Liverpool stand by Benitez

Rafael Benítez has been assured that his immediate future as Liverpool manager is secure after the Merseyside club were dumped out of the Champions League at the group stage last night.

Christian Purslow, the club's managing director, gave the Spaniard his full backing even though Liverpool failed to reach the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in Benítez's 5½-year reign.
 
A 1-0 win over Debrecen in Budapest was not enough to secure progress for Liverpool, who needed Fiorentina to drop points at home to Lyons to stand a chance of advancing.
 
Fiorentina came up with a 1-0 win of their own - courtesy of Juan Vargas's first-half penalty - to end Liverpool's hopes and heap more pressure on Benítez after a terrible first four months of the season, in which their chances of winning the Barclays Premier League slipped away and now their Champions League dreams have been shattered.
 
Purslow, though, insisted that Benítez retains the full support of the board and denied that being demoted from European football's most lucrative club competition to the Europa League would put a significant dent in the club's finances.
 
"This has no bearing on Rafa whatsoever," Purslow said. "He only signed a new five-year deal eight months ago and in those terms he is four months into a five-year journey. You don't deviate from long-term plans for people.
 
"We budget for a level of performance where, let's just say, as football fans is not where we would all want to be. We are prudent in what we budget. If we go into the Europa League and have three home games, we are financially equivalent on what we budgeted to achieve in the Champions League. Obviously, it feels terribly disappointing, but we could have gone into the next round of the Champions League, played one home leg, one away leg and been out.
 
"I like to think we'll be taking 40 or 50,000 to Hamburg in May [for the Europa League final], and if we get halfway to doing that, we will make more money than we would have from the next round of the Champions League. It's a missed opportunity financially, but it has no effect on budgeted performance and that's the key thing."
 
A fourth-minute goal by David Ngog gave Liverpool their first victory on Hungarian soil last night, but Benítez rued the two late goals that cost Liverpool dear in their group E matches against Lyons.
 
"If you look at the games, two late goals made a massive difference," Benítez said. "We weren't any worse in them than others, but paid for the two late goals against Lyons. It is part of football, but it's difficult to control. We made mistakes in those games in the last minute, so it's our fault in the end. I'm really disappointed because we had chances in all our games and could have won them all.
 
"We have been so good in the last few years, people think it is easy to go through in this competition. They think it has to be every year. We could have done it, but we have to be positive.
 
"I like to win every game, to be as high and far as possible in every competition, but I feel more sorry for the players, staff and fans. I'm really disappointed for everyone. It really hurts, especially in the way we are out. But we can't change it now and have to be thinking of the next competition, the next game."
 
That is the Merseyside derby against Everton in the Barclays Premier League on Sunday, and Benítez added; "We're in a very bad position and can't win the Champions League, so we will just have to do our best in our next game. A lot of teams don't even reach the Champions League."

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