Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez, has said he is satisfied regardless of Liverpool’s win in their opening Champions League match against Debrecen. Liverpool won the match 1-0 but failed to cash in on the ample chances that they had through out the entire match.

On another night captain, Steven Gerrard, could have scored a hat trick but the manager says that as far as he is concerned, it is three points and a win is a win. Liverpool fans were audibly annoyed by the display, as the side struggled at times to make the most of their advantage.

Dirk Kuyt got the only goal of the game and even that was off a rebound after Fernando Torres had sent a tame shot in at the keeper. For Liverpool to stand a chance of competing against the bigger sides in the Champions League this season then they will have to drastically improve and improve quickly.

Benitez said: “This was always a dangerous game because before people were talking about us maybe scoring eight goals or something like this. But we knew that in Europe it is not easy, especially at this level.. They have won their league four times in the last five seasons because they have some quality so it was important just to get three points.”

“Today it was important just to win and now we can approach the next game with more confidence. We are winning games in a row now so hopefully confidence in the dressing room will be higher. You have to take your chances and then this type of game would be easy..”

“You have to give credit to them. They were well organised and they were working very hard, pressing every single ball. But they also made some mistakes in defence and we didn’t score – that was the difference for me. We had to be careful, especially at the end. We were expected to score a lot of goals and we had the chances but couldn’t score.”

Liverpool and the rest of the English sides all won their matches but were all unconvincing. It seems that Real Madrid were the only team to absolutely romp to a win as they scored five times in their opening match against FC Zurich.

Attention will now switch back to the Premier League but it looks like it will be an interesting campaign in Europe this year for Benitez’s men, one that they could just as easily do well in as fail in.