Benitez hails Liverpool character

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is confident his side can turn around their Europa League tie against Benfica after watching a battling performance in the controversial 2-1 first leg defeat in Lisbon.

Defender Daniel Agger had put the visitors ahead by converting Steven Gerrard’s ninth-minute free-kick with a clever backheel.

However, Ryan Babel was sent off on the half-hour for pushing a hand in Luisao’s face and in the second half two controversial penalty awards allowed Oscar Cardozo to score twice having earlier missed a host of chances.

“Our play for 60 minutes with 10 players was good and we are disappointed because we had chances,” he said.

“It means we are a good team because we had chances.

“They (Benfica) were trying to push very hard and we were defending well.

“We showed we can be strong, we can create and we can score goals.

“The team was working very hard and with the fans behind us we can progress in the competition.

“Hopefully we will not need to push too hard (in the second leg), just push and play well and score goals.”

Benitez said he was disappointed with Babel for his response but felt Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson should have been stronger when he only gave Luisao a yellow card.

“I was surprised because a foul from behind is more serious,” he said.

“I would like to analyse the foul before. It is a big difference when you kick a player from behind to a player touching another in the mouth.

“It is difficult to understand and impossible to change but we have to move forward and think about Anfield.”

Midfielder Lucas Leiva said the players were upset by Eriksson’s performance but were determined to put things right in the second leg.

“We are really disappointed. We started the game really well, scored an early goal. We created some chances even with 10 men,” he said.

“Now we have to keep going and try to go through in Anfield. The away goal always is important, we knew that.

“We’ll try to score one goal at Anfield and go to the semi-finals.

“We worked really hard. It’s always difficult to play with one less player but I think we showed character and quality.”

The Brazil international added: “To be honest, we don’t want to talk about the referee.

“For both penalties, the linesman told the referee it was a penalty. We can’t argue now. The game is gone.

“I think everyone saw the game and you can analyse better than us.

“We’ll just keep going now. We have an important game in the Premier League and then we’ll try to go through to the semi-finals.”