Premier League title win would be Rafa Benitez's high point
AMBITIOUS Rafael Benitez believes winning the Premier League title with Liverpool would represent his greatest achievement in management.
The Anfield outfit will try again next season to end a championship drought that stretches back to 1990.
Manchester United have dominated the subsequent 18 years, lifting the top-flight crown 10 times during that period to close within one of Liverpool's record tally of 18.
Benitez's side finished in fourth place last season, 11 points adrift of the Old Trafford outfit, despite losing only four of their 38 league games - one less than champions United and their fewest number of defeats since last winning the championship.
Benitez previously broke the stranglehold of Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain by twice leading former club Valencia to the La Liga crown.
With no English club able to compete with the financial strength of United and runners-up Chelsea, the Anfield manager accepts that winning the Premier League title is now more difficult than back in his homeland.
But Benitez is confident he has the basis of a squad capable of realistically challenging the growing dominance of United and Chelsea.
"Would winning the title be better than winning the European Cup or the Spanish league? Yes, clearly," said Benitez.
"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.
"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.
"It's really important to sign the right players with the right mentality - a winning mentality. You want players who are desperate to come here and win trophies. We have the spine for next season and now we need to add players in certain positions."
Assessing the most recent campaign, Benitez pinpoints the absence of Daniel Agger and an inability to consistently defend set-pieces as major flaws to Liverpool's game.
"We have analysed a lot of things," he said.
"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."
"We started last season well and when we had Daniel Agger before he was injured, we were playing well. But, after all the draws in mid-season, it was important to regain the confidence.
"In the end we were playing really well, winning games in a row and producing good football.
"You could see the understanding between (Steven) Gerrard and Torres, but other players were also scoring goals."
Older/Newer
« Ferguson: We'll beat Liverpool FC's haul | Liverpool's Spanish Fab Four aiming to light up Euro 2008 »
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Premier League title win would be Rafa Benitez's high point. TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.liverpoolbanter.co.uk/cgi-bin/mt421/mt-tb.cgi/6443
Leave a comment