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Benitez makes Champions League vow Rafael Benitez has vowed to take Liverpool back into the Champions League as they prepare for the embarrassment of a dead rubber against Fiorentina.

Liverpool are already out of this season's competition having failed to finish in the top two in Group E, a humiliating experience for the five-time European Cup winners.

That will truly hit home at Anfield against an impressive Italian side who beat the Reds 2-0 in September at the start of a terrible run for Benitez and his side.

Liverpool had won six on the trot ahead of the match in Florence, but have managed just two wins in 13 since.

Benitez will finally give #20million midfielder Alberto Aquilani his full debut, four months after he arrived at the club, but that could well be the only thing to brighten the night for the Liverpool fans.

Benitez knows that the only way to get back into next season's Champions League is to finish in the top four of the Barclays Premier League, on current form not an easy task.

But he said: "I am convinced we will have Champions League football back here next season.

"We have a good team, a good squad and we can win games in a row now. We have not lost in six and kept three consecutive clean sheets, that is positive and an improvement on what was happening a few weeks ago.

"We know what it means to play in the Champions League. The players certainly understand.

"We have the right experience and I am confident we will finish in the top four, at least, so we must concentrate on our league games to achieve that." Benitez may rest Jose Reina, Dirk Kuyt and Yossi Benayoun and added: "Some players will get the chance of a game to impress, people like Aquilani who will start the match. There could be others who have not played yet in the first team.

"Alberto understands. When a player has been out for a long time you must keep building his fitness. We have tried to play him in reserve games but they have been cancelled because of the weather.

"He has trained well now for a few weeks, but it is not the same as matches and we have had to be careful with him because of the ankle operation he had. He has waited for his chance and now it has arrived." Striker Fernando Torres will also return to the squad but will start on the bench after his lengthy recovery from a groin problem.

Benitez said: "Fernando will not start the match, he has not been involved for a few weeks so it would be a risk to put him straight into the side. He will play some minutes, I am not sure yet how many, then he may be involved against Arsenal on Sunday." Fiorentina boss Cesare Prandelli has urged his team not to take their foot off the gas.

The Serie A side lead the pool on 12 points and have already secured their place in the knockout phase and arrived on Merseyside needing only to equal or better Lyon's result against Debrecen to be sure of winning the group.

Fiorentina have even taken the opportunity of turning the trip into a mini-holiday for the club, with players and staff having brought their wives and families to England for the occasion.

But Prandelli, 52, does not see this match as a reason for triumphalism.

He said: "We are top and we have qualified. But that is not enough.

"We still have the appetite for more success, we want to clinch top spot to give us a better chance in the draw for the last 16.

"Needing to finish top is an extra pressure for us, but it is good pressure to have.

"This is a historic moment for our club, but we still want to play well.

"We have a lot of injury problems so I do not know my side yet. I know that for Liverpool the group is over, and maybe they will field some reserves because they have a special game on Sunday against Arsenal.

Liverpool vs Fiorentina

Last modified 17:20 11/12/09

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Miserable. Horrible. Depressing. Three words that describe this match and serve perfectly to sum up Liverpool's Champions' League campaign.

And here's another word: Predictable. Which is possibly the most damning indictment of their season so far, given that it threatens to implode under the weight of their own inadequacies. Three wins in their last 14 matches is nothing less than relegation form.

Manager Rafa Benitez has pleaded for consistency from his side, and he has got it, but only in the sense that they are all too predictable in the manner in which they so confidently again took a first half lead in Europe, and then so nervously set about defending it.

Again, a strong position was thrown away as their Italian opponents were invited too easily back into the game, again they eventually surrendered the initiative and with it the result with a terrible mistake in the final seconds of the tie. Three times now in Group E have Liverpool conceded in injury time, and that is why they are condemned to the backwaters of the Europa League.

Benitez cut a disconsolate figure as he attempted once again to stress the positives afterwards, attempted to explain away the poor defending that allowed Alberto Gilardino to snatch that late winner, in the third minute of stoppage time, that allows a fairly ordinary Fiorentina side to top the group that the English club have been dumped out of.

The Anfield boss has every right to feel frustrated and deflated after another defeat, especially given that he sent out a surprisingly strong side for a game that actually meant very little. Frustrated, because until that final minute there WERE reasons to believe it could have been a turning point for Liverpool's season.

It may seem inappropriate to talk about positives when the atmosphere on the night was more from the song by Manchester miserablists Joy Division, than the one by Russ Abbott, but until youngster Stephen Darby made the mistake the gifted the Italians their win, there were just a few green shoots showing through.

For a start, Fernando Torres made his long awaited return, after a month on the treatment table, and within seconds did enough to make us believe that with him in the side Liverpool will be a very different proposition.

For a man who has not played since the beginning of November, the Spanish striker looked sharp, and more importantly, hungry, as a second half substitute, and that is precisely what his side have so badly lacked this season.

Steven Gerrard, too, seemed far closer to the world class player we know him to be, his fitness and form returning visibly as the game progressed. And just to complete a holy trinity that justified the faith of the Anfield worshipers, Alberto Aquilani also looked assured and confident on his full debut.

With those three big-name, big-money players in the side and playing well, you have to believe that Liverpool will surely soon return to winning ways, because they are not a trio to be contained easily.

And yet, and yet. Again, just as hope began to inflate, Liverpool punctured it just as swiftly. Just as the Kop found their voice, they were stunned into silence.

Yossi Benayoun had given Liverpool a lead just before the break, but soon after, the home defence was caught day-dreaming, as Alberto Gilardino slipped a ball to the left edge of the box for Martin Jorgensen to run clear and fire into the far corner of the net.

And with almost the regularity of the town hall clock, with the home side defending far too deep in the last throes of the game, they again conceded a last minute goal in Europe, in the third minute of injury time in fact, as Darby in only his third appearance made a bad mistake to be robbed by Juan Vargas, who crossed for Gilardino to roll into the gaping net.

Before that broken record of an ending, Liverpool had looked promising. They took the lead on the stroke of half time when Steven Gerrard offered the perfect free kick delivery from the right flank, to allow the otherwise quiet Benayoun to sneak clear at the near post, and glance a delicate, precise header across the face of goal and into the net.

Importantly too, Aquilani had hinted at real promise in his neat, calm skills. he has the look of Jamie Redknapp about him with his high-stepping, straight-backed running style, and like Redknapp, he seems able to thread delicate, intelligent passes through the opposing midfield to create space, which may just be a powerful future weapon.

Given the struggles that Liverpool are enduring at present though, it may be some time before Benitez feels his team can offer the conditions in which to accommodate his £20million summer signing...and that is perhaps the most damning comment of all on their current form.

Liverpool: Cavalieri 7; Darby 6, Skrtel 6, Agger 6, Insua 6; Mascherano 7, Aquiliani 6; Benayoun 6, Gerrard 7, Dossena 6; Kuyt 6 (Torres 65, 6).

Fiorentina: Frey 6; Comotto 6, Natali 6, Kroldrup 6, Pasqual 5; Montolivo 7, Donadel 6; De Silvestri 5, Santana 7, Jorgensen 6; Gilardino 7.

Referee: Damir Skomina 6 (Slovenia).

Hero: Steven Gerrard showed his amazing talent in offering inch perfect delivery, to suggest that England would hardly miss David Beckham's dead-ball skills.

Villain: Fiorentina keeper Sebastian Frey has a big reputation, but he should have done better with Yossi Benayoun's opener.

Match fact: Fiorentina are one of only five clubs to have lost in the final of all three major European competitions - joining Arsenal, Leeds, Barcelona and Hamburg.