BENITEZ: THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Benitez demands an improvement

Rafa Benitez today insisted he is well aware that recent scorelines and performance have not been good enough and has urged the players on.

"I am not thinking about the title race," said the Spaniard.

"The only thing that matters is the next game and we need to start winning away if we are going to be closer.

"It is clear this is not good enough. We know we need to improve. We need to show character and show our quality.

"I have some ideas but I need to work with the players until the next game.

"Maybe now we are playing against teams away who don't have the same quality. But we need to stop talking and start winning away."

Rafa has laid the blame squarely at the reds inability to start away games in the correct fashion.

"We need to score first but we are conceding first and we cannot score and go on to win games.

"I could see two different games on Sunday. In the first half the team was there and creating chances, we were in the game and regaining second balls and the tactics were okay.

"But we conceded at the end of first half and early in the second half and that was a big difference.

"In the second half we did not play well. We conceded the types of goals to mistakes you wouldn't normally make.

"I'm not looking for excuses. It's clear we need to improve, and we need to find how we can do that. I'm not talking about individual players, we need to improve as a team away from home.

"On Sunday the second goal was the key. The first one was disappointing but we could talk at half-time, but we conceded too early in the second half. We lost confidence and against a good team with a lot of quality players if you leave space they can play on the counter-attack."

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