned by Ferguson's remarks and expects Bennett to be similarly impassive. He said: "Ferguson is clever, that is clear. After a difficult game he was talking about referees, and before an important game he is talking about protecting Ronaldo. The referees, though, have experience and they will know Ferguson.
"This kind of treatment must be the same for all the teams and all the players. Ferguson has a lot of experience.
"I don't know what he was thinking about exactly, but if you need to protect Ronaldo, you also need to protect Torres and Gerrard and all the skilful players in the league."
Meanwhile, Liverpool could lose midfielder Javier Mascherano for the early part of next season after he was yesterday named in Argentina's 53-man preliminary squad for the Beijing Olympics.
