LIVERPOOL: Luis Suarez’s late goal sent Liverpool into the Europa League group stage as the Reds drew 1-1 with Hearts at Anfield on Thursday to clinch a 2-1 aggregate success.
Brendan Rodgers’ team had a 1-0 advantage from last week’s first leg at Tynecastle and despite dominating for long periods at Anfield, they only just scraped past the Scottish Premier League outfit.
David Templeton looked set to make Liverpool pay for their wastefulness when his weak shot was allowed into the net by Pepe Reina with five minutes left.
But three minutes later Suarez burst away down the left and managed to find the net from close-range to secure Liverpool’s place in the group stages of Europe’s second tier competition.
It was an unnecessarily nervous end to the evening for a Liverpool side that had plenty of chances to see off the Edinburgh club.
“We knew it was going to be tough,” Liverpool’s Stewart Downing said on ESPN. “We made more hard work of it than we should have done. We were a little bit wasteful in front of goal.
“However, the manager stressed to the team ‘don’t go down under pressure’, and I think we bounced back well.
“We created lots of chances we didn’t finish though and we have to be more clinical in front of goal. That was a lesson for us.”
In total 30 teams booked their tickets into the competition proper. This group join seven teams automatically qualified and 10 refugees from the Champion League play-offs. Rodgers, who has allowed Andy Carroll to join West Ham on a season-long loan, can also be forgiven for having half an eye on the 24 hours ahead.
The Liverpool manager could see Charlie Adam and Jay Spearing leave and is be keen to add new faces ahead of Friday’s 2200GMT deadline. — AFP