Stunned Rafa turns Liverpool's attention to title race

Published on Thursday 9 April 2009 10:05

LIVERPOOL boss Rafael Benitez admitted that his side now have a mountain to climb if they are to stay in the Champions League.

Convincingly beaten 3-1 in their quarter-final first leg by Chelsea at Anfield last night, Liverpool must now produce a miracle result at Stamford Bridge next week and score three times in 90 minutes.

The memory of Istanbul, and the four goals they scored at Manchester United this season, will sustain their stunned fans. But Benitez insists that his first priority now is to stay in the League title race by beating Blackburn on Saturday at Anfield.

He said: "I was disappointed with the manner of our defeat, and the bad mistakes we made at set pieces to allow them two goals.

"Now it will be very difficult. We have to score three times at Stamford Bridge, which is a tough call against a very good side.

"Our first priority, though, is against Blackburn in the league, then we will see what we have to do at Chelsea."

Fernando Torres put Liverpool ahead early on, but two headers from set-pieces by Branislav Ivanovic put Chelsea in control, with Didier Drogba snatching a third to make the Merseysiders' task even more difficult.

Benitez said: "We scored first but, after that, we were never in control. We conceded a bad equaliser from a set-piece. That was not because of the zonal marking but because players made mistakes to allow people space.

"For their first goal there were three players near to the scorer and they were not able to stop him. And then something very similar happened for the second, we made bad mistakes at crucial times."

Chelsea chief Guus Hiddink hailed his team, saying: "I admit it was an unexpected result, but we are very happy with the win and it was well deserved.

"We started very sloppily and we let them score far too easily. But I can only compliment my team for their recovery from that set-back. Straight afterwards we could have equalised on two occasions.

"But we reacted well, we scored with a very good set-piece and from then on the confidence flooded through our team.

"We pinpointed areas in our opponents' side where we could hurt them. The team could smell that and they took advantage. We talked about that situation again at the break and made sure we continued in the same way."

Barcelona, meanwhile, already look to be through to the last four after thumping Bayern Munich 4-0 at the Nou Camp. Lionel Messi (2), Samuel Eto'o and Thierry Henry got the goals.