Benitez: I’ll quit Liverpool if Fernando Torres is sold

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has finally spoken about what it would take to blast him out of the Anfield hot-seat - if the club were to sell Spanish striker Fernando Torres, even for £100m, then the manager would be out of the Merseyside club. Benitez was talking to the Times newspaper in his first major interview since the current problems at the club have broken - they have already lost five times in the Premier League this season and have only won once in nine games in all competitions.

The 49-year-old acknowledged that there was a lot of concern around Liverpool FC at the moment but backed his players to pull the club's season around: "People are worried. But the team will improve. When we have key players on the pitch we are as good as anyone. We have proved this in the past."

He also defended his summer signing Alberto Aquilani, the Italian midfielder who Benitez bought from Roma for £17m despite the fact that he was injured at the time and has still to make a Premier League debut start. "We can only buy one or two big, £20m players a year," the Spaniard told the newspaper. "If we want to have money available, then we have to sell some players. We have to sell expensive and buy as cheaply as possible."

The manager continues: "Aquilani fit would be £20-30m. We checked with doctors and they said he would be out one, maybe two months. We have lost some time, but I signed the player for five years, not five weeks. We needed to take the risk." Benitez was slightly less forthcoming, however, about the man that Aquilani essentially replaced, Spanish international Xabi Alonso.

Liverpool fans have given their irascible manager the benefit of the doubt on many of his actions, but there is still a lot of simmering discontent at the departure of Alonso to Real Madrid. "He put in a transfer request," Benitez told the Times. "We had a professional and good relationship." Ultimately, this is true, but it fails to address Alonso's upset at Liverpool chasing Gareth Barry as his replacement while the midfielder was still playing his heart out for the Merseysiders.

Benitez does admit to some failings in the transfer market, conceding that Dutch winger Ryan Babel has not yet shone for the club. But he trumpets his other acquisitions: "Torres, Mascherano, Reina, Alonso. Keane is a good player but we had to sell him because he was not playing at the level we knew he could play. Ryan [Babel] was signed for the future and we are waiting for his improvement. He has to be more consistent."

It's a combative manager who emerges from the interview, but Benitez knows that it's on the pitch, not the sports pages, where his future will be decided over the next few months. ·