 RAFA BENITEZ today urged his Liverpool side not to blow their chance to play 'the first of many' finals under his leadership. The Anfield boss (right) knows reaching the Millennium Stadium will represent a superb achievement on his debut season at the club. If the Reds avoid defeat at Vicarage Road, Benitez will match the great Joe Fagan's record for taking Liverpool into a major final just six months after taking over. Benitez said today: "We have had three bad results recently, but I got the players together and I asked them all 'how many cup finals have you played?' Some of them said two or three, but a lot of them said 'none'. "If you ask any professional player what he wants, he will say to play in finals. "For us, this is a great opportunity. If we play to our best, we know we can win this game and against Chelsea or Manchester United. "To have a chance to go to a final in our first year here, and maybe win a cup, is very important. "But it's more important to win even more trophies in the future and that's what we believe we will do. "We should be happy we have this possibility to win our first trophy so soon." Benitez can curse the injury jinx which denies him the services of Sami Hyypia tonight, and he admits the onus is on his midfielder to raise their game to cope with Xabi Alonso's continued absence. Benitez says he doesn't think Alonso will play again this season. "I was talking for a lot of the season about how much we need a target man, and then as soon as we found one in Fernando Morientes, we lost a key central midfielder, Xabi Alonso," he said.. "Now it's up to Gerrard, Hamann and Biscan to play well. If they are at their best, we can still do very well. "Morientes will give us different options and with Kewell and Smicer coming back to fitness, I'm optimistic about the future. " Perhaps this year, because we have played some better football early on at Anfield, a lot of people have thought we will do much better things very quickly. "I'm sure if we'd beaten United or Chelsea things would look a lot better now. "If you analyse the squad, this team needs more confidence and that only comes from winning games. Now we need to improve our level and be more consistent." | 
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