Rafa Benitez 460

RAFAEL BENITEZ believes Liverpool are only “one or two” top-class players away from a championship-winning side.

And the Anfield manager is convinced his team’s prolonged title challenge this season will make it easier to snap up his summer transfer targets.

While still harbouring hopes of overhauling Manchester United in the race for this season’s Premier League crown, Benitez is already planning for the new campaign.

The Spaniard is expected to be handed at least £20million by the Anfield board but has already conceded he must sell players to facilitate the required big-money transfers.

Although the pursuit of Valencia forward David Silva has momentarily stalled, Benitez is tracking a number of other high-profile targets.

And confident the spine of his side is already in place and bolstered by a crop of promising youngsters, the Anfield manager reckons his squad now requires just a touch of fine-tuning.

“The spine of the team is there,” said Benitez, whose team travel to West Ham United this evening. “We have very good players in the spine and that’s often the most important thing.

“We can improve a little bit in certain areas, but overall we don’t need to change a lot of players.

“When we first came here, we had to improve a lot and we often didn’t have the money or the options to bring all the players we wanted and we weren’t quite there.

“Now, everybody knows we are so close that if we want to bring a top-class player it will be easier. We can say ‘come to Liverpool as you will win trophies in the future’ and I think these players will come.