Believer in a renaissance

Dominic Fifield listens to Dietmar Hamann's assessment of Liverpool's season to date and why he has faith in Rafael Benitez

Melwood was a cheerless place to be on the morning after the night before. The sombre hush that engulfed Liverpool's training complex following Tuesday's FA Cup exit to Burnley was punctured only by the metallic rat-a-tat accompanying Xabi Alonso as he heaved himself through reception, although the sight of the Spaniard on crutches did little to improve the mood.

These are trying times, albeit principally because modern-day football leaves little room for patience. From the outside looking in, Liverpool under new management are as they were a year ago under the ancien regime - gasping well off the pace set by the top trio and embroiled in a reluctant, if necessary, chase for fourth. It would be convenient to consider this a season of transition.

"But the fact that a new manager has come in and is changing things doesn't mean we can stop playing for a year," said Dietmar Hamann. "We can't accept a place in the bottom half, or a finish outside the Champions League. We don't have an excuse to under-achieve."

At a nervy St Mary's this lunchtime, nothing short of victory over a struggling Southampton side will quell the first pangs of disquiet to unsettle Rafael Benitez's reign. Any sense of frustration is relative - down the road at Bellefield, Everton are rejoicing in the pursuit of a top-four finish - but expectation pursues Liverpool relentlessly. Hamann is aware of that much, though the German midfielder has, like his team-mates, greeted despondency with defiance.

The 31-year-old has experienced a myriad of emotions during his six-year spell on Merseyside, ranging from the giddy cup successes of the Gerard Houllier era to the months of bitter anti-climax that prompted the Frenchman's eventual departure last summer.

Now he is part of the regeneration under Rafa, though that promises to be as undulant a process as much that preceded it. There are similarities between this and Houllier's first campaign in charge six years ago, though Liverpool cannot contemplate a repeat seventh-place finish. Transition demands time but, with Everton seven points ahead of them, that is precisely what Liverpool lack.

"By our standards, I don't think we've picked enough points up by this stage of the season, so it won't be easy to come fourth," said Hamann. They actually boast three points more than at this stage last season, when they also sat fifth.

"Everton have got to come here to play us but, even if we beat them, we'll be four points adrift so it's hardly a gimme to secure that last Champions League place. Our inconsistencies have been down to a few factors - not just injuries, but the fact that new players have come in who have been adjusting - but we just haven't had the level we should have had, the level you need to compete right at the top.

"It's been a tough year for the club, but you can't judge the manager yet. He's still deciding which players he wants to keep and those he doesn't. He's not looking short term. He's going to be at Liverpool for four or five years. He's experienced, but look at the task he has taken on. He's come to a club absolutely desperate to bring the league back to Anfield, yet we find ourselves up against Chelsea's money, not to mention Arsenal who went 49 games without losing.

"Throw Manchester United in there as well and the Premier League is probably as tough as any league in the world to win. It's a huge task. Yet he's very confident that he can and will win things. That rubs off on you. I've been very impressed with the way he's worked with us since taking over, and I have every faith and belief that we will turn things around."

A renaissance clearly remains realistic.

Hamann watched the ignominy at Turf Moor last week with dismay. It was more the level of Liverpool's performance than the team selection that disappointed the club's fans; a side that had excelled in propelling the club to the League Cup semi-finals spluttering in the Lancashire mud. Few could argue with Benitez's post-match assertion that Liverpool simply do not possess the squad to compete effectively in four major competitions, though the FA Cup surely offered a better route to ultimate success than, for example, the Champions League. The scale of the criticism after elimination stung the first team, though it did not surprise them.

"It's black and white," said Hamann, for once not referring to his time as a Newcastle player. "The manager has selected sides like that in the Carling Cup and been praised for giving the kids a chance, but when he loses a game everyone's on his back criticising the decision. He's big enough to handle it. Remember, Burnley's a tough place to go. Even if we'd gone there with the first team, there was no guarantee that we'd have gone through. Look at the pitch. It was awful."

The manner in which the seniors had huffed and puffed to an unconvincing first-leg victory over Watford in the League Cup semi-final at Anfield a week earlier suggested as much. Faith in Benitez has been unswerving from the fans this season, sympathy prevalent given that an entire team of first-choice players has succumbed at one time or another to major injury already. Yet the Spaniard could do with the likes of Antonio Nunez, Luis Garcia and Josemi justifying his own support with improved form in the coming weeks.

In the circumstances Hamann's presence, a metronome around which Steven Gerrard can syncopate, is reassuring. The veteran's form has mirrored that of the team to date - "nothing to get excited about" - but, with Alonso sidelined until March, he has become pivotal. Negotiations are under way over a one-year extension to his contract, which expires in the summer, with Hamann intent upon remaining.

On the south coast today he will come up against one that got away. "It was a bit of a surprise to see Jamie Redknapp go to Southampton, particularly as he was captain at Tottenham when he left," added the German. "But with his dad taking over there, I suppose it made sense. You're getting a lot with a player like him because he has been at the highest level. He'll help them steady the ship.

"You need players who are calm and keep the ball, and that's exactly what he does best. He's technically very gifted and a very good passer of the ball. That's what he'll bring to them, though I don't know how he'll react to being at the other end of the table for once. But while you need people to put their foot in and work and graft, you also need players who give you something else. Something extra and different. I think that's what Jamie can give them.

"We've not done too well down at Southampton in the last few years, but we need to start winning again. Finishing fourth's a big ask, but we can still make the season a success. We're in the semi-finals of the Carling Cup, in the last 16 of the Champions League and we are still competing for that fourth place."

That struggle resumes today.