Everyone was bad, admits Benitez

It is rare to hear Liverpool booed off on their own ground, but that is what a disappointed Anfield crowd thought of their side's efforts in losing 1-0 to a French side that included two of their former players, Djibril Cisse and Bolo Zenden.

Liverpool had followed up a very fortunate draw in Porto in their first group match with an even worse performance last night.

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez was criticised for including squad players Sebastian Leto and an out-of-sorts Mohamed Sissoko in the match as Marseilles's high tempo constantly had them on the back foot.

But Benitez was keener to point the finger at senior men, saying: "It is wrong to single out one or two players, it is the whole team who played badly, everyone was bad on the night.

"You cannot always play well, but you can certainly always try, and at least that was a positive to take from the match. But the only one.

"Marseille played well and it would probably have been an injustice had we got something from the game. Frankly we only created chances right at the end.

"We need to analyse everything, not just a couple of players who may not have played well."

Benitez offered no excuses for what he accepted was one of the poorest Liverpool performances of his Anfield management.

The result leaves Liverpool in third spot in Group A with just one point, needing now to win at Besiktas or even at Marseille to have a genuine chance of qualifying for the knock-out stages.

The Liverpool boss made some surprise team selections, with Leto and Sissoko in the starting line-up ahead of star names like John Arne Riise and Javier Mascherano.

But Benitez, who has been criticised for not using the likes of Fernando Torres or Peter Crouch regularly enough, dismissed the suggestion, saying: "You can talk about team selection, and we have been talking about big names, but those big names did not play well from the start."

He added: "It was a poor game for us, we did not play well and we did not make many chances. It was clearly not our day."

Marseille deservedly scored 13 minutes from time through the outstanding Mathieu Valbuena, and they now have a 100 per cent record of two wins from their opening two matches to top the group.

Their new coach Erik Gerets, in charge for the first time, said: "We were not expected to win this one, but we felt if we took the initiative and tried to attack, it would be a good tactic.

"We tried to get men forward and that is what brought us this victory."

Benitez now has to lift his side after a string of recent poor performances, including a fortunate draw away to Porto last month in this group.

He said: "We could not create any clear chances, maybe a few at the end, but it was just not enough.

"It could well be described as one of the worst performances I have had as manager, certainly at Anfield."

Liverpool now face a double header home and away against Besiktas, the group's bottom club.

Benitez said: "To get through in this competition you need wins, draws are nor enough.

"We now know that we must win our next match away to Besiktas, and we have to regain our confidence and think now about our next two league games with Spurs on Sunday and then at Everton.

"We must concentrate of getting three points in both of them, and then see what happens when we go to Turkey for the next Champions League game."