Benitez hails Fowler effort

Rafael Benitez revealed that he left striker Robbie Fowler on the pitch in Turkey because he believed the veteran had the talent to salvage something from their 3-2 defeat by Galatasaray.

Fowler scored twice, the second in the final minutes, but he could not save Liverpool from a Champions League Group C defeat.

Strike partner Craig Bellamy was somewhat surprisingly withdrawn at a stage when he was threatening to haul the Merseysiders back into the match.

But Benitez claimed afterwards that he needed to use the game to try out different combinations in attack.

He said: “Craig had been doing well, but I needed to see other strikers working, which is why I put on Peter Crouch.

“And Robbie needed to play a full 90 minutes, and he did very well. He scored the sort of goals we all know he is capable of. He is a player with the finishing talent to do what he did.

“Maybe we could have saved something and Fowler is always likely to produce something from nothing.”

The gamble eventually failed, but Benitez believes Fowler will have benefited from a whole 90 minutes of action.

He said: “Fowler had not played a full senior match for a while and the full match did him a lot of good.”

But Liverpool still slumped to their first group stage defeat of the season, having already secured top spot.

They now could face the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Roma from the groups already completed, and there is also the prospect of Celtic being added to that list.

Benitez said: “We will have to wait and see now who we get, there are a lot of very good sides still in the tournament.”

The Spaniard blamed two crucial errors for Liverpool’s first European defeat of the season here in the Ataturk stadium.

Twice, after taking the lead with a Fowler goal, Liverpool made bad mistakes to gift Galatasaray the lead before the break – Xabi Alonso and Gabriel Paletta the guilty pair.

And the Liverpool boss also insisted that it was difficult for the team to be highly motivated for this final group match, having already won the group.

He said: “We paid for bad mistakes, you cannot expect to win if you make mistakes like that at this level.

“But I always felt it was going to be a difficult game for the players, they knew they were already group winners and the job had been done.

“So it was more difficult to stage a comeback in such circumstances, like you would do in a cup final.”

Liverpool had produced such a comeback 18 months ago in this stadium to recover from a 3-0 half-time deficit to finally beat AC Milan in the Champions League final on penalties.

But Liverpool could not raise themselves to such heights in a meaningless match, even if Fowler managed a headed second in the final minutes.

Liverpool left star men Steven Gerrard, Jose Reina, Steve Finnan and Sami Hyypia at home to field a side of youngsters and experienced squad men.

Benitez said: “I wanted to see my players doing well, but also to realise that there are younger team-mates who are waiting for their chance.

“I have rested some senior players because we have such a busy next couple of months with lots of games. I wanted to see what futures there are for the young players and to be able to plan for that future.”

Galatasaray coach Erik Gerets believes Liverpool, with their full team, can go a long way in this season’s competition.

He said: “It was a difficult game for Liverpool, they had already done the job they set out to do before even coming to Istanbul.

“They are a very good team, but it is difficult to judge whether they can go all the way. But with their best players they can win the tournament.

“I would certainly like to see that because I like Rafa Benitez and admire his teams. But there are some very good teams left in the tournament.”