Benitez to be given £30m for summer signing spree

Rafael Benitez's mood was as sunny as the warm spring afternoon when Liverpool arrived in the southern Netherlands yesterday, but his disposition signified more than a confidence that they will board the return flight well-placed to reach the Champions League semi-finals at the expense of PSV Eindhoven.

Benitez met Liverpool's new American owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks, at the club's Melwood training ground on Sunday. The two businessmen are understood to have promised the manager a substantial war chest to upgrade his squad over the summer. "The future is brilliant," Benitez said last night.

The sums mooted, in the £30m to £40m range, would not enable him to match Chelsea's outlay for players such as Andrei Shevchenko and Didier Drogba. However, much as Arsenal have been restricted by the cost of the Emirates Stadium, Liverpool are to spend £215m on a new home in Stanley Park. The Spaniard, who has a knack of unearthing lower-cost gems, never expected a huge kitty.

Gillett will be in the Philips Stadion tonight to see whether Benitez, fresh from an emphatic triumph over one managerial bête noire, can repeat the feat against the only coach to have outwitted him in three European campaigns with Liverpool. Since Ronald Koeman also got the better of Arsène Wenger with PSV in the previous round, this first leg is likely to be more cat and mouse than blood and thunder.

Liverpool can adapt to both styles. They drew 0-0 here in the group stages this season, the clean sheet welcomed after a 3-0 loss at Everton. Yet in Saturday's 4-1 defeat of Arsenal, they conjured an attacking intensity to match the passion cascading from the Kop. The Dutch champions, by contrast, tend to be habitually cautious, Koeman disdaining "total football" as a concept for romantics rather than realists.

A counter-attacking strategy has brought the former Netherlands sweeper quite a record against English clubs. Koeman was with Benfica last season when they qualified for the knock-out phase ahead of Manchester United and went on to eliminate Liverpool. They then beat Arsenal - achieved, if Wenger is to be believed, with just three goal attempts.

Asked about the tactical quandaries posed by a wily operator such as Koeman, Benitez looked to Steven Gerrard and his colleagues to use their imaginations as well as his instructions. "I'm sure he will know what we're going to do, but sometimes you tell the players, 'OK, this is the idea' and they do another thing.

"When I was a young coach at Real Madrid, this young player was going to take a free-kick and I said, 'You must do this to score'. He scored in the other corner. And I said, 'That is also good'. You have your ideas, but the players decide."

Talking of whom, Alex, the Brazilian defender leased from Chelsea, sits out the game because of a knee injury, the problem that also sidelines the striker Arouna Kone. Alex will be missed at both ends: the Brazilian scored the goal that finished Arsenal, but in the first leg, his aerial power was vital at the back.

His indisposition may yet tempt Benitez into retaining Peter Crouch after his hat-trick, although Liverpool put out Barcelona with Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy in tandem. While the former Valencia coach has hinted that they will resume their partnership, with Crouch starting on the bench, Bellamy's bruised ribs may force a rethink.

Benitez also suggested Javier Mascherano may keep his place as a holding midfielder. The Argentine struggled to break into West Ham United's side, but he has impressed in his three games for Liverpool.

"I said when we signed him that he was a winner and had a good mentality," Benitez said. "He has 20 caps and he's only 22. Not many players his age in England have that many, and Argentina are a fantastic team.

"He had some problems near the end against Arsenal because it's not easy when you haven't played many games. But he has been training well and I think he'll be OK until the end of the season. Not 100 per cent maybe - or perhaps he will be at the end if we reach the Champions League final. Maybe he'd be 400 per cent by then."

PSV, by their coach's admission, have been less than 100 per cent lately. On Saturday they needed a late equaliser from Jefferson Farfan, their Peruvian striker, to take a point at lowly NAC Breda. In the last home tie, Koeman experimented with three at the back. They were beaten 5-1 by Ajax, who are now only three points behind them at the Eredivisie summit.

Koeman described the Champions League as a "welcome distraction" from their domestic woes. "It will be a difficult game because Liverpool are a great team," he said. "So I'd be satisfied with 0-0, although 1-0 would be much better."

If they did repeat the home success against Arsenal, and managed an away goal, Liverpool would need to score three times at Anfield. Benitez, who believes that "complacency" is at the core of the English failures against the PSV coach, pledged not to underestimate their opponents, without adding, as he might have done, "like Arsenal did".

"Whatever their supposed problems," he cautioned, "don't be fooled into thinking PSV will not fight with everything they've got to reach the last four."

On the stadium front, the club and Liverpool City Council announced yesterday that work will begin next month on a new venue, with construction planned to start in July.