Benitez's cagey ripostes hint at boardroom rift

A bizarre press conference delivered by Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez yesterday underlined the growing rancour between him and his club's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Benitez refused to say virtually anything but instead uttered the mantra "I am focused on training and coaching my team," 15 times during a briefing to newspaper journalists and a further 10 times before TV cameras. This seemed to be an ironic riposte to Hicks and Gillett who are believed to have told him – possibly via the club's chief executive Rick Parry – that he should stop making public utterances about spending money in the transfer window and focus on the players at his disposal.

It became clear that Benitez's behaviour was a veiled strike at the Americans when they issued a statement of their own via the club's website a few hours later. In their statement, Hicks and Gillett seemed deliberately to reiterate the points they had made to Benitez and indicated they would not discuss transfers until their meeting with him after Liverpool's match with Manchester United on 16 December. "We made a significant investment in the playing squad during the summer and desperately want this team to succeed," said the Americans

"There are some very important games coming up in the next couple of weeks and all of us need to focus on winning those games and getting the best out of the players we already have."

Benitez is desperate to bolster his squad in January, particularly by laying out the £17m needed to secure the continued services of midfielder Javier Mascherano, after an unconvincing start to the season in which his side have fallen six points adrift of league leaders Arsenal and sit on the brink of Champions League elimination.

After arriving 25 minutes late for the briefing, which is utterly out of character, Benitez bizarrely suggested he could one day take over as England manager – not a serious proposition but one on which he was unwilling to elaborate later.

Was there anything upsetting him? "As always I am focused on training and coaching my team." Was he serious about the England job? "You never know what will happen in the future. It can happen if I can improve my English," he said.