Benitez demands a more potent strikeforce

14 April 2012

Rafael Benitez has thrown down the gauntlet to his strike force as Liverpool look to put their away-day misery behind them.

The Liverpool boss takes his team to Wigan tomorrow searching for their first away win this season in the Barclays Premiership, with just two points and one goal on their travels.

Manager Benitez admits he is frustrated by the Reds' record on their travels and their lack of finishing when presented with good chances.

He said: "It is really disappointing to still be talking about this record, it is bad and we know that. I have analysed every game, seen that we have made the most chances in most of them, but that is not good enough.

"We have the best statistics, we have more attempts, more corners, more shots.

But you do not win games with statistics, only when you score more goals.

"What you must do when you have more chances is to take advantage. It is no good having the chances and not scoring."

That puts the onus firmly on Peter Crouch, Dirk Kuyt, Robbie Fowler and Craig Bellamy, none of whom have set the goals charts alight this season in the league.

Benitez says: "Okay, we have had 21 chances to one or two in some matches. We are not conceding goals and we are creating openings. That means we are okay in defence and midfield, but we are not okay up front.

"Teams do defend deep against us, that leaves little space to create. But we have to overcome that.

"We know what we have to do. The opportunities must be taken, the strikers must do their job.

"I hope now to see goals from the strikers. Crouch, Fowler, Kuyt and Bellamy, all of them. It is important for the strikers to score the goals."

The former Valencia boss considers that teams, home or away, defend in depth against Liverpool because they know of their problems.

But he says: "Teams play really deep against us, and try to steal something in the second half. They are worried about us sometimes, but we have to handle that.

"Talking does not win you points. But we have been told we are a bad team in the past and then a couple of weeks later we are almost back in the top six. We just have to keep working and make sure the away form improves."

Benitez is without Mohamed Sissoko, Fabio Aurelios, Harry Kewell and Mark Gonzalez long term, although Xabi Alonso is back in the squad after a leg muscle injury.

Bellamy is now available and fresh following his court ordeal this week which ended with him being acquitted of two assault charges in his home city of Cardiff.

"Bellamy is focused now, he has trained with us for two days and has been scoring a lot of goals," the Spaniard continued.

"You could see he was distracted, but now it is all over he can work only on his game. Maybe he was under more stress than he showed, but I was always happy with his commitment and effort.

"But now a few goals will really get him back in the right frame of mind.

"But I agree, it is clear we must start winning away as soon as possible. We should have won at Middlesbrough but we didn't, now we must do that at Wigan."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in