Oct 28 2006
By Ian Doyle, Daily Post
Rafael Benitez
LIVERPOOL supporters who had anticipated their team to be challenging for the Premiership title this season weren't alone in that assumption. Just ask Rafael Benitez.
The Anfield manager yesterday admitted everyone at the club fully expected to be rubbing shoulders with Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal at the top of the league from the first whistle in August.
An indifferent start, which has seen Liverpool pick up just 11 points from their first nine games, has downgraded those hopes to such an extent that some bookmakers are quoting the Anfield side at 100-1 for the title.
Certainly, with Liverpool already 11 points behind the leaders and languishing in the lower half of the table, it's something of a long shot.
Benitez feels his team has become a victim of their success during his first two seasons in charge, in which the lifting of the European Cup and then the FA Cup raised expectations of ending a title drought that stretches back to 1990.
"If you haven't won the most important trophies for years, then there will be expectation," says the Spaniard. "That's normal.
But we won the Champions League and something changed. Because we won that, and the next year we won the Super Cup and the FA Cup, then people - all of us - were waiting for us to become contenders for the Premiership.
"United went 26 seasons without winning the league, and at Valencia it was 31 years. These things happen in football. You need to have perspective and analyse the situation. You can improve a lot, but if the other teams are improving as well then it is more difficult.
"You need to have an idea and know which is the right way, and to say this is the way and to continue on that way."
After the dismal defeat at Old Trafford last Sunday led to fingers being pointed at this tactics and rotation policy, the last thing Benitez needed was yesterday's cowardly attack from a faceless board member.
The outburst was bizarre to say the least. Not only was it not representative of the upper echelons of the Liverpool board, it doesn't reflect the majority of opinion of the Anfield support that continues to back the manager.
It was, however, symptomatic of the growing pressure being placed on Benitez after a disappointing opening to their Premiership title challenge.
Liverpool began the process of rebuilding their fragile confidence with an exciting 4-3 win over Reading in the Carling Cup on Wednesday, and will seek to return to winning ways in the Premiership when they entertain unbeaten Aston Villa this afternoon.
Benitez's side are in an almost identical position to precisely a year ago when they suffered another poor start to the season.
A home win over West Ham United stopped the rot, and sparked a run of 10 successive Premiership wins and a club record run of clean sheets.
And Benitez believes that his players are capable of putting together another winning sequence and climbing their way back up the table.
We have started really badly away from home, and it's a similar situation to last season," says the Liverpool manager. "Then, we worked hard, changed some things and the team was better.
"We will try to improve by working harder and better. I hope to see the same things happen this year as last year.
"When you expect to be at the top of the table from the beginning and you are not, then always it is more difficult to have the necessary confidence for playing at your level.
"The question is that if we cannot talk about being at the top of the table or whether or not we are contenders, we need to think just about the next game and if we can win two or three games in a row then the situation may be different.
"Sometimes we have played really well, and if we do that we can win games in a row. We have enough quality."
Having rested a number of key players in midweek, Benitez will change his line-up for the 99th consecutive game this afternoon with Liverpool welcoming back Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard, Sami Hyypia, Xabi Alonso and Steve Finnan.
Fabio Aurelio and Mark Gonzalez are both injured while Craig Bellamy (calf) also misses out.
A slight worry over Dirk Kuyt means Robbie Fowler is on standby to start his first league game in seven weeks after his goalscoring return against Reading.
Villa have shown great progress under new manager Martin O'Neill this season, and the Irishman has earned the admiration of his Anfield counterpart.
"Aston Villa will be a really tough game," says Benitez. "It is not easy to be unbeaten for a lot of games, and they are doing a good job. They are playing really well, working hard and have a manager with a lot of experience.
"I must give credit to him and their players. It was really good see a manager like him back in football. I've seen him a few times and, although I don't know him all that well, he seems like a nice guy too."
Benitez adds: "The perfect response for us after the United game would be to beat Aston Villa. The players are really focused now, and scoring four goals in midweek has given confidence to the team.
"We are more confident now. When you have a bad game like we did at United, you need to have a good game as soon as possible and in the second half against Reading we played some good stuff."
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