 PRESUMABLY someone has told Rafael Benitez of Craig Douglas Bellamy's insatiable appetite for nightclubbing, and all that goes with it. The Wales international carries with him a charge sheet whose less savoury details would fill a Daily Post page. And that's before we come to the skirmishes with team-mates and managers. A year ago - strange to recall - Bellamy sat across the park at Goodison telling an abashed David Moyes his squad wasn't good enough to attract his own shining talents. Specifically, he wanted to know who Moyes planned to recruit to turn Everton into a team worth considering. He then sent the strangest of all career signals by signing for home-spun Rovers - though a £6.5million get-out clause indicates that he and his agent had their eyes on bigger things. Last year's minimal choice of clubs came about because he called Mr Volcano, Graeme Souness, a liar, promptly found himself banished to Celtic, clearly a club he didn't really fancy. He brazenly boasted of a return to St James' Park for pre-season training, but having sent the unforgiving Alan Shearer a mean-minded text message he decided he wanted to keep his head attached to his body and retreated to Lancashire. Now, 12 months on, he finds himself courted by Liverpool, who badly need his electric pace if not his alleged off-field shenanig ans. So, how is he on the field? Well, a lot of fizz, but there could be more in the way of end product say his sternest critics. Think of Thierry Henry, also very quick, and you get the picture. To be scrupulously fair to a striker whose exasperated Norwich team-mates used to lock him in the lavatory on away-days to escape his witterings - he can be a match-winner. But never enough of one to attract the elite clubs until Liverpool called. Persistent knee problems caused the normally obliging Sir Bobby Robson to question his Wales commitments, while Souness still insists Bellamy refused to play wide for his woeful Newcastle side. Hence the player's 'liar' riposte. Very much like the self-destructive Nicolas Anelka, who Gerard Houllier removed from Anfield because of his after-hours adventures, Bellamy appears to learn few lessons from his colourful career. That should worry the ultra-professional Benitez, not least because he needs a goalscorer whose main focus is Liverpool FC in advance of a season when even more demands will be made vis-a-vis Chelsea. Liverpool would be the 27-year-old's sixth club, during which time he's scored 127 goals in 300 appearances. That average improved at Blackburn last season bringing him a goal every two games in a campaign once more blighted by injury. In 22 league games (plus five as substitute) he scored 13 goals, adding five more in FA and Carling Cup games. This will cheer Liverpool fans who must hope that Rafael Benitez proves to be as big an influence on this Premiership bad boy as Mark Hughes clearly was. The PFA Footballers Who's Who eulogises about Bellamy, describing him as a quality attacker with blistering pace whose ideal partner is a big target-man. Crouch and Bellamy... Bellamy and Crouch: could they be key to Premiership paradise for Liverpool? We shall see. England bandwagon lumbers unconvincingly on toward Berlin >>> | 
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