PREMIER LEAGUE:RAFAEL BENITEZ has urged Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett to secure his future at the club by offering contracts to his backroom staff. He has also hinted if a solution is not found to his own contract issues by the summer, his position will become unsustainable.

Benitez has been reluctant to sign a new deal despite being offered two extensions. Although a financial package has been virtually agreed, the Spaniard wants greater control over the running of the club, as well as the freedom to choose and pursue his own transfer targets, effectively bypassing the chief executive, Rick Parry, with whom his relationship has become strained. Reinforcing his position means tying his closest collaborators to a long-term project at Anfield.

“Anyone that has just a year left on his contract does not have anything at all and I have only got a year and a half left,” Benitez warned. “When people, either within the club or from outside it, realise the manager only has that much time left then he is dead. I’ve got 10 or 12 assistants whose contracts are up in June. How can a manager lead a project properly if the continuity of his staff is not secure for two or three years?”

Benitez denied, he sought total control of transfer dealings during his negotiations. “I never asked for complete control,” he said. “I did, however, ask for the power to be able to make my own decisions and run the team the way I see fit. That is not the same thing.”

The Liverpool coach also defended his success at Anfield as his team compete for a first league title in 19 years, while renewing his attack on Alex Ferguson. Economic constraints, he insisted, make challenging Manchester United and Chelsea a virtually impossible task. “Manchester United make €65 million a year more than we do and buy three £20 million players a season,” he said. “Chelsea must have spent £500 million in five years. We have built a team but economically we are way below them and yet we have still managed to compete. In the five years I have been here I have spent less than £40 million on Torres and Keane. How are we supposed to compete with them?

“We have never lost the ability to control games; what has been letting us down lately is our failure to kill games off. Our biggest problem is the huge expectations that people have. People talk about the league and that we have been 19 years without winning it – but the Champions League turns up and we have to go all out for that as well,” Benitez continued.

As for the United manager, Benitez was again unequivocal in his assessment. “Alex Ferguson controls everything in England. The facts are the facts. When he started talking about Liverpool, I had to respond.”

Benitez has been linked with a return to Real Madrid, where he managed the junior teams in the 1990s, but he said: “If I say Madrid would be the icing on the cake for my career people will say I want to leave Liverpool. The right thing to say and the truth is I am not thinking about leaving and I hope to be here for a long time but of course Real Madrid would be the perfect ending to anyone’s career. But my career is not at an end yet.”

• Guardian Service