<span class="titolo">Benitez Keen To Talk To Liverpool's Owners</span></p> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> <span class="sommario">Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is hoping to clear the air with the club's US co-owners when they fly into the UK ahead of the Barclays Premier League showdown with Manchester United on 16th December.</span></p> Liverpool's players gave manager Rafa Benitez the win he sorely needed against Porto on Wednesday, keeping the Reds' Champions League adventure very much alive and perhaps strengthening his position with the club's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.</p> Certainly the Liverpool fans demonstrated their backing for Benitez - and he needs that support after a week of acrimonious exchanges between the owners and their manager which appeared to leave the Spanish tactician vulnerable.</p> Indeed, to many it has looked as though Benitez had put his job on the line by publicly dissenting with the owners' policy on transfers.</p> Benitez has been told by the sports tycoons that they will not discuss transfers until they come to Merseyside to watch the potentially titanic struggles against the Glazer-family-owned Manchester United in a couple of weeks' time.</p> By then Liverpool will have completed their Group A campaign in the Champions League with a trip to Marseille that they must win.</p> Benitez is concerned that such a schedule will leave him too little time to plan ahead for the January transfer window.</p> And today he said: “I would hope to speak to the owners before the Manchester United game.</p> “I don’t know if that is possible but we will try. But I don’t know for sure.”</p> When asked by journalists if he still had a January shopping list, he replied with what, during the last week, has become his stock answer: “I am enjoying this result and concentrating on coaching and training my players.”</p> He has not apologised publicly for his outbursts, and clearly believes strongly in his own position.</p> “My relationship with them was good before. Now we need to talk about what the problem was and move on.</p> “Maybe my English is not that good, maybe that was the problem. But it is clear we have to understand the situation and talk to each other.</p> “We must decide what is best for the future of the club, we can manage that. We will, I am sure, try to do that.</p> “I prefer only to say that as a manager you can only think about your squad. So January is nearly here and next summer is close also.</p> “So you must do your job, and I was trying to do this. Maybe we should talk now and analyse the situation. But I only want to talk, it is easier to talk face to face rather than to send e-mails or talk by phone.”</p> </div></p>
