Jerzy Dudek wanted to punch Rafa Benitez in the face

Liverpool legend Jerzy Dudek wanted to hit Rafa Benitez.

The Champions League winning goalkeeper wanted to punch his manager is the face after he denied him a move away from Anfield, revealed Mark Jones in the Mirror, via a staff writer for FourFourTwo.

Jerzy Dudek was instrumental in helping Liverpool beat AC Milan in 2005 to win the European title, especially thanks to his incredible double save against Andriy Shevchenko as well as his stop against the Ukraine legend during the penalty shootout.

However, the Pole was also prone to a gaff and never looked especially settled as Rafa Benitez’s first choice goalkeeper and this was an area the Spaniard was always looking to improve.

Scott Carson and Chris Kirkland fought Dudek for the right to start for Rafa and neither could gain the complete confidence of the manager, so he turned to the transfer market.

Dudek played 24 league games in 2004-2005, followed by just six in 2005-2006 and two the following season.

His playing time dropped like a stone because Benitez signed Pepe Reina, who was his immediate first choice, while the Champions League hero was relegated to the bench and not allowed to leave the club.

That’s where Dudek’s rage came from. When he found out that Benitez was going to sign Reina, the Pole saw the writing on the wall and asked to leave on a permanent deal – said the article.

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Dudek said that Cologne wanted to sign him but Benitez wasn’t having a bar of it as he felt the side couldn’t be left without a decent reserve goalkeeper, which Dudek was.

Players do plenty of weird and deceitful things to try and force transfers through and in the moment he found out that his route to first team football would be blocked, Dudek said a brief thought flashed through his mind: punch the manager.

"“I told Rafa that the (2006) World Cup was on the horizon and I needed to be playing football.“Cologne were interested, but a few days before the window closed, they called and said: ‘Why is Rafa not even talking to us?’ I was surprised – I thought everything had been agreed.“The next day, I stormed up to him after training. He said: ‘They only offered a loan deal, and you’re too important for us. They want to give us £800,000, but what if Reina gets an injury? I can’t put £800,000 in a suitcase and put it between the goalposts.’“Then I had this crazy thought – ‘I think I’ll just punch him in the face.’ This evil whisper in my head was telling me that if I hit Rafa, they’d let me go to Cologne.”"

How can a side keep a player in the squad who has just hit his gaffer? It sums up the desperation Dudek had at the end of his time in Liverpool, but it also shows that he wasn’t content to sit on the bench and pick up his salary.

At that stage of his career, he just wanted to play.

Of course, he would ruin that by moving to Real Madrid to do just that.