Robbie Keane faces fight to stay at Liverpool beyond the summer

Speculation increased over Keane's future after he failed to even make the bench in Sunday's FA Cup draw with Everton having disappointed in the Premier League draw against the same opposition six days earlier.

And while the £20million signing returns to the squad for tonight's visit to Wigan Athletic, question marks remain over the player's long-term prospects with former club Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Newcastle United monitoring developments.

Asked if he wanted to sell Keane during the transfer window, Benitez responded yesterday: "I want to see him scoring goals tomorrow. I don't need to sell any players. We are in the title race, I want to keep all the players. We don't need to sell anyone. We need everyone.

"We have had four or five approaches from different teams for players and the answer's been the same for them all - no.

"We want all our players. we don't want to sell. Robbie could be one of the ones we had an approach about, I won't say.

"Everything is clear, we've had four or five approaches about our players and we said no. Is Keane one? I'm not saying, you can guess yourselves.

"For me when you sign a player the main thing is not the price, the main thing is that they just keep working

hard like the rest. Robbie's in the squad for Wigan and we think he can be an important player for us in the next game and the rest of the season."

Benitez dismissed suggestions Keane was due to be on the bench on Sunday but stormed off after learning he was not playing, and insisted no talks had been held with Tottenham concerning the 28-year-old.

And the Liverpool manager also admitted he had not spoken to the striker about the decision to leave him out of the 18-man squad at the weekend.

"Robbie had a day off on Sunday, but yesterday I was a little bit late to training and later on I talked to Sammy and Pellegrino, who said there were no problems, everyone had worked hard.

"He's in the squad for Wigan and that's it."

Of Keane's absence on Sunday, Benitez explained: "I was clear we had Ryan Babel, Dirk Kuyt, Fernando Torres, Gerrard playing as a second striker and also David Ngog, so we had lots of options if we needed to change.

"It's because people talk of names and prices, but as a manager you have to analyse each player in each session for each game.

"We had enough people with quality and that's it."

Benitez accepts Keane, who has scored seven goals in 27 appearances since arriving at Anfield this summer, has maybe struggled under the dual weight of expectation over Liverpool's title challenge and his significant price tag.

"This year expectations for us have been high," said the Spaniard.

"He knows he can play better. Everyone knows he's better than the player we are watching on the pitch sometimes. Clearly he has potential."