HAVING spent a difficult 90 minutes in The Quarry, Liverpool must now dig themselves out of another hole if they are to keep their Europa League dream alive.

Hopes of equalling a club record 14-game unbeaten European run were dashed as Kenny Dalglish saw his schizophrenic side come up against the brick wall of Braga in Portugal.

A single-goal deficit means the outcome of this tie is by no means set in stone when the teams meet for the Anfield return next Thursday.

But Dalglish acknowledges his players must do better as the shortcomings of a squad that can lose to bottom-placed West Ham United one week then beat leaders Manchester United the next were as exposed as the open-ended Estadio Municipal.

If another conservative European display on the road was no surprise, neither was the nagging suspicion that Liverpool have been doing the minimum possible to muddle through.

Such an approach was always asking for trouble. And it arrived in the form of a lacklustre first-half effort punished by Brazilian winger Alan’s 18th-minute penalty following a needless foul by Sotirios Kyrgiakos.