RAFA: WE CAN BEAT ANYONE

Steve Hunter 22 January 2007 Rafael Benitez admitted the 2-0 win over Chelsea was one of his most satisfying victories as Liverpool manager and said it proved that Liverpool can beat anyone on their day.

The Liverpool manager added he always had confidence that Liverpool could more than match the so called top sides in the Premiership and agreed the Reds showed their true capabilities on Saturday. "We can beat anyone – we'd done it in the cups, but now we've done it in the Premier League," commented a defiant Benitez. "All I can say is that we had a lot of confidence. You could feel it in training sessions. On Saturday, you could see how focused the team was. We were attacking, defending, winning the second balls. "We showed on Saturday that we are a very good team. We have a better squad than before. You have to be calm and quiet about your targets. We're five points behind, and it's a long race, but we’ll try and get even closer. It's about winning the next game. "If we maintain this form, we'll be closer to Manchester United as well as Chelsea. The irritation is still that we lost at Blackburn when we had 16 attempts. We are in very good form and we'll try and maintain it. While Benitez won't talk about Liverpool possibly being drawn into a title race he does recall the experience of defying the odds back in his Valencia days when the Spanish team pulled back a big points defecit to beat Real Madrid to the La Liga title. "There's a similar confidence to that we had at Valencia," added Benitez. "My players needed to win against a very top side in a good game like this to prove to people that we can do it. "We've played well against Chelsea in the past, but the difference has been if we'd taken our chances. On Saturday we did. "People have been talking about the weaknesses of Chelsea and their team selection, but I've just concentrated on my own team, watching videos, working out who to play up front. "I only decided in the morning who would play up front. I was in Melwood from 8.30am analysing the small details. We knew we had to play with two strikers. The weaknesses of Chelsea are clear – in the wide areas they have some problems, and they're really strong in the middle. We needed to use wingers to create problems, and be narrow in defence. We were doing that. "Afterwards, we wanted to work out how to create problems for their defence. Craig Bellamy's pace would have been an option, but I wanted to attack. "We needed to keep them deep. Crouch and Kuyt could win in the air and the second balls, so we could use the wide areas against them and try and keep the ball as high as possible."