Brendan Rodgers called upon his team’s performance level to improve as Liverpool crashed out of the Champions League with a 1-1 draw at home to Basel on Wednesday night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH0-yW8fE0Q
Video by YouTube user ‘MrBeanyman’
On a weak night for Liverpool in a match they had to win to secure qualification from the group stages of the competition, Swiss champions Basel took the lead with a Fabian Frei strike after 25 minutes.
Steven Gerrard‘s excellent free-kick equaliser twelve minutes from time was too little too late for the Reds, who will drop into the Europa League for the rest of the season.
“We hadn’t been in it [Champions League] for a long time — it’s been five years since we’d been here so the players deserved the opportunity to be in here,” Rodgers told ITV Sport after the game.
“We now have to fight going forward to be in it next season and obviously our performance level needs to improve.”
“But we’re not too far off the top four then we’ll have a chance of being in it and we’ll be better next season.”
Liverpool now head to Old Trafford to visit Manchester United in the Premier League this Sunday, 14th December at 1.30pm.
