Rafa admits that he and the rest of the coaching staff need to improve however he also says that the players need to take games like the one yesterday a bit more seriously.
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Rafael Benitez is demanding that his team improve and said that he won't tolerate another showing like the first half display they produced at Fulham at Saturday again, that largely led to their downfall and a 2-0 defeat.
Benitez had his squad in at Melwood on Sunday to watch a re-run of the Fulham game and he told his players the first half just wasn't and isn't acceptable for Liverpool Football Club.
Benitez said: "We had more determination in the second half, but the first half was the same kind of performance away from home as last year.
"Everyone must understand these kinds of games are important. It's acceptable to play at the same level as Chelsea and lose, but it's not acceptable to play Fulham, whom we know we are better than, and come away with nothing.
"It was as though we didn't understand the importance of the game in the first half. Only in the second was there a response, and then I felt it was a question of time whether we would score, but their keeper made a lot of saves.
"Last season we made a lot of mistakes and I thought we were learning from them. We've started strongly in other away games and I didn't expect to see us play like this again after last year.
"This is our first defeat away this year and we can't afford to make the same mistakes in future. It's important the players understand we can't approach games in this way."
Benitez says everyone has to improve including the manager himself and his staff as everyone is in it together.
"It's not just the players who need to improve, but all of us," said Benitez. "I include the staff, the players, everyone.
"We all know we need to change the attitude, particularly after European games. Yesterday we all spoke and watched the match again. The performance of the team was bad in terms of the aggressiveness of the players.
"We had a lot of the ball, and controlled the play, but didn't show enough until the second half. We've had these problems before after a Champions League game.
"We've all seen the big mistake we made with our first half performance and now we need to correct it."
Rafael Benitez has admitted he told his players their first-half performance at Fulham was not acceptable but felt they responded well in the second-half and gave a much better show of themselves.
The Liverpool manager insists he wasn't happy with the movement of his players during a poor first-half display but was keen to point out the second-half display was very good at Craven Cottage.
"Always when you lose a match you must be very disappointed,"! he revealed. "We played bad in the first half. We controlled the game but in the first half we didn't go forward with enough intensity.
"The players need to know the second-half at Fulham is the performance we want at Liverpool, not the first half which was bad.
"In attack in the first-half we did bad movement and the players didn't move enough, but we also needed to give them better chances as well. We need to support the strikers a lot better when they get the ball.
"We have been speaking a lot about getting crosses into the box for Crouch and Morientes and we need to get to the by-line and cross good balls. We are working on that and I am confident we will get goals very soon.
"Against Anderlecht we had 18 shots at goal so we do create chances. We just need to finish them off a lot better."
I'm glad that Benitez is giving the players a kick up the ar$e and whilst Benitez himself is not perfect[as he pointed out] he has the balls to admit it and do something about it.
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