Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez celebrated a superb team performance as his side booked a quarter-final place with a 3-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in Germany for a 6-2 aggregate win.

And Benitez said: "It was a good first half and after Luis Garcia scored we played comfortably. We made it very difficult for them and at the end we saved some players with yellow cards like (Dietmar) Hamann and Carra (Jamie Carragher). It was a good game for us. We have done a good job as a team and worked hard together. We stayed very compact and made it difficult for them to score."

Captain Steven Gerrard insisted Liverpool fully deserved to win after revealing they had executed their game plan perfectly. "We knew we could punish them on the counter. That is what we planned to do - we had seen the videos," said Gerrard. "We played well, the best we played for a while. That was the game plan - we never came here for a draw or a 1-0 defeat. We came to win the match and credit to the players - they deserved the win."

While Liverpool have been stuttering in the Premiership, Gerrard believes their form in the Champions League could be beneficial and spur them on. He said: "We have got 10 games left in the league and a quarter-final so there is still a bit to play for so hopefully we can give the fans something to shout about."

Garcia insisted it had been vital for Liverpool to bounce back after their 1-0 defeat to Newcastle at the weekend.

"It's very important for us, in our last game we didn't play well. But we played well in the first half and now we have to wait (for the quarter-final draw on March 18th)," he said. "We knew they would press a lot in the first half but we didn't want to hold back. We knew going forward would be important for us."