"The sending off was clear - I watched the replay. After this, credit to them - they had 10 men but were still pushing," said Benitez.
"We deserved to win so I'm happy - we got three points from a difficult game. It was difficult because they worked hard and were pushing.
"It's always dangerous [against relegation strugglers] because you know they will fight until the end. We talked about it before. We needed to be calm and challenge for every single ball.
"We were a little bit nervous because the pitch was terrible. The grass was long and it was very difficult to pass the ball. That means you can make mistakes when the other teams goes to press.
"But you have to accept this situation because it's part of the game, and we were better in the second half.
"We were a little bit nervous but we showed character."