The Reds will face Tottenham on Saturday.
“I think this is the best squad we’ve had during my time here, but hopefully in the next few years it can get better,” Benitez told Liverpool’s official website.
“To be contenders, you need quality, desire, passion, character – all those things together. That’s the reason you need to change players.
“Little by little we are getting there.”
“When you arrive to a new league, you have a lot of confidence and you think that maybe in a few years you can change everything,” he added.
“But then you see the Premier League is very difficult. And when you know that you need to change your squad to be contenders, then it has had to be done little by little.
“We have always been improving. Sometimes you think you can do it in a few years, but maybe we’ve needed more time because the other teams have been improving as well.”
