The doom and gloom merchants were out in force after Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Debrecen wasn’t enough to give them a chance of reaching the Champions League knockout stages, but it’s time to start looking on the positives!

David Ngog’s goal gave Liverpool their first win in 11 matches, and they are now qualified for the Europa League, which must surely be a brilliant chance to be the first winners of the new European competition.

With the massive derby against Everton coming up at the weekend, a win was important to give the team a confidence booster, especially with so many injuries to cope with.

Benitez also said it was a shame that they haven’t qualified for the knockout rounds, but he wants the team to be positive when they face Everton.

He said: “You have to be disappointed. We did our job here but we cannot change things. If you analyse the games, two late goals against Lyon were a massive difference.

“You have the first half against Fiorentina and the two late goals but that’s football and sometimes you can’t control things. We had chances in all of the games – we could have won all of them.

“We have been so good in the last few years that people think it’s easy to progress. You can see every year we’ve qualified and everyone expects us to be in the final.

“But the fans realise the team worked so hard and you can’t expect more. We made two mistakes late against Lyon but the fans have some experience in Europe.

“We have to be positive, we have a massive game on Sunday and we have to make sure we are ready.

“I like to win every game and be as high as possible in all the competitions but I think more about the players, the staff and the fans and I’m disappointed for everyone.

“To win is always the target but when you are doing as well as you can you just have to think about the next target. We cannot win the Champions League, we know that. A lot of teams don’t play in the Champions League. So we have to think about Everton and then the Europa League.

“The players know it’s been a bad run of games but to win here and to show we can create a lot of chances is positive.”

Another win on Sunday against Everton, and the return of a few players from injury, and Liverpool can put the bad run behind them and set off on a winning run again.