James Milner concedes Liverpool perhaps did not perform well enough to beat FC Augsburg in the Europa League on Thursday night but is confident the side can progress with an Anfield win to keep alive their dream of winning the trophy.

A goalless draw was played out in the first leg of the round of 32 at the WWK Arena, with the tie remaining evenly poised heading into the return fixture next week.

Both sides could feel slightly unfortunate not to head into the return game with an advantage as the Reds created a handful of opportunities in front of goal before Ji Dong-won hit the post for Augsburg late on.

“We had plenty of chances but it didn't go for us tonight,” Milner told Liverpoolfc.com. “We probably didn't play well enough tonight.

“0-0 is not a terrible result, we'll take it home and hopefully get the result there. The desire was there, I think you can see that. Hopefully we can improve next week.

“We just have to make sure we keep the ball moving and keep creating the chances like we did and hopefully one of them will go in.

“When we're attacking we've got to make sure that we're sound at the back and don't give away too many counter-attacks.

“It's a tough tournament to win, we've played a lot of games to get here and there's a lot more games to go, but you're in it and you want to go and win it. It's a good test for us and it would be a great thing for us to go and win.”

The vice-captain and his teammates now have a whole week to recover and prepare for two huge upcoming games.

Next Thursday sees the second leg against the Bundesliga side, which is then followed by the Capital One Cup final with Manchester City at Wembley just days after.

But before then, Milner reckons the rare respite can help the team ahead of the crucial period.

He added: “In terms of where we are now, we've got that rest and we have to use it.

“We've got two massive games next week - a chance to progress in this [the Europa League] and a chance to win a trophy which doesn't come around too often so it's important that we're ready for those two and hopefully we can get two positive results next week.”