Rafael Benitez has dismissed the financial implications
should Liverpool fail in the Champions League and called for
passion and cool heads from his players in the make-or-break
showdown with Besiktas. If Liverpool lose tomorrow at Anfield their
chances of qualifying from Group A for the knockout stages will
have gone.
Should they win they will have to beat Porto at Anfield at the end
of the month and then go to Marseille in December and win again to
be sure of fulfilling their qualification dreams. That is the
massive task facing boss Benitez and his side, with failure casting
a giant shadow over a club who have enjoyed two Champions League
finals in the past three years.
But suggestions that Liverpool's demise would cost the club between
£17m and £20m and influence owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks
over future decisions is not something Benitez claims to be worried
about. With striker Fernando Torres likely to return after a
adductor strain, Benitez insists he is not under pressure and has
great confidence that his recently maligned squad can keep the
dream alive.
He says: "I am surprised by talk of money. I am being told we will
lose £17 to £20m, but that is the money only the finalists get and
only two clubs can do that. "We are planning to build a stadium
costing £400m, so if we lose some money now it will be only £10m
one way or the other.
"That is the difference but don't forget what we have made in two
runs to the final." Benitez revealed he has had recent talks with
the American owners but that money was never the issue, only the
future direction of the club. Liverpool will get the go-ahead
tomorrow from city planners for the revised Stanley Park stadium
scheme and hope by the end of the day to also have a European
triumph to celebrate.
Benitez said: "The owners must be pleased with the way the team and
the club is going, we are changing a lot of things. "There is
progress. Maybe the problem is that when they arrived at the club
we were beating Arsenal and then Barcelona, and then Chelsea. Maybe
they thought it was easy and we could always be in a final,
especially as we were then in another final, our second in three
seasons.
"Tell me how many teams have done that. They know what can be
achieved and we have had a positive meeting about the future. They
are focused and supportive and they know the future can be great
and could be brilliant. "People have said I have £25m (to spend in
January), or £20m or someone said none at all. I don't know, but
when we talked to the owners about the future we were not talking
about money."
He added: "The financial implications in losing are not as big as
people suggest. But we must think about football first and not to
be bothered by other things - that will be taken care of later. "I
have talked to the owners, but not about money, just our ideas for
the future. "For the financial situation we know that if we win we
progress, but we have been in two Champions League finals in three
years so clearly the problem is not money. "If we do not win this
game, we will talk about money then. But more important is the way
we play and how we score the goals to win.
"As a top side you want to win and that is the pressure. You must
win to improve and that is the aim and real pressure." Benitez has
revealed that Xabi Alonso will be out for a further month with
another metatarsal injury suffered in a physical clash with Arsenal
last weekend. And he said of the clash with the Turkish side: "Now
we need to play with our head as well as our hearts against
Besiktas this time. "We always have passion, but we want to keep
that and still do the right things. You cannot all charge forward,
you need a cool head as well as passion. "That is the difference
between the very top players and the rest. They have passion and a
cool mind."
Benitez once again looks to skipper Steven Gerrard to lead
Liverpool away from impending disaster after the shattering defeat
by Besiktas in Istanbul last month which left Liverpool bottom of
their group with just one point from three games. He added: "We
have not been at our best in Europe but people were saying we were
better in Besiktas and Steven Gerrard was better. "He can be
contagious, that is positive. We have different players back from
injuries and in a few weeks everyone will be fit again - Torres,
Alonso, Agger - it is only a matter of three weeks or so
now."