Porto 1 Liverpool 1: Liverpool brave Pennant red card to make point in Porto

Strange game football. In May Liverpool outplayed Milan yet lost the Champions League final. Last night they embarked on a new campaign, performed poorly and took a valuable point.

While there was much to commend in the character and workrate of Liverpool's players, especially after Jermaine Pennant's dismissal reduced them to ten men with more than a third of the game remaining, there was nothing to savour in the technical aspects of their performance.

To Liverpool's credit, they knew this and admitted it. There was no hiding behind the battling nature of their draw – standards at Anfield are set higher than that.

"I think in the first half we started really badly, we gave the ball away and made many mistakes," said Rafael Benitez. "I don't know why, the warm-up was OK. In the second half we started better but with ten players it was difficult."

Dirk Kuyt, who scored Liverpool's 17th-minute equaliser after Porto had taken the lead with a seventh-minute penalty by Lucho Gonzalez, was even more outspoken.

"We are pleased with the draw because it was very difficult," said the Dutchman. "It was not good. We simply did not play, especially in the first half. We had a problem with our passing. We could not string three or four passes together. But at least we got a draw. This is going to be the toughest match in the group."

Liverpool will certainly hope the forthcoming journeys to Istanbul and Marseilles, the early Group A leaders after their victory over Besiktas last night, are easier for they are unlikely to escape again playing so badly.

Yet while Liverpool were never able to take control of the game, Pepe Reina was rarely forced to do anything out of the ordinary. "We were superior to Liverpool for 90 minutes, against ten or eleven men," said a disgruntled Porto coach, Jesualdo Ferreira. "We did all we can to win a match but it was very difficult to score a goal."

It is easy to forget Porto also have quite a pedigree in this competition but while the tie may have been between the 2004 and 2005 winners Porto still felt they needed to place a full page advertisement in the local press detailing ticket prices ranging from ¿18-75.

Maybe it worked, for there were not many bare seats at kick-off. Those Porto fans who were lured in were swiftly rewarded. Reina had already had to make a sharp reaction save from Lopez Lisandro after Steve Finnan was caught in possession when Tarik Sektioui was released inside Sami Hyypia through the inside right-channel. Reina dived at his feet but took the man, not the ball.

Reina had saved Kanu's spot-kick at Portsmouth on Saturday but, as he dived right, Lucho Gonzalez clipped the ball centrally. It was the third goal Liverpool had conceded this season, all penalties.

Liverpool were under siege, being stretched on both flanks with Porto smoothly switching play. As Jamie Carragher and Javier Mascherano manned the ramparts, the forwards sought to offer an outlet. It worked.

Jose Bosingwa was booked for bringing down Ryan Babel, then Fernando Torres drew a free-kick from Bruno Alves on the other flank. Finnan swung the kick in deep, Hyypia headed back across goal and Kuyt stole away from two defenders to head in.

Porto came again. Kuyt dropped into midfield to bolster the resistance, leaving Torres up front alone. The elusive Ricardo Quaresma was the main danger and after 25 minutes Pennant was booked for his second clumsy foul on him, Bruno Alves heading the free-kick wide.

For the most part Liverpool seemed happy to let Porto play in front of them, confident that Carragher and Hyypia would deal with any aerial threat, Gerrard and Mascherano could block passes through the middle, and the wide men would help the full-backs deal with the flanks.

This latter ploy had to be rethought when Pennant was dismissed on 57 minutes for a foul on Fucile. It was another ill-judged tackle, pointlessly so as it was at the far end of the pitch from the goal Liverpool were defending. "Jermaine will learn, maybe it will be positive for him in the future," said Benitez. Hinting at his real mood he added: "The challenge did not need to be made. It was difficult to understand."

Benitez moved Kuyt to the right flank to help Finnan deal with Quaresma. Porto, sensing three points, responded by introducing two substitutes.

In the circumstances Liverpool could have done without Reina making one of his occasional flaps at a cross on the hour. The ball fell to Quaresma but Hyypia hooked his goalbound shot clear. Quaresma next found Lisandro with one of his swerving outside-of-the-boot crosses but the Argentine headed over

Liverpool's dogged resistance came at a cost. Torres and Kuyt were booked, the former, starved of service, for dissent born of frustration after he had wasted a rare counter-attack, the latter for a foul on Quaresma.

Andrei Voronin came on for Torres, in part to introduce fresh legs, but also because Liverpool could not afford to go down to nine men. Although Mascherano was also booked late on the only red subsequently on show was the wall of red shirts against which Porto's attacks foundered.

Porto (4-3-3): Nuno; Bosingwa, Joao Paolo, Bruno Alves, Fucile; Lucho Gonzalez, Paolo Assuncao, Raul Meireles (Farias, 64); Sektioui (Mariano Gonzalez, 64), Lisandro, Quaresma. Substitutes not used: Ventura (gk), Stepanov, Cech, Bolatti, Kazmierczak.

Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Reina; Finnan, Hyypia, Carragher, Arbeloa; Gerrard, Mascherano, Pennant, Kuyt, Babel (Aurelio, 84); Torres (Voronin, 75). Substitutes not used: Itandje (gk), Agger, Benayoun, Crouch, Leiva.

Referee: L Michel (Slovakia).