FRUSTRATED Rafael Benitez admits Liverpool missed an opportunity to improve their Premier League challenge when they were held to a goalless draw at Manchester City yesterday.

Benitez’s side dominated at Eastlands after half-time but could not find a way through the well-drilled home defence.

With Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea having already dropped points over Christmas, Liverpool were desperate to maintain their 100% record during the festive period.

Although yesterday’s goalless draw keeps the Anfield outfit in fourth place, they are now 10 points behind leaders Arsenal, albeit with a game in hand.

And despite his disappointment at failing to close the gap further, Benitez praised the performance of his players.

“I thought we deserved to win and it was a little bit frustrating,” said the Anfield manager. “You cannot say anything about the players, they worked really hard, had plenty of possession and were controlling everything.

“We created 17 chances away from home against a City team that has a fantastic record at home, so we are a little disappointed because we did everything to win the game.

“I don’t look at the table too much, but we knew today was an opportunity. We have one more point. Our idea is to try and play as well as we did today and keep creating the same amount of chances.

“Three games before we were talking about it being impossible. Two games later we were close. Now we are 10 points behind with one game in hand.

“Playing like today we will win a lot of games and we just have to keep doing the right things and see what happens in the next few months.”

Benitez added: “We were trying to win, creating chances. If you cannot win then you must find the positives and the positive is the team has played well against a team with a good record at home.

“We can’t dwell on the negatives, we just have to think about Wigan and trying to win and keep on winning because the team is playing well.”

Fernando Torres suffered a frustrating afternoon, missing two chances early in the second half but otherwise was well shackled by City’s former Everton centre-back Richard Dunne.

The Spanish striker was also booked late on for a challenge on Micah Richards, although Benitez was unhappy the City defender had not been penalised earlier in the game after twice tussling with the forward.

“I have seen some challenges on Torres (by Micah Richards) that I was a little bit disappointed with but I thought Dunne did a very good job against Torres,” said Benitez.

“With the first challenge, it looked clear that Torres had a good position and it should have been a yellow card.

“But City were good in defence in the last tackle. Torres was very close but Dunne was very good and it made a big difference.”

The result means City maintain their unbeaten home record and stay in fifth place.

Benitez was impressed with Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men, and said: “City are close to the top four. They have a good team.

“I was talking to Dietmar Hamann and he said they had some good players. You can’t win nine games in a row at home and two draws without being close.”

Meanwhile, Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry insists money will be made available to the manager in the transfer window.

The very public spat between Benitez and the club’s American owners pointed to problems over how best to move forward in the transfer window, which opens tomorrow.

But Parry says all sides are focused on a successful second half to the season and that the budget is in place to back the manager’s plans.

“Money at Liverpool is always available if we need it and the situation at the moment is no different,” said Parry. “As ever we are not going to give our plans away, but if we need to do something, we’ll do it.

“We spent more money this summer than ever before. The whole business model for the Americans is based upon success. There’s no point investing in a new stadium and having a team that isn’t successful. The whole model from our point of view means that we need a successful team.

“Clearly I am not going to quote figures but there hasn’t been any change of budget. We are entirely confident the stadium is going to happen, we are entirely confident that we have a workable and sufficient transfer budget and that’s it.”

Meanwhile Peter Crouch has re-iterated that he is in no rush to leave Liverpool.

The big striker is seen as a potential player to be sacrificed if Benitez looks to raise further funds for his transfer window spending.

However, Crouch says he wants to stay at Anfield for as long as possible.

“I know that if I move on from here the only way is down. You want to play for a club like this for as long as you can,” said the England striker. “Liverpool is the kind of place you aspire to be throughout your career. Playing for a club like this and challenging for honours year in, year out is what it is all about.

“We’ve got so many exciting times ahead this season and I’ve got every intention of being around to enjoy them.”