ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:TOM AND GEORGE made it perfectly clear. "All focus is on the pitch and the next game," they said. So did Rafael. "We have a very important game coming up against Everton on Monday night and now I just want to be able to concentrate only on this."

Quite right, too; that is, after all, what a manager is paid €4 million a year to do and the guidance the custodians of Liverpool Football Club are supposed to give. Forgive the cynicism, but if only it were true.

Were Rafael Benitez concentrating only on keeping Liverpool at the Premier League summit and victory in the impending Merseyside derby, he would not be outlining reasons for rejecting the Americans’ contract offer to the Liverpool Echo. A 430-word explanation that referred to Liverpool’s next game once.

Were Tom Hicks and George Gillett focused only on the pitch, the club’s co-owners would not be compelled to issue a joint statement claiming that all is sweetness and light behind the scenes at Anfield.

There is, and has been since the defeat in the 2007 Champions League final 20 months ago, an internal power struggle at Anfield that not even Liverpool’s strongest title challenge in more than a decade can camouflage. That, however, was the unwritten agreement between the rival factions until Benitez revealed last week that Manuel Garcia Quilon, his agent, was “not very happy” with the lack of progress on his new and improved four-and-a-half-year contract.

It is no secret Benitez blames Rick Parry, the club’s chief executive, for several fruitless transfer moves or that Hicks wants Parry’s resignation for, the Texan alleges, failing to exploit the club’s commercial potential to the full.

Top of the league and knowing he has the overwhelming support of the fans, Benitez was presented with an ideal opportunity in the contract negotiations to wrestle authority from Parry and, as he attempted at Valencia, to increase his influence at Anfield in the process. He has not rejected the terms in an attempt to earn more money.

The manager’s problem is that his American employers are not in his corner on the issue of who controls the club’s transfer policy.

Hicks and Benitez have become allies of convenience since the dust settled on the co-owners’ approach to Jurgen Klinsmann in November 2007 and it is noteworthy how both stressed the health of that relationship in their respective comments yesterday. Gillett, a supporter of Parry, remained silent beyond the joint statement issued in his name.

Both Gillett and Hicks, however, are reluctant to grant Benitez terms that would render him the most powerful manager at a major club in England.

Despite past frustrations in the transfer market, it was last summer’s failure to secure his primary target, who was Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry and not Robbie Keane, that most irked the manager. The Americans’ public admission that it was Villa’s valuation that killed the deal, and not their lack of funds, left Benitez seething. The manager wants assurance in his next contract that he will not be overruled again.

There is no shock value in a multimillion-pound contract throwing up disagreements, but these negotiations have been turned into a drama of Benitez’ and the Americans’ making. When it was announced that talks were to open last autumn, the Liverpool manager welcomed the overdue news by stressing that time was of the essence and that they should be concluded within a month.

Hicks and Gillett responded with a deadline of their own in December when, having met Benitez’ request for a contract until 2013 rather than the original two-year extension, they revealed personal terms had been agreed.

Typical of the Benitez/American Liverpool, each sticking point is played out in public instead of being addressed in private. Despite the inevitable claims to the contrary, individual interests are being placed before the team’s challenge for the Premier League title. If the latter is perceived to suffer from the former, Anfield will not be so forgiving.

• Guardian Service