"I thought there were a lot of positives to take for us from this game. The idea was to continue improving the fitness level of the players. It was a good game with a lot of opportunities and like many times last season I could see another game when their goalkeeper was man of the match," said Benitez.
"The understanding between Daniel Pacheco and Voronin was good and both players did well. The team worked really hard which was good. We kept the ball well and passed the ball well.
"It was also good to give Ryan Babel, Dirk Kuyt and Javier Mascherano their first games. Kuyt has only just joined us for training and wanted to play tonight."