As Rafael BenÍtez prepares for a defining week in his career as Liverpool manager, it comes as a surprise to discover that he has been relaxing by watching videos of people impersonating him on YouTube. Of one mimic’s repertoire, he claimed that he “could recognise José Mourinho but couldn’t recognise myself”, but, he added with a chortle, “it was funny”.

That BenÍtez can raise a laugh is encouraging at a time when he knows that others, notably Liverpool’s American owners, have been forming a less than favourable impression of him. His position at Anfield remains parlous in the long term after a series of disagreements with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr and he is well aware that his future could hinge not only on results over the next eight days - away to Reading this evening and Marseilles in the Champions League on Tuesday and at home to Manchester United a week tomorrow – but also on his long-overdue peace summit with Hicks and Gillett when they arrive on Merseyside next weekend.

The word from within Anfield is that victories in Liverpool’s past five matches have had little effect on BenÍtez’s job prospects, which are more likely to be determined by relations at boardroom level than out on the pitch. He must find harmony with the owners if he is to have any hope of staying in charge of the club next season and, to that end, he has tried this week to build up an understanding with Gillett’s son, Foster, the unofficial “go-between”, whose absence from his Merseyside office for much of last month was a significant factor in the breakdown in communications.

“Me and Foster have talked,” BenÍtez said. “We have spoken about everything, about how we know that we have a different idea than we had before, how the team is now playing well, all of those things. We know there was a misunderstanding, but now we need to wait until December 16 and talk with Tom Hicks and George Gillett.”

It is not an unfamiliar situation for the Liverpool manager, whose final season at Valencia was played out against a backdrop of political turmoil as he repeatedly clashed with the club’s sporting director, Jesus GarcÍa Pitarch. That did not stop Valencia winning the Spanish league title and the Uefa Cup, though, and the parallels have crossed BenÍtez’s mind as he enters a week that will help to shape Liverpool’s ambitions in the Barclays Premier League and in Europe.

Not that you will hear BenÍtez making any bold predictions about what his team can achieve either in the Champions League – in which they must beat Marseilles at the Stade Vélodrome to guarantee their progress to the knockout stages – or in the Premier League where they lie fourth in the table, seven points adrift of leaders Arsenal but with a match in hand. The other lesson that the Valencia experience taught him was that championship races are not always won by the team who are quickest out of the blocks or the team who win most plaudits for their style of football. Sometimes it pays to keep a low profile.

“For me, it is too soon to talk about whether we are in a fantastic position or not,” BenÍtez said. “I want to talk about that maybe at the end of the February. It is too early now. Having had this experience in Valencia, the only thing we can do in this situation is to try to keep calm and send the same messages. As I always say, the right thing is to go one step at a time. You must have confidence in your squad and your players and I am sure that if we can keep close to the top of the table, then the second half of the season will be much better for us.”

Such deliberate understatements will appeal to those impersonators on the internet, but, for BenÍtez, the most pressing need is to make a positive and lasting impression on his American employers, Hicks and Gillett – not only on the pitch but in the boardroom.