Substitutes Ryan Babel and Dani Pacheco combined to create Ngog’s winner, which was the Frenchman’s seventh goal of the season.

And Benitez added: “It’s always important to have good players on the bench and players with different skills, they can change the game and I am really pleased for them.

“It’s obvious they have to attack in the second leg and maybe we can have more space and play in a different way. Tonight we played with sustained attack because they were deep and trying to play on the counter-attack.

“We knew Unirea were well organised and a good team, and we knew the new manager, so we were more or less expecting how they would play.”

Unirea manager Roni Levy, taking charge of his first game after Dan Petrescu’s resignation over Christmas, had been in charge of the Maccabi Haifa side that ran Liverpool close in their Champions League qualifier in 2006.

And Levy is confident Unirea can again make life difficult for the Anfield outfit next week.

“I’m disappointed with the result,” he said. “Liverpool had the ball for most of the game, but we didn’t concentrate for one moment and conceded a goal. We could have kept a clean sheet.

“But I would have taken a 1-0 defeat before the game. I wanted my players to attack this evening and try to keep the ball, but Liverpool pushed us and were very good at pressing and were very organised. So it was difficult for us.

“We have to remember that this was our first game after two-and-a-half months’ break, so it was a big ask for the players. They aren’t in the middle of a league campaign.

“We’ll try to attack more in the second leg and with the support of our fans maybe we can pull off a surprise. Are we capable of scoring two goals in Bucharest? Let’s score one first!”