DERBY hero Dirk Kuyt celebrated his half-century of goals for Liverpool – and reckons Rafael Benitez’s side are showing the belief that they can claim a top-four finish.

The Anfield outfit moved back into the Champions League places for the first time since October when Kuyt’s 55th-minute header ensured a 1-0 win in the 213th Merseyside derby.

Liverpool played almost an hour with 10 men following the sending-off of Sotirios Kyrgiakos before the numbers were evened during injury time with the dismissal of Steven Pienaar.

Kuyt’s strike was his 50th for the club since arriving from Feyenoord in the summer of 2006, and his fourth in his last four games. The Holland international also netted in the 2-0 win at Everton in November and now has four goals against the Goodison outfit.

And Kuyt said: “It’s a great feeling and I’m really happy to have scored 50 goals for the club, especially in a game like this. But I don’t think it mattered who scored, just that we got the win.

“I think we showed belief when we had 10 men and that comes from the confidence we have built up over the last few games. We had to believe that we could still win the game and we did that.

“Out of the last seven matches we have taken 17 points and have kept six clean sheets, so you can see from those results that we are playing better and our confidence is up.”

The derby was the first of a triumvirate of games that will go a long way towards shaping the remainder of Liverpool’s season, with Wednesday’s trip to Arsenal followed by a clash at near rivals Manchester City.

“Now we have to keep going and make sure we are ready for the next game at Arsenal,” added Kuyt.

“We’ve had a massive win and we will enjoy the victory. But after that we must focus on the next two games which are very, very important. We have to show that we really are back to our best form.”

Referee Martin Atkinson was kept busy on Saturday as the most volatile fixture in Premier League history once again lived up to its billing.

But Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard said: “I thought the referee was superb. Fans come to games wanting to see passion and fight from players. There were some mistimed tackles out there, but we won’t be complaining about the referee.”

And Javier Mascherano admits the determined approach of both teams ensured Atkinson a difficult afternoon in charge.

“It was a very hard job for the referee because the players did not help him,” he said. “It was a hard game with a lot of tackles but this is the way it is in derby matches, they don’t want to lose and we don’t want to lose. Sometimes you can see some hard tackles because of this.

“Soto (Kyrgiakos) said to us that he went for the ball, maybe he went in the wrong way but he went for the ball.”

The red card for Kyrgiakos saw Mascherano pressed into service as a makeshift right-back.

And the Argentine said: “Last season I played right-back against Sunderland. This time, it would have been difficult for the manager to make a sub at that time so maybe he preferred to move me into right-back and I tried to do my best.

“The way that we won made it even better. To be a man down for so long and to have to play with 10 men for almost 60 minutes was really difficult but the result shows how hard we worked.

“The most important thing is that the team continued to work hard and because of this we were able to win with 10 players.

“Maybe it wasn’t our best performance but the only thing that mattered was the win.

“Now we have to keep going.”