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Liverpool Boss Rafael Benitez: Champions League Exit Was Our 'Own Fault'

Rafa rues defensive lapses for early exit...

Nov 25, 2009 6:11:11 AM

CL:Rafael Benitez and Steven Gerrard, Debrecen v Liverpool(Getty Images)

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CL:Rafael Benitez and Steven Gerrard, Debrecen v Liverpool(Getty Images)

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Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez believes that the Reds can only blame themselves for their quick-fire elimination from the Champions League.

The Merseyside club needed a win against Debrecen and for Olympique Lyonnais to claim a result at Fiorentina on Tuesday, in order to have any chance of progressing to the knockout stage.

However, a Viola victory saw the Premier League giants dumped into the Europa League, despite a 1-0 win against Debrecen.

Benitez insists that the Anfield outfit can have no complaints about the chain of events that saw them bow out of the biggest club competition in Europe.

"It was our own fault in the end, the late goals we have conceded along the way have cost us," the Spaniard is quoted in The Daily Post as saying.

"We have been so good in the last few years that maybe people think it is easy to qualify in all competitions.

"Because of that, people think we can do it every season. But you cannot always, now we have a massive game on Sunday at Everton and we have to be ready for it.

"We have to be disappointed, we knew we had to win and we did that. You cannot change what happened in Florence, but at least we did our job."

The former Valencia boss attributed the exit to the two injury-time goals - one at home, one away - that Liverpool conceded against OL.

"If you analyse the other group games, losing two late goals in two games with Lyon has been the massive difference," he said.

"It has cost us four points from goals conceded in injury time.

"I am disappointed because of the way we have gone out - those two goals in the last minutes [against Lyon].

"If we had stopped just one of them we would still be in this competition fighting for a place in the next stage.

"We cannot change that now."

Adithya Ananth, Goal.com UK

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