Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, has reflected on his team’s disappointing home draw against Birmingham City by claiming that their display lacked little apart from a touch of good fortune.
Liverpool have now won only once in their past nine matches, leaving them seventh in the Barclays Premier League, 11 points behind Chelsea, the leaders, and on the verge of elimination from the Champions League, with pressure being heaped on their manager.
Although frustrated to take only a point from a match they dominated, Benítez insisted there was a great deal to be admired in Liverpool’s performance in a game in which they enjoyed 78 per cent of possession.
“We have to be disappointed because it’s a draw at home, but the performance of the team was again pretty good for me,” Benítez said. “We had plenty of possession and a lot of attempts.
“In the last 15 minutes, I think everyone in the stadium thought we’d score the third goal. Sometimes it’s a matter of accuracy, sometimes it’s a matter of luck.
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“You couldn’t see a team that thought they were playing badly. We had plenty of possession and a lot of chances. For us we are just talking about one game at a time. I won’t talk about the table. The reaction of the players was fantastic, we all thought we could win.”
Liverpool had led through a David Ngog volley only to find themselves trailing at half-time after Christian Benítez and Cameron Jerome struck for Birmingham, a situation that Rafael Benitez claimed was “unbelievable” given his team’s dominance.
“We had a lot of chances in the first half,” Benítez said. “It was unbelievable to see us losing 2-1 at half-time after playing in that way.
“We scored a great goal and we had two or three clear chances. At half-time, we just wanted to send the same messages: keep playing well.”
Before the match, Benítez had claimed the injury situation at Anfield was the worst he had encountered. His problems worsened during the game, with Albert Riera and Yossi Benayoun limping off having suffered hamstring tears, while Daniel Agger’s back problem flared once again.
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Fernando Torres, the striker, had been unable to feature because of concerns about his groin injury.
“Riera has the same problem as he had before,” Benítez said. “Sometimes the players say they are available but not 100 per cent, and we thought Riera was OK but he wasn’t.
“Yossi was the same. He has been playing too many games in a row. I think both have torn their hamstrings. Agger has a problem with his back. It’s not serious, but he felt it. We have two or three things.
“Torres had no confidence in his injury and we started the treatment on his injury yesterday. He still has to work with the physios. We are not talking about an operation, we are just wanting to treat him properly.”