Benitez set for great welcome - but not from Blues

Make it bye bye, Benitez

HAPPY MEMORIES ... Rafa Benitez lifts the Champions League trophy in Istanbul

RAFA BENITEZ will emerge from the Anfield tunnel to a sound unheard in 151 days as Chelsea interim boss — a rousing ovation.

Not, though, from those Blues supporters who travel to Merseyside.

The reception Benitez is guaranteed on Sunday will come as a thank you from Liverpool supporters forever grateful to the Spaniard for, above all, THAT night in Istanbul.

The supporters who remember the heady days when they were more serious challengers for the title, Champions League regulars and a genuine top-four side.

There are still a pocket of Rafaistas who hanker for his return. Still pine for the days when he was slugging it out with Fergie and Arsene at the top.

That’s about as likely as Benitez being voted greatest manager in Chelsea’s history.

Certainly as long as owners Fenway Sports Group patrol the corridors of power at the club.

For the Anfield Benitez returns to for the first time since his six-year reign ended with a whimper in 2010, is a far different place to the one he left behind.

A club which, for all Brendan Rodgers is still in the early stages of rebuilding, is at least on a sound financial footing and not lurching ever closer to oblivion. And making progress on the field, too.

That’s why Sunday’s salute to the Kop has to be closure, rather than the opening of a door Benitez has left his foot in, desperate for the chance to take command once again.

As much as Benitez is convinced he will one day return as the Messiah, take a look at some of the other facts which accompanied his reign.

And we all know how much he loves facts. Of course he pulled off transfer masterstrokes tempting Xabi Alonso, Pepe Reina, Luis Garcia and Fernando Torres to Merseyside.

But for every one of them there was a Ryan Babel, an Alberto Aquilani, a Robbie Keane or a Mark Gonzalez.

And it’s no secret many senior Anfield staff, playing and otherwise, weren’t exactly shedding a tear when he was chopped.

A tricky first season for Rodgers has led to whispers Rafa was the man who should have got the job.

Whispers Benitez himself backed up recently by claiming he WOULD be back one day.

But do not let anyone tell you Liverpool haven’t made progress under Rodgers, whose footballing ethos is gradually beginning to bear fruit.

The only way the Spaniard should be back on Merseyside is sitting in the Wirral mansion he kept on after being sacked.

Benitez should enjoy his moment in the sun this weekend, take his bow and move on.

Liverpool’s future is one without him. Fact.