Rafael Benitez feels that his Liverpool team were totally in control of the game against Arsenal yesterday up until half-time.

But the failure to score the second goal left them in a vulnerable position in the second half, and played on the team’s confidence.

“After the first half, everybody was convinced that it was a different team and different situation and one with a winning mentality,” said Benitez.

“Maybe we need to score the second goal and have a greater advantage. Clearly in the second half you could see after the own goal, everything was different.

“We were without any confidence when passing the ball. It’s not a question of quality, it’s one of confidence.”

“It was a case of not making the most of our dominance in the first half. It’s difficult to explain when you play so well in the first half. We were on top of them. Torres had the chance, we scored the goal and had the shout for a penalty.

“Then we started the second half with an own goal, a second goal and suddenly everything has changed. When you have so many problems and you have another one it’s hard to keep confidence high.

“You could see confidence was low and we were giving ball away too much, the total opposite to the first half when we were in control.”

Now that most of the injured players have now returned to the team, perhaps the training sessions need to concentrate on the confidence factor, rather than their fitness!