Liverpool left seeking fresh Champions League miracle

Lyon 1 Liverpool 1. The bald statistics for last night's clash at the Stade de Gerland will record that Liverpool could only draw, giving them the most meagre hope of qualifying from this stage of the Champions League (especially after Fiorentina hammered Debrecen 5-2 in the night's other Group E tie). But that sheds little light on a performance of great bravery and not a little skill from Rafa Benitez's makeshift side.

That Liverpool had their dreams snuffed by an injury time equaliser made it all the harder to bear, although the Spaniard was bullish after the tie. "Everyone is very disappointed but the players will know that if we work as hard as we did today then we will win many games," he told the Times. "If you analyse the goal that we conceded, we had players in position and we were thinking about controlling the game, but we couldn't. Clearly we made a mistake and we have to do better."

His captain on the night, Jamie Carragher, also sounded positive after a result which saw the visitors play with a confidence belying the parlous state of the club's playing reserves. "I think we can pull it off. We have been in difficult positions before and came through. It's going to be difficult but we are not out of it yet."

From the opening whistle, Benitez's carefully drilled 4-4-2 formation put pressure on Lyon, on whom the home advantage seemed to weigh heavily. The metaphorically patched-up Fernando Torres tried to sidefoot the ball past Hugo Lloris after 12 minutes after some sharp approach play from Emiliano Insua down the left. Dirk Kuyt then did all the hard work in fashioning a shot from the corner of the six yard box that eventually had too little power to beat the Lyon sticksman.

The greatest chance of the half fell to the hapless Andriy Voronin, who, finding himself alone chasing a long ball from Lucas Leiva, tamely shot against Lloris. The Ukrainian had another non-descript game, and is rightly held up as the sort of player that Benitez has brought in at Anfield who just isn't up to the job in hand.

Liverpool continued to apply pressure into the second period, although with about 30 minutes to go Lyon seemed to sense that the visitors were due to have a luckless night. This sentiment was reinforced when a Lucas Leiva shot was parried to Kuyt, whose overhead kick was subsequently cleared off the line.

The substitute Ryan Babel briefly put paid to that notion with seven minutes on the clock, when he hammered home an absolute rocket of a shot from 30 yards out to lift Liverpool hearts. But with the clock beginning to run down into time added on, a header into the box from Lyon's Michel Bastos eluded Sotiris Kyrgiakos and Daniel Agger, and Lisandro López finished from close range.

"Clearly it is difficult, but it's not impossible," said Benitez, rallying troops to the cause. "We have to win our next game and see what happens. We have produced miracles before and maybe we can do so again. The main thing now is to play against Debrecen, to win, and then we can think about the last game."