Scorer: Steven Gerrard 4, Fernando Torres 11, Dirk Kuyt 48, Ryan Babel 90+1

Missed penalty: Steven Gerrard 4

Halftime: 0-2; Attendance: 57,000

Liverpool coach Rafael Benitez described his team's performance as "almost perfect" after a 4-0 win at Olympique Marseille on Tuesday took them through to the last 16 of the Champions League.

"I'm proud to be the manager of this club", Benitez said. "The supporters were fantastic and the performance of the team was almost perfect.

"The players played together as a compact unit, counter-attacked well, created many chances and did not concede any goal. They showed determination going forward. Everything was really good."

The comfortable win provided the manager with a fine start to an important week. A meeting with the club's American owners comes in the wake of some barbed comments by the Spaniard last month about transfer policy.

"I was not thinking about my own situation, just about the match," said Benitez, whose team recovered from a poor start to their campaign, scoring 16 goals in their last three European outings.

"We can play against anyone, it's not a problem. We have a lot of confidence now," said Benitez, whose team host champions Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday.

Marseille coach Eric Gerets was grumpy after a dismal show from the 1993 European champions.

"We totally missed that match, which is a pity because we had looked good in the previous ones", he said. "We were in a state of shock after conceding the first goal and never recovered," he added. "For the first time, I didn't have the impression that my players gave it all they had and that's a disappointment." The Belgian coach then paid tribute to the inspiration, once again, behind Liverpool's win.

"Steven Gerrard, everybody knows that, is a fantastic player," he said.



Teams:

Olympique Marseille: 30-Steve Mandanda; 3-Taye Taiwo, 4-Julien Rodriguez, 32-Gael Givet (5-Jacques Faty 45), 24-Laurent Bonnart; 19-Lorik Cana, 7-Benoit Cheyrou (22-Samir Nasri 34), 6-Karim Ziani, 28-Mathieu Valbuena, 10-Boudewijn Zenden (9-Djibril Cisse 46); 11-Mamadou Niang.

Liverpool: 25-Pepe Reina; 17-Alvaro Arbeloa, 23-Jamie Carragher, 4-Sami Hyypia, 6-John-Arne Riise; 11-Yossi Benayoun, 8-Steven Gerrard, 20-Javier Mascherano, 7-Harry Kewell (12-Fabio Aurelio 67); 18-Dirk Kuyt (21-Lucas Leiva 86), 9-Fernando Torres (19-Ryan Babel 77).