Kenny Dalglish: Liverpool Can Regain Confidence After Display Against Real Madrid

Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish believes his former club's performance against Real Madrid will help the Reds regain a "bit of confidence" for their upcoming fixtures.

Brendan Rodgers dropped several key players for the Champions League clash and was heavily criticised for his team selection. The Premier League outfit suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of the ten-time European champions.

Prior to the Real clash, the Merseyside club suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Newcastle United. The Liverpool manager has defended his team selection and the former Reds boss Dalglish has defended the Northern Irishman's tactics in the clash against the Spanish giants.

"Look, I'm not getting carried away with what happened. I wouldn't want to make a habit of saying good things about a defeat," Dalglish told the Mirror.

"And nor am I pretending that Madrid played with anything like the verve that they showed in the match against Liverpool at Anfield. But it was still a creditable performance from Liverpool and it may just breathe a bit of confidence back into the side."

"Players who haven't had much of a chance this season were given an opportunity at the Bernabeu and they took it. I don't know what Brendan's selection will be for today's game against Chelsea at Anfield."

"But it's going to be a lot harder for him to leave out players like [Kolo] Toure than it would have been before Tuesday night."

"That's a sign itself that progress was made in Madrid. Brendan got a lot of things right with his selection. It might be time for his critics to accept they got a lot wrong."

"It was said that it was a selection policy that was unbefitting of a club of Liverpool's stature. Really? So was it unbefitting of Liverpool's stature to produce the best performance of all the English teams playing in Europe this week?"

"Was it unbefitting of Liverpool's stature to run Real Madrid close while Arsenal were blowing a three-goal lead against Anderlecht and Manchester City were losing to CSKA Moscow?"

"I found it strange that there should be so much comment about a manager making changes to a team that had not played well in a defeat to Newcastle United a few days earlier," the Anfield favourite concluded.

Liverpool host Chelsea in a Premier League clash at Anfield on Saturday. The Reds will be looking for revenge after Jose Mourinho's side defeated them 2-0 last season, which put a dent on their chances of winning the league title.