“I have some experience in difficult situations, all managers do, but at this time we have lost four league games and people are talking about the quality, the depth of the squad. But again, like last year, the main thing is to be calm, work hard and find solutions to the problem.
“That is the only way in football. If you lose and don’t play, you think about it for a week, ten days, but this week we have an opportunity to change everything. It can change everything for the positive.
“Last year we were talking about draws and then we got 86 points. My obligation is to be positive because I think we have more quality than we are showing now.
“As soon as we play well twice, hopefully this week, people will start saying maybe I am right. If we win on Sunday, we will be four points behind and that is not bad.
“Last season, with the draws every week, it was as if you lose a game. At the end we were four points off, very close, so we have to have confidence in the team and players, keep working hard, and I am sure we will win games.
“Normally in the second half of the season we do well and, yes, we have to do something now and we want to get as close as possible. I am sure we will improve during the season.”
Benitez was then pushed by the press in to wondering if Alberto Aquilani was a bad signing given that he has missed 9 games of the Premier League season so far.
“We signed three players and we wanted four. We brought Voronin back and signed another centre back. A good signing could have been really important, but we have a good squad, we’re happy with the players we have got and they have quality.
“We knew that Aquilani could be out for a month, but after seeing the scans we realised it would be more. But we were signing the player for five years, not just for five games.”
David Silva anyone?