Benitez refuses to yield

RAFAEL BENITEZ has demanded his stunned Liverpool stars “show their character” in a spell of matches that could define their season.

As the Spanish coach surveyed the wreckage of a disastrous Champions League defeat by Marseille in front of a bemused Anfield, he knows a season that started with high expectations could soon be in total disarray.

Sunday sees the visit of Spurs in the Barclays Premier League, followed by a trip to neighbours Everton and the visit of impressive leaders Arsenal on October 28.

Sandwiched between the Everton and Gunners matches is their next Champions League trip — in Istanbul against Besiktas.

A tough trip to Blackburn and the Besiktas return are Liverpool’s opening games in November.

No wonder Benitez insisted: “We must improve, we must show our character now.

“We know we have to do better. We showed character to get a draw against Porto when we did not play well, and we showed character to win at Wigan last weekend in a hard match.

“Now we must show character against Tottenham. That is our first priority after the Marseille result.”

Benitez’s tinkering with his squad again took the brunt of the criticism after the French side turned an impressive display into a well-deserved victory thanks to Mathieu Valbuena’s late winner.

Benitez opted for youngster Sebastian Leto on the left, refused to take off a woefully out-of-touch Mohamed Sissoko, while giving Peter Crouch the opportunity to justify his claims that his form has suffered because of the manager’s rotation policy.

The Anfield chief has now made a staggering 62 changes to his side over 12 matches this term, and has used 34 substitutes.

Compare that with Alex Ferguson’s changes this term at Manchester United, and the difference is remarkable.

Before the United chief made wholesale alternations for the Carling Cup defeat by Coventry, and then a complete change back for the next league match, he had made a total of just 12 changes in eight matches.

But Benitez will not move on his rotation policy.

He said: “It is not the changes, it is big players not playing well.”

And he defended Leto and Sissoko, saying: “I chose Leto because he had been training well and he had played well in the Carling Cup on the left with Fabio Aurelio.

“I wanted to give him his chance because he had shown he was a player who could beat opponents with pace.

“But for me it is not right to talk about only one player, the whole team played badly.”

Benitez made no excuses for the dire display, saying: “We did not deserve anything. From the beginning, the team did not play well. We were giving the ball away, losing second balls and not winning possession up front.

“We were trying to do too much, to do everything and we needed to be calm and do the things that we would usually have done.”

Liverpool must now return to the city of their fifth European Cup triumph two seasons ago to save this campaign.

Third in Group A and five points behind Marseille, with Porto second on four points, the Merseysiders have to win against Besiktas on October 24.

Benitez said: “We are now going to have to win an away game, certainly the next away game with Besiktas.

“We need points quickly. There has been talk of us needing 10 or 12 points to qualify. Forget all this, we must concentrate first on winning the next group match.”