Benitez: Players wanted to come here because of me ... I couldn’t let them down

three targets that I wanted here. I don’t want it to sound like ego, but they wanted to come here because of me and I couldn’t let them down. I cannot leave people waiting for me to do something.

“I decided to stay when we went into the Championship and I wanted to stay in the Premier League at a massive club like this to compete at the top of the table.

“Can we do it now? I don’t know. It will be more difficult because we didn’t do exactly what we wanted to do.

“When at Liverpool, I received an offer from Real Madrid and I gave my word to Liverpool and decided to stay. It was a massive offer, but I decided to stay. I was happy with my decision.

“A couple of players were asking me, ‘Will you sign a new contract?’ I said, ‘I think so,’ and they were signing their new contracts, both players, and they decided to stay because I gave them my word. “In this case, you know my family is in England and I wanted to come back to England and I decided to come to a massive club with all the potential. I stayed in the Championship, which was a massive risk for me, but I decided to stay because everything was so positive and, in the end, I was right. Everything was fine.

“Am I happy with what was going on during the summer? No, but I think we can improve and we can compete.

“We have to be realistic, and realistic means every single game for us has to be a final.’’