RAFA: PRESSURE? WHAT PRESSURE?

Paul Rogers 15 January 2007 Rafael Benitez has revealed that the pressure of managing in the Premiership is nothing compared to what goes on back in his homeland Spain.

The Liverpool boss admitted last week he was surprised by some of the comments made in the wake of Liverpool's exit from both the FA and Carling Cups but claimed that he's endured far worse managing in Spain. "I think I am young as a manager but I have experience from being in bad situations," he said. "I always say that after a Sunday there is a Monday. You can learn from your situations and improve. "When I was at Valencia, people were saying I would be in trouble if we lost a game away at Espanyol even though we had just set a club record of going 13 games in a row without losing. After that we won the league even though we were eight points behind Real Madrid in January and we ended up eight points ahead. "In the second year, people said that I would be sacked because we didn't have good enough players and yet we still reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The year after people were saying that if we didn't win the league and the UEFA Cup, then I would be sacked. You need to have confidence in your players, your staff and everyone to gain success."