Benitez needs time

Rafa Benitez has called on Liverpool's doubters to give him time to prove that he is the right man to lead Liverpool to the Premiership title, and give him time to blood his current crop of young starlets.

He admits he "expected" a bad reaction following the Besiktas defeat, but insists he should be given time to build a dynasty, as Arsene Wenger has done at Arsenal.

He said: "We knew we needed to win in Istanbul, so when we lost I expected the reaction to be like this.

"Now we are back in the Premier League, and when you have had a few problems, the motivation of the side to change the situation is strong.

"The only way is to work, and work hard. That is the way to handle this sort of pressure.

"When I have a player who is not doing too well, keeps giving the ball away, I say that the way to change that is to keep wanting the ball to try again. If you do not do that you cannot change anything.

"As a manager you must keep going, doing the right things and you know that will change things for the better."

And Benitez wants the same patience the Arsenal board have shown to boss Wenger, as he nurtures new young talent, from his own bosses.

He said: "Arsene Wenger has done very well bringing on his younger players, and it is important that people realise it takes a couple of years to achieve results.

"You can sign young players, good players with talent, but it takes time for them to realise their potential. Wenger has been using these young players for two or three years and now we are seeing them play really well with quality.

"We must wait to see whether they can maintain this through the season, but they do have enough quality to play well for a long time.

"It is what we are trying to do here. We have brought in a lot of young players, 17, 18, 19 years old. We have to wait a while for them to be ready for the first team.

"You can see the reserves now winning games with these players, some of them are really close to first-team level.

"In a few months, a few years, there will be a lot of players coming through from the reserves."