Rafael Benítez admitted last night that Liverpool will need a footballing miracle if they are to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League.

After a 1-1 draw away to Lyons, their hopes of making it into the last 16 are out of their hands. Liverpool need to take maximum points from their two remaining group games — away to Debrecen and at home to Fiorentina — to stand any chance and will be out if Fiorentina beat Lyons on November 24, a result that would cost the Merseyside club at least £10 million.

Liverpool took the lead through a magnificent strike from Ryan Babel seven minutes from time. However, as they had done in a 2-1 win at Anfield two weeks ago, Lyons struck a decisive late blow with a 90th-minute goal from Lisandro López to seal their qualification.

One bookmaker responded by lengthening the odds against Liverpool winning the competition from 20-1 to 50-1.

Benítez, who has come under mounting pressure during a run in which they have won once in eight matches, refused to throw in the towel while it is mathematically possible to go through.

“Clearly it is difficult, but it’s not impossible,” Benítez said. “We have to win our next game and see what happens. We have produced miracles before and maybe we can do so again.

“The main thing now is to play against Debrecen, to win, and then we can think about the last game.”

Claude Puel, the Lyons coach, insisted that his side would not take it easy in their remaining fixtures. “You don’t have to worry, we will play fair because we want first place in the group and we will be going there [to Florence] to try and get some points and then Liverpool would have their fate in their own hands,” Puel said.

For Benítez, the only thoughts were of what might have been. “I am really disappointed because it was a great opportunity for us,” he said.

“We had some chances and yet again a late goal against Lyons has made a massive difference. In football sometimes you need luck and clearly we didn’t have luck at the end of the game.

“But you could hear our fans supporting us at the end and they know that our performance was improved. We had our chances and we were working very hard together.

“Everyone is very disappointed but the players will know that if we work as hard as we did today then we will win many games. If you analyse the goal that we conceded, we had players in position and we were thinking about controlling the game, but we couldn’t. Clearly we made a mistake and we have to do better.”

Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool defender, said: “I think we can pull it off. We have been in difficult positions before and came through. It’s going to be difficult but we are not out of it yet.”

There are no such dramas for Arsenal, an easy 4-1 victory over Alkmaar at the Emirates Stadium taking them to the brink of the last 16 for the tenth successive season.

Arsenal led 2-0 at half-time with goals from Cesc Fàbregas and Samir Nasri. Fàbregas and Abou Diaby doubled the advantage before the Dutch side replied near the end. A point at home to Standard Liège on November 24 will secure safe passage for Arsène Wenger’s team.