Rafa Benitez could get extra £15m to spend if Liverpool stay in Europe

Nov 25 2007

More pressure has clearly been heaped on Liverpool as they go into their make-or-break Champions League home clash with Porto on Wednesday following the fall-out between manager and owners.

Boss Rafael Benitez has clearly been told his transfer budget for January depends very much on whether Liverpool reach the knock-out stages.

Owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have announced they will be talking to Benitez about cash and transfers when they next travel to the UK for the Manchester United home match on December 16, five days after Liverpool’s final group match in Marseille.

Liverpool have to beat Porto at Anfield and then triumph in Marseille to have any chance of further progress.

If they do qualify then there is extra UEFA cash, anything upwards of £15million that could become available.

And that is cash the Americans will let Benitez spend, just like they did in the summer with the Sky money and proceeds from last season’s run to the Champions League final in Athens.

Benitez knows Liverpool will have to be a lot better against Porto this time than they were for their first group match in Portugal in September.

That poor display, in which they eventually managed a 1-1 draw, set the tone for several weeks of indifferent Liverpool form.

Benitez, though, believes his expensive squad is playing better than that last confrontation with Porto. He said: “Yes, I think the team is playing better (than when we last faced Porto.)

“The Besiktas victory in the last match can be a boost for us, but we need to score goals and not concede any.”

But Liverpool now face an even greater test of their composure and confidence with the pressures increased following the mid-week differences between Benitez and the American owners.

Benitez will hope that the off-field ramifications will not affect his players.

For goalkeeper Jose Reina the situation is clear. He said: “We are third in the group now and need to register two more wins.

“That will not be easy but it will be enough to qualify. We must also win in Marseille, but we must deal with Porto first.

“There is no point in looking further ahead than that. If we play our real game then we know that will be enough.”

He added: “When the team won the trophy back in 2005, in the group stages they managed to get to 10 points, and that was enough. We must aim for that total again, and that will also be enough.

“That run to the final should be a mirror for us. We can look at it as an example of how the situation can be resolved.”

Reina was not at Liverpool when they won that Istanbul final against AC Milan, but he was around to share in the disappointment of last season against the same opposition in Athens.

It is an experience he does not want again. He said: “I have not really looked at that DVD, it is in the past, we lost it and we must forget it and keep going.

“People say we were unlucky in Athens, but in the end Milan won. If we get to the final again we must make sure we do not finish with that same feeling.

“But before we can even think about things like that we must make sure we win these last two group games, we must reach the knock-out rounds before thinking ahead to any more finals.”