RAF 'N READY ... Rafa Benitez vents his fury
on the touchline in Florence
Liverpool fell to two first-half goals from Fiorentina
wonderkid Stevan Jovetic, 19 - and were lucky not to lose by a
hatful. Manager Benitez said: "Never have I seen us struggle so
badly as in the first half - it was a poor performance.
"They were on top of us all the time and we didn't do
things like we talked about before the start. We were very
bad.
"Fiorentina did a very good job on us, they pressed us
all around the pitch and they pressed us into making
mistakes.
"If you make mistakes then you pay for them, which is
exactly what we did. "We had to change everything and the second
half was much better - but it was too late by then."
Jovetic made the most of some awful defending to throw
Group E wide open. He beat the offside trap to slot past Pepe Reina
and then reacted quicker than Martin Skrtel to prod Juan Vargas'
cross-shot home.
Boss Benitez added: "We knew that Jovetic was a very
good player and we expected him to be busy but we gave him too much
of an opportunity."
Benitez called on his troops to show their true colours
in Sunday's trip to Stamford Bridge. He added: "You will see a
totally different Liverpool at Chelsea in the league."
How Liverpool rated
Reina 6
Johnson 5
Carragher 6
Skrtel 5
Insua 5 (Babel 5)
Gerrard 6
Lucas 5
Benayoun 4
Kuyt 6 (Voronin 5)
Aurelio 4
Torres 6
Subs not used: Cavalieri, Riera,
Kyrgiakos, Spearing, Plessis.
STAR MAN - STEVAN JOVETIC
(Fiorentina)
