The Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow insisted last night that Rafael Benitez’s immediate future was safe, despite the club’s elimination from the Champions League at the group stage for the first time in the Spaniard’s five-year Anfield tenure.

Lyons’ defeat by Fiorentina condemned Liverpool to the Europa League, despite their own 1-0 win over Debrecen here. But Purslow said it had “no bearing whatsoever” on the Spaniard’s position. “Rafa signed a new five-year deal four months ago and is four months into a five-year journey,” he said. “You don’t deviate from long-term plans because of two late goals against Lyons.”

Benitez said that Liverpool’s exit was down to Lyons’ two late equalisers at Anfield and Stade Gerland rather than underlying weaknesses. “At least we did our job and won today,” he said. “If you analyse the games [against Lyons] – two late goals made a massive difference. We were not worse than the other teams in the games. Yes, we made mistakes in these games in the last minutes – our fault in the end. We’re really disappointed because we had chances in the games and we could have won all of them.