Up against Cesc Fabregas, the Frenchman put in a composed display to stake his claim for a regular place in the squad.

Benitez told liverpoolfc.tv: "Today was the debut for Damien Plessis. We knew when we signed him that he was a good player. He's played really well for the reserves, and to play as well as he did today in this stadium, it shows we are going in the right direction."

The game also brought a recall for Peter Crouch, who scored the Reds goal during a man-of-the-match display.

"Crouch played really well, as did Benayoun, Lucas and Riise. A lot of players who don't normally play played well," said Benitez.

"Arsene Wenger also kept some players for the second leg. You could see some players were tired but the majority played the game with a lot of passion.

"It was an open game at the end. We knew we had to work hard and we did that for a long time. We were well organised and scored a good goal.

"We could have lost because they had chances, but we could have won because we had two or three opportunities as well.

"At the end I was a little bit disappointed because we could have won. Torres, Gerrard and Riise had some attacks."