Benitez refuses to blame Dudek

Last updated : 15 December 2004 By Adam Bryant
The Polish number one, in for the injured Chris Kirkland, gifted the ball to LuaLua in the dying seconds of the game when he palmed out a misplaced cross.

"It was difficult for Jerzy," admitted Benitez. "It was an unlucky moment.

"He was expecting a cross from Matthew Taylor and it ended up like a shot, so I don't blame him for what happened.

"We had many opportunities but didn't score and, in the end, a 1-0 lead was not enough.

"If you don't have any chances you have to think of other things, but when you are creating so many chances as we are there is nothing you can say to the players. It was a pity.

"We lost two points, but we have one more point in the table. Now we have another difficult game against Newcastle and we have to recover quickly from that."