Peter Crouch sends out a warning

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Peter Crouch has warned that Liverpool's crushing 8-0 victory over Besiktas could prove meaningless if Rafael Benitez's team fail to collect maximum points from their two remaining Champions League Group A fixtures.

The England forward, who scored twice in the record-breaking victory, responded to earlier comments from Benitez that his best role may be as a substitute with an impressive all-round performance against the Turkish team.

But with Liverpool still requiring victories against Porto and Marseille in their final two games to be certain of qualifying for the knock-out stages, Crouch admits that the Besiktas mauling must not be taken out of context with far more testing obstacles ahead.

He said: "We said before the game that we had to win all our games and that is still the case. We are not getting carried away.

''It's an emphatic win, we scored a lot of goals and we can enjoy it, but there is still a long way to go and we have a lot of work to do in this group.

"It was fantastic and was a great result for us because we were under a bit of pressure in the group. We needed a result and got an emphatic one, so we're really pleased.
"It seems to happen that, when we are under pressure, we pull out our best form.

''That was the case here. We wanted to make an impact right from the beginning and we did that. From then on we made it easy for ourselves by playing good football."

Crouch's season has lurched from one disappointment to another with the former Southampton forward forced to survive on a diet of substitute appearances and just a handful of competitive starts. However, he believes his performance against Besiktas has answered the question marks placed over him by Benitez. "When I'm given a chance I have to take it and hopefully I've done that," he said. ''I was very pleased to get the first goal because it got us up and running.

"Once we scored it settled us down and we played some good football. Really it could have been more than that in the end. It's not many times you score eight goals in the Champions League and it was good to be part of it.

"We are our worst critics. We haven't been as good as we would have liked but hopefully we have put that to bed now."

Having progressed from their group with a dramatic Anfield victory in their final group game against Olympiakos in 2004-05, Liverpool went on to claim a remarkable Champions League triumph in the final in Istanbul.

Their manager believes that his team's European pedigree will ensure they emerge from their current difficulties to claim a place in the last 16.

"Everybody can now believe we can beat Porto and then Marseille," Benitez said. ''We have re-affirmed our strength in Europe, we can be there and qualify because we have done things like this before."