Rafa waits on injured trio

He is facing the prospect of Fernando Torres (abductor), Xabi Alonso (metatarsal) and Javier Mascherano (foot) being out for weeks after suffering bad injuries against the Gunners on Sunday.

Benitez said: "We had problems when we lost Torres and then Alonso. We could not control the midfield then, we also had Mascherano with a foot injury and had lost (Mohamed) Sissoko beforehand with sickness. We will need to check them all before we have any idea how long they will be without.""

He added: "In the end there were too many problems against a really good team.

"Alonso has suffered the same injury again, the metatarsal, he felt something go in his foot. Torres also has a similar injury, a problem with an abductor muscle.

"Maybe he is not as bad as before. But he could not work as hard as we wanted, we wanted his pace and it was not available.

"He just was not fit. We talked beforehand and he said he was fine. Now we must wait again, he had been out for some time and we have been pushing to get him back, but he has not been right and he still is not right.

Benitez praised Steven Gerrard's contribution and goal after a difficult week for his captain.

He said: "Stevie has been playing better and this was a very good performance. We had a plan to use the strikers wide and for Stevie to attack through the middle with two holding players behind.

"But when we started losing players through injury, it just became too difficult to get forward."