Liverpool players rally round dumbstruck John Arne Riise

The Liverpool left-back's own goal - a thumping diving header past Pepe Reina in the fifth minute of injury-time - gifted Chelsea a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the semi-final on Tuesday.

Riise had only come on as a substitute after Fabio Aurelio suffered an adductor injury that is likely to keep him out of next Wednesday's second leg at Stamford Bridge.

Riise's brother Bjorn Helge has revealed the pain the Liverpool players is feeling.

"I tried getting in contact with John Arne after the game," he said. "Eventually he sent me back a text message saying, 'I don't want to speak. I'm so disappointed. Give me a call back in a couple of days and we'll speak then.'" Riise himself only said afterwards: "What can I say? I'm just so disappointed."

Liverpool's players are refusing to blame their team-mate for his blunder.

"What could John say to me?" said Reina.

"Of course it was a bad way to concede, but he was just trying to clear the ball. It was an accident. Going into the last minute it was going to be a great result for us, but we have to help him now and he knows that. I just said to him 'carry on, that's football.' How many times has he cleared things and played fantastic for us? We have to support him."

Centre-half Jamie Carragher said: "It was just bad luck. We've all been there, all done something like that. There's no blame attached to John. It's a team game, we are all in it together."

For Liverpool to reach the final they must do something they have not achieved in their last eight games at Stamford Bridge - score. Dirk Kuyt, however, is convinced his team can do just that.

The Dutchman, who gave Liverpool the lead at Anfield, said: "People talk about us not having scored there for so many years, but you can also look at it in a more positive way. We have scored in every away game so far this season in the Champions League.

"We have scored at places like the San Siro and The Emirates so we know that we can score goals away from home."