Football - Liverpool FC: One Liverpool FC failure does not make a diaster – Pepe Reina

Nov 6 2009 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

Football - Liverpool FC: PEPE REINA has played down talk of an impeding “disaster” if Liverpool fail to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages.

Rafael Benitez’s side are on the brink of elimination from the competition after Lyon’s last-minute equaliser in their Group E clash on Wednesday night.

Should Fiorentina beat the French side – who have now qualified – in Italy later this month, the Anfield outfit will have been dumped out at the group phase for the first time under Benitez’s tenure.

And it is that fantastic record in the Champions League that has moved Reina to dismiss the notion of a potential catastrophe for Liverpool.

“I do not accept that not going through will be a disaster for the club,” said the goalkeeper. “We have been in the Champions League now for several years, one failure is not a disaster.

“Not many teams have reached the semi-final twice and two finals – including a title victory – in the last few seasons. It can happen again, we get closer to our real form with every game.”

Liverpool have been rocked by an injury crisis, with the likes of first-team regulars Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson and Martin Skrtel absent, while Fernando Torres and Daniel Agger were both playing through the pain barrier.

And Reina said: “Any team would miss the quality of the players who are injured at the moment, but we have others who can play and who can produce the right performances to get us out of this mess.

“Things like this can happen, football is getting closer and closer and it is tough. We need to play as well as we used to but we were unlucky against Lyon and we didn’t deserve anything except a win.”

Reina believes the performance of Benitez’s makeshift side on Wednesday deserved better than a draw, which was remarkably their first of the campaign.

“I am really disappointed because I think we played one of our best games of the season so far, but we did not get the result we wanted.

“I thought we’d done enough to win. We didn’t deserve to lose at home when we played Lyon, and we didn’t deserve to draw here, but that’s the way things are going at the moment.”