Rafael Benítez has been assured that his immediate future as Liverpool manager is secure after the Merseyside club were dumped out of the Champions League at the group stage last night.

Christian Purslow, the club’s managing director, who was sat in Liverpool Hospitality, gave the Spaniard his full backing even though Liverpool failed to reach the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in Benítez’s 5½-year reign.

A 1-0 win over Debrecen in Budapest was not enough to secure progress for Liverpool, who needed Fiorentina to drop points at home to Lyons to stand a chance of advancing.

Fiorentina came up with a 1-0 win of their own — courtesy of Juan Vargas’s first-half penalty — to end Liverpool’s hopes and heap more pressure on Benítez after a terrible first four months of the season, in which their chances of winning the Barclays Premier League slipped away and now their Champions League dreams have been shattered.