Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has demanded that the Reds owners look into the futures of his backroom staff.

Benitez wants Liverpool to extend the contracts of his coaching staff so that he can safely extend his own.

The Reds manager has been in negotiations with the club's owners Tom Hicks and George Gillette about a new contract since he has one-and-a-half years left in his contract.

The financial package has been agreed although the stumbling block has been his request for total control in buying players. Now Benitez wants the owners to quickly resolve the futures of his backroom staff as soon as possible.

"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 told the Guardian.

"When people, either within the club or from outside it, realise that 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?" he added.

Benitez denied, however, that he sought total control of transfer dealings during his contract negotiations. "I would like to clear one thing up: 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."