Rafa Benitez wants Liverpool to start winning comfortably

He said: "I don't like to do it this way. At the end if we have won then everyone will be happy but for the fans and everyone involved with us I think it's better to score and play well in the first half and enjoy the game but I'm not disappointed now.

"It's always very difficult after an international break. We knew that Wigan were playing well and they were strong. We started with the right mentality because the warm-up was good but they started really well.

"Little by little we were improving but we conceded the goal and we needed to work harder again.

"For me, the team before the game was ok, it was ready but from the first minute we were a little surprised. They were very aggressive and very quick pressing so we needed to keep the ball but were giving it away too easily."

Benitez added: "Today for the first five minutes we were not playing well but in the City game we started really well. If you watch the video, we had two good situations in attack in the first three minutes.

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"AIn the game today at the end of the first half we were playing better but sometimes you make a mistake and everything changes."

Liverpool face their sternest test of the Premier League campaign to date next Sunday when they travel to Stamford Bridge for a top- of-the- table clash with Chelsea and Benitez acknowledges that it would be a tough ask of his side to recover from a similarly slow start against Luiz Felipe Scolari's side.

He said: "Clearly Chelsea are a team that if they score it will be difficult to score against them but we were not conceding goals easy. We were making some mistakes after 20 minutes. Today we had another experience and maybe it can help for the next game."

The build-up to Wigan's visit to Anfield was dominated by reports that visiting striker Emile Heskey, whose contract at the JJB Stadium expires at the end of the season, was being lined- up for a return transfer to Liverpool in January.

The in-form England international, now 30, admitted that such a move would be "lovely" but a back injury prevented him from impressing his former fans on this occasion and on-loan team-mate Amr Zaki instead showed the Premier League's leading managers what he is capable of with a two- goal salvo in front of the Kop.

Afterwards, Benitez was asked whether he'd enquired about the highly-rated Egyptian's situation but he replied: "We were not thinking about Wigan players especially after all the rumours in the Press. I think everyone will be checking his situation now but we're not disappointed with Torres."