Players need to trust me, says Benitez

Rafa Benitez has explained the philosophy underpinning his quest to succeed at Chelsea, and insisted the players need to trust him if they want to win trophies this season.

The Spaniard has endured a torrid start to his Stamford Bridge career, without a win in his first three games, and faces FC Nordsjaelland tomorrow night with their Champions League fate out of their hands.

“My way of coaching, especially with players who can analyse a game, it is not to give orders, but to teach them,” said Benitez. “If we do not agree, we can discuss it. It is no problem for me. What they learn, they will remember forever. That’s the way forward: when players enter a dressing room at half-time, they must know you have a plan. Perhaps it is not good! But they have to trust you. You never win trophies if your players do not trust you.”

The Spaniard, whose arrival at Chelsea has infuriated the club’s fans, admitted he is trying to rediscover Fernando Torres’s confidence, and that can only happen if the striker trusts his new coach. “[As coach] You must spend time explaining difficult things. Including, for example, a DVD to a player, that he will watch for an hour… or five minutes, it depends on the player. So he can improve. The trust is essential. Look at Torres. When he has confidence he is a top-class player. When he does not have confidence...

“A successful manager, he is not only a manager who wins trophies, he is also a manager who gives stability to his club and helps them progress. If you do not have a plan, you can win, but only in the short term. With financial fair play, we need to produce our own players. We need a project. We cannot have young people who have no chance to grow and play in the first team. That’s my philosophy: we must have our own ideas and have the conviction to defend them. In modern football, for me, this is the way to go forward,” said Benitez, in an interview published in France Football on Tuesday, that was conducted before he took the Chelsea job.

“My strong point is more on the training-ground than in an office. But when I did not have any staff, I put all the information I had on my computer. Warning: if you do not have people to analyze the information, you’re wasting your time if you focus on the figures. We do not train with numbers or statistics, but players. I repeat: 70% of what we do is related to the plan we have for the season, 30% depends on what we see. After that, we decide. I have spent all my life in football, and I know that it is a strange sport...”