Rafa warned: get us back into Champions League

Rafa Benitez has ridden out the last two months of crisis at Liverpool, despite losing sight of a Premier League challenge and being knocked out of the Champions League. However, Match of the Day pundit and former Liverpool legend Alan Hansen has laid out what many in the club have been secretly saying for some time: finish the season in fourth or better and secure Champions League football for next year, or else.

Talking to the club's official magazine LFC, Hansen said it was "unthinkable" that Liverpool not make Europe's premier club competition and targetted an immediate improvement in results starting with Blackburn on Saturday and Arsenal next weekend. "We need results in our next couple of games. We cannot afford to allow the likes of Tottenham, Man City or Aston Villa to get ahead of us," the former Scottish international said. "Not being in the Champions League next season is unthinkable."

Hansen was talking before Saturday's 0-0 draw with Blackburn, which drove Liverpool down to seventh place. He said that the club shouldn't merely make do with scraping into Europe. "We should be setting our sights higher than fourth." Although Hansen made no explicit reference to the fact, it's fairly common knowledge that should Benitez not steer the club into the 2010-11 Champions League then his career at Anfield will come to an end after six seasons.

One of the arguments that worked in his favour during the last few troubled weeks, namely that there was no point dropping the manager in the middle of season, obviously disappears if by March it becomes apparent that the club won't qualify. Liverpool could begin to scout for a new manager, and hope to get them in place before the World Cup begins in July 2010.

Another reason behind keeping the Spaniard on was his relationship with the club's peerless striker Fernando Torres, Benitez's compatriot. Both he and the manager have intimated that the other's continuing presence at the club is what's keeping them at Anfield. But an orderly transition at the end of the season could see Torres placated by a new manager with sufficient credentials.

Of course Hansen and most fans of the club remain onside with the manager. But if the Merseysiders have an awful festive period then the knives will be sharpened again, and for Benitez it could be the end. ·