Liverpool slumped to their first defeat in September in Florence against Fiorentina, placed 4th in Serie A.
With Mascherano unwell, Fabio Aurelio came in to the Liverpool midfield with Riera taking his place on the bench.
The reds took 45 minutes to get in to the game, but by then they were already 2-0 down after Jovetic scored two goals after dismal defending by Liverpool.
Their first came from a perfectly weighted through ball that beat the reds defence trying to implement some kind of offside trap before their second goal, in a late touch which sent Reina the wrong way.
Liverpool vastly improved in the second half but despite a barrage of chances, didn’t have the shooting boots that they had on during the 6-1 defeat of Hull in the Premier League at the weekend.
With Lyon winning 4-0 in Hungary, the reds slip to joint 2nd in the group with an important double header against group leaders Lyon coming up.
More important than that, Liverpool need to concentrate on this weekends clash at Stamford Bridge.
Post Match Comments
Rafael Benitez
“It’s true, we didn’t play well.
“We had too many problems and made too many mistakes.
“We had to change everything in the second-half and then it was different, it was much better.
“In the first-half they were on top of us. We knew it would be difficult, they were doing well but we were doing everything badly.
“Fiorentina have done a very good job. They were pressing around the pitch and we were too nervous, making mistakes. If you make mistakes you pay for them.”
(About Jovetic) “We knew he was good. We watched some games and at this level you know the player. Jovetic was playing in the middle and doing well.”
“We were talking about our mistakes and how to improve,” he said. “We tried to find solutions and wanted to channel things in a better way.”
Asked if he thought his side could recover in time for Sunday’s showdown at Chelsea, Benitez added: “I think so. I think it will be totally different.
“Hopefully you will see the Liverpool you saw in the second half and we will be better.”
Teams and Match Stats
Liverpool: Reina, Insua (Babel 72), Carragher, Skrtel, Johnson, Benayoun, Leiva, Aurelio (captain), Kuyt (Voronin 80), Gerrard, Torres.
Unused subs: Spearing, Cavalieri, Kyrgiakos, Riera, Plessis
Fiorentina: Frey, Gobbi, Dainelli (captain), Gamberini, Comotto, Vargas (Jorgensen 74), Zanetti, Montolivo, Marchionni (De Silvestri 89), Jovetic, Mutu (Donadel 82).
Unused subs: Avramov, Castillo, Pasqual, Kroldrup
Goals: Jovetic (28, 37)
Referee: Felix Brych (Ger)
Attendance: 33,426
Our Man of the Match
This is a struggle. No-one in a (white) shirt particularly crowned themselves in glory tonight. If I had to choose, and I really am struggling, then we would be forced to go with Torres – if only for looking like he actually cared about tonight’s result.
I wish people would stop afending lucas and start deffending him he is still a young player and a very talented player defernatly internation mateareal maybe even the next kaka who knows give him time and he will make us proud to say I AM I LIVERPOOL SUPPORTER AND I THIN!!!LUCAS IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST CENTRE MIDFIELDERS WE HAVE EVER HAD!!!
you cant just get on 1 players back it was a team perfomance and it was all horrible. Lucas seems to have 1 good game and then 1 shocker so by the laws of Lucas Chelsea should be a blinder
LUCAS WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I’m no great lover of Lucas but come on give the guy a break he was one of at least ten players who never performed on the night , I think Rafa should have a look at his team selection last night because I for one could not believe he was putting Aurelio in the centre of midfield after no pre season training and just two cameo subs apps , the defence had no protection whatsoever and this should have been changed after 20mins as it was only at the start of the second half did Gerrard drop a little deeper , we have it all to do now to qualify to the knockout stages but we have been in worse positions than this and come thru .
I completely agree, how can you criticize him when no liverpool player played well. At least he kept the ball rather than hoofing the ball upfield to Torres on every opportunity.
I agree totally its not just his fault every time we loose cus i could name most of the starting 11 who gave the ball away and there were more lackluster performances than his … Fact is when things go wrong people go for lucas strait away …
A Question to Sir Benetiz: Why don’t you play Voronin more regularly? and if you think he is below bar then why don’t you buy a better forwarder? DO YOU EXPECT TO WIN THE LEAGUE WITH 1 ATTACKING PLAYER?
I see when Torres is well marked, the whole team is down… that’s not a football team, this is a one-man team!
You can play Riera, Babel, Benayoun, Aurelio on the wings! why not playing Kuyt next to Torres then?
Barcelona won the trio because they played with 3 world class attackers, but with one attacker we’re not going to reach ANY final..
Liverpool needs to work massively on Defence and to improve the psychological attitude of the defenders.Thanks
Long live Liverpool.We are lifting tropies this season.
Lucas WHO??? Why is he doing in Liverpool shirt? I don’t understand why is this person always in the first eleven. We don’t have any player that can play better than this GUY (LUCAS) Please give the other youngster a chance. With this guy LUCAS playing againt the Chelsea mid-field ” Good Luck to us” I can’t see a win for us. Hope I’m wrong…..
I’m sorry but lucas better than stevie ? ? ? ? not even if stevie was on the bench could that happen.
if you watch the game back there were two men on both stevie and torres and because lucas was on the pitch thats a free man straight away
as everyone in the footballing world (except rafa) you dont need to mark or even tackle lucas he could f@@k up all on his own.
There was a statement put out by lucas not that long ago and he said he was ready to quit liverpool but didnt because of the backing he received from rafa !
if rafa had of just put him on the bench for this season we would have got rid as long as we paid enough to the team that would be stupid enough to take him
What is wrong with jay spearing ? even if he played as bad as lucas last night he is smart enough to improve not like the (and i phrase this very loosely, because i beleve there is another place in the world with the same name and they dont know what football is !) “BRAZILIAN” lucas that does the same mistakes every week and still gets picked the next
if he plays on sunday we are 10 against 12 because he passes more to the opposition than his own team !
SACK HIM NOW
i would have said sell but thats impossible
Ok the way i worded that was wrong, what i meant was that effort wise and interest wise it was lucas who looked more into the game than Stevie in the first 45 and im sorry but when your a world class player you should expect opposition teams to try anything to stop you and adapt accordingly so the two man thing don’t wash with me. He had the same attention in the second half and managed to loose them both as did torres.
Only after a bollocking from Rafa did he and the rest of them show up as the real liverppol and that was only for 15-20 mins of the second half after which they gave up again ….
In the end away from home you have to be switched on from the off and we wern’t , got no luck for a way back in which maybe we needed on tuesday and compounded our lack of effort with sloppy mistakes and so got what we deserve .
lucas was better than stevie last night ! at least for 45 mins cus stevie didn’t come in to it until 2-0 down and what good is that ? Torres looked like a lost puppy kept heading the ball rather than controlling it (thus loosing possession ), both yossi and kuyt gave away too much , skirtell is useless and both carra and insua looked jaded and tired.
The fact is we showed far too much respect to these lot and didn’t really get going until after half time and even then we only kept up the pressure for 15ish mins so all in all thats 15 out of 94 mins worth of effort away in europe?
Im sorry but you don’t get a reward for a half assed attempt lads, especially in europe and if you play like that on sunday you’ll get worse than a 2-0 deficit ” FACT ” .
Lucas is a complete horror,giving away possession cheaply.Rafa, please do not give us shit about Lucas.He’s good for nothing player is too obvious.