Rafael Benitez admitted his Chelsea side were in need of a confidence boost after successive scoreless draws in the new manager’s opening two English Premier League games in charge.
Benitez’s men were held by Fulham at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, Mark Schwarzer’s clean sheet coming four days after Chelsea’s draw with champions Manchester City.
And the Spaniard admitted that marked a disappointing start to his time with the west London club, where he has been appointed as interim manager until the end of the season.
Benitez insisted there were positives from the Fulham stalemate but he added: “You cannot be satisfied when you haven’t won these games.
“City are a top side, a team with a lot of options.
“Today (against Fulham) I saw a lot of positive things, sustaining the attacks and regaining the ball very high.
“I didn’t like the two chances we gave away on the counterattack, and when we didn’t move the ball too quickly, but it’s a question of time.
“We’ve only had a few training sessions. We need more time.
“The main thing is to win games. If we do we’ll be there and we can win competitions. We need to start doing that and the confidence will come back.”
Schwarzer, playing for the first time since British newspaper The Sun dubbed him the league’s worst custodian for conceding the most goals in the competition, was steady as a rock in the game.
However, Chelsea have now gone six league games without a win and their problems in front of goal against Fulham were reflected in another frustrating performance from Fernando Torres.
The forward, who flourished under Benitez at Liverpool, had few opportunities and has now failed to score in almost 11 hours of Premier League action, a run the new Chelsea boss also put down to a lack of confidence.
“It’s a question of confidence,” Benitez explained.
“He’s not scoring goals, so it’s confidence. But it’s not easy when you’re playing against lots of defenders. You could see how they defended against him.”
Fulham manager Martin Jol believed Dimitar Berbatov was the stand-out player and that his side could easily have claimed all three points in this derby.
“I’m not disappointed to only get a draw away from home, but disappointed we didn’t make more of those chances,” Jol said.
