“I don’t like what happened but I am trying to find the positive side,” said the Anfield manager. “We could see from Carra and Arbeloa that we wanted a clean sheet and they were a little nervous.

“Arbeloa was going forward and then we had some problems in defence so we wanted to protect Pepe (Reina), I think we have 20 clean sheets now and van der Sar has 21 so we want another one.”

Liverpool began the game in the knowledge their championship dream was over with Manchester United having claimed the title the previous day with a goalless draw against Arsenal.

But while Benitez praised the Old Trafford outfit’s achievement, he pointedly refused an invitation to con-gratulate Sir Alex Ferguson, with whom the Spaniard has become embroiled in an increasingly bitter spat throughout the season.

“I will say congratulations to Manchester United,” said Benitez. “They are a good club, a big club. They have done well. Normally you have to be polite and respect the other manager. During the season he has said a lot of things I didn’t like, so that’s it. I say congratulations to United because they have won the league.”

Liverpool were gifted a first-half lead when Shelton Martis was easily dispossessed by Gerrard for the skipper to score his 24th goal of the campaign.

And West Brom manager Tony Mowbray said: “The overriding thought is one of disappointment because we’d been relegated. We had a lot of good attacking play but we gave them a soft goal. That mistake epitomises our year.

“We are now a better team than the one that came into the Premier League. We were growing into the division.”

West Brom had suspended striker Roman Bednar before the game after newspaper allegations the Czech Republic international was caught buying cocaine and cannabis.