Real Madrid’s president, Florentino Perez has backed manager Rafa Benitez to bring success to the club, after the club was hammered 4-0 by Barcelona in Saturday’s first leg fixture of the La Liga season.
Fans of the club had gone berserk after the 4-0 thrashing, booing some of the players and calling for the sacking of Benitez.
But in a press conference on Monday, the president expressed the board of director’s support for Benitez and accused the media of lying about dissension in the Real Madrid team.
Perez also defended the choice of Benitez for the job, saying: “He was chosen because of his professionalism, track record, experience and ability to get the very best out of this squad, whose form has been steadily declining since January. Let’s allow him to do his job and I’m sure that the wins will come”.
The club president also debunked claims that the manager lacked real power in his dressing room, “Nobody is going to suggest anything to him [regarding starting line-ups]. There have been many coaches and they’ve always had complete freedom,” Perez said.
Also, he appealed to the fans to exercise patience with the manager, stating: “I understand our fans’ disappointment with Saturday’s events, but I call on them to back the players… We had an awful game, but it wasn’t down to a poor attitude, that can never be questioned.”
Perez accused the media of trying to destabilize the team with fictitious conjectures.
“I believe that some journalists want to destabilise us.
“There are those who make a living out of lying and that means destabilising me and Real Madrid. I can’t allow it and I won’t allow it to happen in the future,” Perez stressed.