Whilst in Spain Benitez wrestled the Spanish La Liga away from Barcelona and Real Madrid and in to the hands of his Valencia side. And now Rafa admits that bringing the title back to Anfield would eclipse Liverpool’s historic 5th Champions League win in Istanbul in his first season in charge.
Benitez was asked if winning the title for Liverpool will be a bigger achievement than that of Valencia 6 seasons ago.
“Yes, clearly. It is more difficult here than in Spain because the top sides spend big, big money.
“We will try to do our best and the key for me is to not talk about the title. The key is to be near the top, to be contenders. If we stay close then I think we are capable of doing it.”
“It is an option, for sure. We know our weaknesses and our strengths. We know where we need to improve, so we’ll try to build a new team looking at these things.”
When Hicks and Gillett refinanced the club in to £350 million of debt they had suggested that around £40 million of this would be handed to Benitez in the summer – however already it appears that the transfer budget looks nearer £15 million meaning Rafa must sell some players to give himself a fighting fund.
Despite this Benitez remained optimistic in the manner the reds ended the season.
“We showed character at the end and that’s really important. We showed that in difficult times we can be good and win games.
“As a manager, it was also important for me to see how the people around the team reacted to everything.
“When you talk about a winning mentality and winning trophies, you need to see the character of your people. The season was very good in terms of knowing the people.
“We have analysed a lot of things. For example, we have conceded a lot of goals from set pieces. We need to understand why because the season before we conceded six, now it’s 16, yet we’re doing more or less the same things. We can improve in this area.
“We also need to keep the team scoring in open play while at the same time improving a little bit in defence. We have been really good in defence for three of four years, but I think we need to improve a little bit if we want to be at the top of the table.”
A full interview with Benitez will be aired on LFC.TV today.
We are blinded by Rafa’s heroics in Istabul 2005, since then the team has NOT developed; we are still merely a very good cup team with an underdog mentality, utterly incapable of adopting an offensive mentality which is required to battle for the Premier league.
Now he starts whining about not having any money to spend, when in fact he has spent £200m in the last 5 seasons. If we do not at least challenge for the league this year, he should go.
http://www.justice96.com
I believe in rafa….let him a little more time and you’ll see the result.He should not be blame for anything as he has helped Liverpool a lot….so hope that he will get more fund to buy more world class player and thus reach our objectives…….
It would be mad, if Liverpool would achieve the title after 19 years finally again. I think, it had to do with the long european cup-closes after the lost cl-final 1985 in heysel. None european-cup games to be able to hold no additional source of income around the team on european pointed level. And that for many years; the reason is so simple. But in the last years Liverpool rise again! The reason is not the coach; because finally the crew is standing on the field and have to win! Rafa is really very good and fits Liverpool. I recommend three extremely good and very young national players from the German “Bundesliga”.
Defender: Per Mertesacker (Werder Bremen)
Midfielder: Diego (Werder Bremen)
Striker: Mario Gomez (VFB Stuttgart)
With these players the team will strong like a bear and the titles will be possible!
Rafa, is definatly good 4 us. consistentcy is the word and whats more, our lads needs the focus from the start.
Rafa is doing his best but isn’t being backed in the transfer market by the Americans!.£15 million is a pathetic amount in today’s transfer market for a so-called top club.Chelsea and Man Utd regularly spend £20 million+ on one player which is why we are still miles behind.
Unless the ownership changes hands every manager will continue to struggle in the current situation.
True we have been waiting to win the premiership for a long time. We should be looking to blame some of the players for not pulling there finger out and don’t blame Rafa. I think some of us have short memories – look at how many trophes he has bought us and also got us to the Champions League twice. He needs more backing from the board and dump Hicks. I still feel that Raffa is the right man to bring the Premiership Title back where it belongs on merseyside.
Get Torres a prolific goal scoring partner – David Vila or Samuel Eto would be nice
its not just a badge, its a family crest! (come on liverpool)
Heard it all before… Its boring me now… We should give him 2 more seasons and see where we are. United, Chelsea are not unbeatable they are just more consistent. We had 11+ draws this year, so had we won say 70% of those games we would have got another 14 points which would have won us the league.
Frustrating times, the players need to take more responsibility on the pitch and go the extra yard for our fans rather than settling for points esp if we have 20-30 mins to get a winner.
driss
unfortunately these days money talks when it comes to titles and we just dont have the finacial backing like chelsea and manchester do,if we are going to even think about winning a title then rafa needs two world class wingers asap,not unknowns ,players who the fans know are going to make a difference,simoa, alaves or even walcott,even just one of these players would turn those games which tend to lose us points against lesser teams and even against the chelseas,man utds and arsenals
I agree, he says the same thing every year. rafa is to defensive minded especially at home, the game against wigan at home is a prime example. he played one striker and two defensive midfielders against a team threatened with relegation… madness. teams should be worried about us not the other way around. our record against the big three is another worry wich never gets any better. rafas got a lot of work to do.
I agree title is and should be number 1 target. Need more consistency at the beginning of season. Towards the end we are awesome. For 1 year we should forget Europe and just concentrate on League. If that does not work, Benitez has to go!
Heard it all before… Its boring me now… We should give him 2 more seasons and see where we are. United, Chelsea are not unbeatable they are just more consistent. We had 11+ draws this year, so had we won say 70% of those games we would have got another 14 points which would have won us the league.
Frustrating times, the players need to take more responsibility on the pitch and go the extra yard for our fans rather than settling for points esp if we have 20-30 mins to get a winner.