HOULLIER LOOKS FOR POSITIVES

Gerard Houllier insists there were plenty of positives to take from his side's opening day defeat to Chelsea.

The Reds may have gone down to a 2-1 defeat at the end of their first match of the season, but Houllier maintains his players showed enough to suggest much happier times lie ahead this year.

"It's a shame we lost because we did enough to earn something from the game," he said.

"Before the first goal, Chelsea hadn't had one shot. It was a good, high quality game. The tempo was better from us and we did really well to come back into it.

"I thought Harry Kewell played very well on his debut and El-Hadji brought a lot to the match when he came on.

"Had Bruno Cheyrou not been injured, I was also going to bring Anthony Le Tallec into the game. Claudio Ranieri was very complimentary about us after the match and said he thought he'd beaten a great side.

"I think we saw two very good teams play an excellent match. A draw would have been a much fairer result."