He will return to Anfield having had his failure to use Peter Crouch earlier in this Group A match questioned.

Crouch was standing on the line waiting to come on with 10 minutes left when Brazilian Bobo broke away to score Besiktas’ second goal, having gone ahead early in the first half when Serdar Ozkan’s effort was deflected home off Sami Hyypia.

Gerrard finally gave Liverpool hope with a header with five minutes left, but despite a grandstand finish the Merseysiders could not salvage a draw from a dramatic night.

Benitez said: “We needed to make a change, but the players were doing well. Dirk Kuyt and Andriy Voronin were creating chances, I was happy with the way they were playing.

“It was just bad luck that Crouch was waiting to come on when they scored their second.

“We were attacking so much it was hard to defend against the counter-attack. In the end we had 28 attempts on goal, it was not the creating of chances that was the problem, it was putting those chances away.

“It was down as much to bad luck as anything else. Everything we did could not make up for missing so many chances.

“But if we keep playing like we did here, we will win matches because we will certainly score more next time around if we play like that.

“I still think Liverpool can progress to the next stage. We know now we need to win all three of our final games, there is no more margin for error.”

Having only drawn in Porto and lost at home to Marseille, Liverpool are now bottom of the group and not even sure that they can qualify for the UEFA Cup.

Benitez added: “We were punished for one mistake in the first-half having had so many chances. Their goalkeeper was outstanding but we should have taken more of our chances.

“Obviously it is very difficult now for us to get through but I believe we still can. There are three games left and we must win all three, but we can do that.”

Liverpool face Besiktas next at Anfield and then a home tie with Porto before their visit to group leaders Marseille for the final group match in December.

Benitez said: “We have to wait to see now what we must do, how the numbers add up. The fact that Porto drew with Marseille in the other group game tonight was a help for us, it certainly improves our options.”

The Turkish club’s coach Ertugrul Saglam, who was forced to sit in the stands due to a UEFA ban, said: “I must admit that I am surprised that they have only one point after three games. We all expected them to be top of the group, not bottom.

“It is a surprise for us to see what has happened in the group. But they also have three games left and they can win them all, they are certainly good enough.”