Thursday, April 03, 2008

Rafa Benitez Refuses To Label Liverpool Champions League Favourites

Rafael Benitez refused to label his side as favourites for the Champions League semi-finals following last night’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal.

Liverpool manager saw his team take the ascendancy in their quarter-final meeting by coming away from the Emirates Stadium with a 1-1 draw.

Dirk Kuyt scored the away goal that could prove crucial for Tuesday’s second leg at Anfield, shortly after Emmanuel Adebayor gave the Gunners the lead.

In their run to last season’s final, Liverpool closed out second legs at home against Barcelona and PSV Eindhoven, plus in the semi-final with Chelsea when they didn’t have an away goal to fall back on.

But even with the odds now heavily stacked in favour of Benitez leading Liverpool to a third last-four spot in his four seasons in charge, the Spaniard is remaining wary of Arsenal’s threat.

He said: “I don’t think it’s in our favour. When you play against Arsenal you know they can score in any stadium.

“Yes, we are playing at Anfield and our own supporters make a massive difference but we are playing against a very good team.

“You could see their quality tonight, they had plenty of possession so we needed to play on the counter-attack and work really hard in defence.”

But after puzzlingly leaving Adebayor free to head home Robin van Persie’s 23rd-minute corner, Benitez was delighted that it took only three minutes for Kuyt to come up with his response when he poked home Steven Gerrard’s cross.

“When you play Arsenal and concede a goal it’s really difficult if you don’t equalise soon after because they keep attacking,” he said.

“And if you make a mistake it’s 2-0. So it was really important for us to score fast.

“An away goal is always important and Anfield will be an advantage for us. We know if we can score it will be more difficult for them so it’s a good situation for us.

“A difficult situation, but better than before we scored.”

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was adamant his side should have had a penalty in the second half.

Dirk Kuyt appeared to hold back Aleksandr Hleb by tugging on his arm but Dutch referee Pieter Vink only awarded a corner after the challenge.

Benitez agreed with the decision, saying: “It’s not very clear so in England that’s no penalty. There wasn’t a lot in it.”

But Wenger said: “It was blatant and it was under the referee’s nose.

“It’s a few times this has happened and it’s difficult to accept.

“It’s not as if the referee was in a bad position, he was only five yards away from Kuyt but didn’t give a penalty.”

Overall, Arsenal had 13 shots to Liverpool’s four, leaving Wenger perplexed by his side’s inability to convert their possession into a first-leg lead.

But he did salute the contribution of Steven Gerrard, whose brilliant run led to Kuyt’s sixth goal in this season’s Champions League.

“To have the amount of possession we did and only to come away drawing 1-1 is frightening,” added Wenger.

“I can’t fault the players because we tried very, very hard and Liverpool created very little.

“But credit to Steven Gerrard for the goal.

“It was a touch of class and he pulled back a ball we found very difficult to defend.”

Liverpool go to the Emirates Stadium again to take on Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday before Tuesday’s quarter-final second leg at Anfield.

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