Heskey: We just can’t afford another slip-up
But the Anfield faithful were forced to endure plenty of errors during Wednesday's frustrating draw against the Swiss champions as a mammoth 27 shots on goal during a one-sided match culminated in just a solitary Milan Barros goal.
Julio Rossi sneaked an equaliser against the run of play and despite a string of fine chances and 16 efforts on target Liverpool could not claim their first Champions League win of the season.
However you crunch the numbers and that is what boss Gerard Houllier will be doing now Liverpool must win at least two of their final four group matches to have any chance of reaching the next stage.
England international Heskey said: "We have a hard job on our hands now to get out of this group, and obviously there's no margin for error now. We have to make sure we beat Spartak Moscow at Anfield next week.
"We're still confident because we know the football we are playing is very good. We just need to take more of our chances when they come along.
"It was a match we should have won and we are all extremely disappointed not to have done so.
"We just couldn't find an early goal even though we hit the bar a couple of times.
"When Milan scored I thought we would go on and win it quite comfortably so it was a real shock when they equalised. As time went by in the second half I must admit I did start thinking that maybe it was going to be one of those nights for us when we did everything but score another goal."
Houllier is adopting a pragmatic approach to his side's target in the remaining four group games.
The Frenchman said: ''"How many points we need depends very much on the result next week between Valencia and Basle. We will see then what we need, three wins or less," the Frenchman said.
Despite the disappointing result against Basle, Houllier added: "Our strikers did OK, they created so many chances for themselves and the rest of the side. Michael Owen was a bit unlucky, he created lots of chances for himself and others.
"We deserved to win, we hit the woodwork three times and were denied a blatant penalty late on when Danny Murphy's free-kick was handled.
"It was frustrating but I have told the players to keep their heads up and to keep going because they are doing fine."
Basle manager Christian Gross had words of comfort for Liverpool and predicted it could all go to the last game of the group when the Anfield men travel to Switzerland on November 12.
"I do not believe we are favourites to go through. We have another very tough game in Valencia next week.
"I believe Liverpool will win both their games against Moscow and then it could all be on their trip to Basle in November," said Gross.
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