After becoming the first side in more than four years to secure a league win at Chelsea, Benitez knows that with every win he will face a growing avalanche of questions as to whether he can steer Liverpool to their first title of the Premier League era. And if he does, it will rank as a greater achievement than taking Valencia to their first Spanish title in 21 years – as he did in 2002.
"I think this is harder to win than La Liga," he said. "Here you have a lot of clubs with big money trying to be in the top four and you are competing against three teams – Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United – who are really, really strong. In England you have clubs run by an owner: in Spain the fans and the shareholders are the owners, and they elect a chairman.
"The Premier League is really difficult. Chelsea won the title with 91 points and since then [2006] it has been won with 89 and 87 points. For us to win, we would have to have a nearly perfect season because we know that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United will not lose too many games. You can see one of them making mistakes but to imagine all three will is very difficult.
"When I was with Valencia we had an almost perfect balance when winning it for a second time [in 2004]. We scored more goals than any other team, including Real Madrid, and we conceded fewer. The press called us a machine."
Having broken one record by becoming the first team in 87 attempts to win at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool will defend one tonight. No Portsmouth side since 1951 have left Anfield with a victory and, although Fernando Torres is not scheduled to return until Saturday's game at Tottenham, Robbie Keane will start.
As he awaited the kick-off at Chelsea last Sunday, Benitez was flicking through a set of newspapers which all mentioned the one glaring weakness in his domestic record – Liverpool's inability to take points off fellow members of the big four. It is worth pointing out that immediately after overcoming United last month Liverpool were held to a 0-0 draw by Stoke. However, what should give the Kop confidence this evening is the ease with which Liverpool held Chelsea at bay – only at the very end did they mount any kind of threat.
"Chelsea needed to score and in the back of their minds they were thinking of the 86 unbeaten games," Benitez said. "It made them more direct than they usually are and they used John Terry as a striker. We put on Sami Hyypia in the 88th minute and, when I checked the statistics, he cleared the ball four times – the same number or clearances that Jamie Carragher made in the whole match."
When it was pointed out that this was not a Liverpool squad with much experience of winning championships, Benitez replied that he had won titles and so had his assistant, Sammy Lee. "And we have players who have won the Champions League," he said.
"If we're still top in three or four weeks, the papers will really start to push us, the fans will be thinking: 'Maybe, maybe' – and then you have to handle the pressure."
source telegraph