Wenger had seen his side fall behind to a Steven Gerrard piledriver early on, only for Cesc Fabregas to grab a deserved equaliser with 10 minutes left to force a 1-1 draw at Anfield.

Wenger said: "We are disappointed not to have won, but I am very pleased with the attitude and performance of the team. The players are frustrated, but you have to be realistic.

"We were 1-0 down after just a few minutes against a very committed team who are good at set-pieces and counter-attack well. They have such good support at Anfield that sometimes that wins it for them.

"But we have shown fantastic quality, mental strength and togetherness, that gave us the confidence to come back and get a point."

He added: "We have come out of our first big test this season stronger. We played without the handbrake on, without any restrictions and we were faithful to the game we wanted to play.

"That is based on our technical quality and movement. Overall we handled the game very well. I cannot fault anyone, it was a fantastic game.

"I have always been very confident of what we could achieve this season, I said it before the season started and now we have convinced a few more people.

"There is a long way to go, but we have the talent to fight right at the top for the championship.

"The change from last season is that the players are growing, they are very young, the confidence is stronger as the belief.

"You could see signs last season, in the big games we did well, but we have now matured.

"We will go into the Manchester United as another big test, but after this performance we will be facing United much stronger."

Rafa Benitez, after so much criticism since the defeat in Istanbul, was happy with his side's efforts.

He said: "If you analyse our chances, we can say we lost points. But if you look at the game you know they deserved to score.

"A draw is good for both teams, but we felt at 1-0 ahead we had enough chances to have grabbed a second and that would have been crucial.