in the last minute of the first half, Fernando Torres' shot was parried by Vukašin Poleksić; however, Dirk Kuyt was on hand to score the opener. In the second half, Liverpool only briefly threatened to score, while the visitors never really had a sustained period of pressure. Rafa Benítez was frustrated by his team's failure to take the many chances they created throughout the match, and was relieved just to get the three points. Liverpool's next group game was away to Fiorentina. Liverpool were two goals down in the first half after Montenegrin player Stevan Jovetić scored a brace. The Reds raised their game after half time, but ultimately were not able to finish off the chances that they created. Rafa Benítez was irate after the match, vowing that Liverpool will "'never again' be as bad as they were during the first half." Fábio Aurélio, who had played under Benítez for the last nine years, at Valencia and Liverpool, said that he had never seen Benítez so angry as he was at half-time at Stadio Artemio Franchi. Liverpool suffered a second consecutive defeat, at home to Lyon. Although the home side took the lead after 41 minutes through Yossi Benayoun, they struggled to maintain the lead, and the visitors scored an equaliser on 72 minutes through Maxime Gonalons. César Delgado scored the winner for Lyon from close range in the first minute of injury time. Liverpool's next group game was away at group leaders Lyon. Although Liverpool were missing several first team players through injury, they managed to create several chances, the best of which was spurned by Andriy Voronin. Liverpool dominated the game without ever really posing a potent threat to the host's goal. Substitute Ryan Babel finally opened the scoring for Liverpool with seven minutes to go, with a "stunning" strike from long range. It looked as if Liverpool were going to hang on to the three points, and keep their hopes alive, but in the 90th minute, Liverpool failed to clear a high ball, and Lisandro López guided the ball past Pepe Reina to inflict Liverpool's worst run in 22 years. This left Liverpool relying on Lyon to defeat Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in their next group game to stay in the competition. With Rafa Benitez's men needing nothing less than three points to keep their Champions League hopes alive, they got off to the