Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva is confident that the team can still advance to the last-16 of the Europa League.

The Reds suffered a 2-0 defeat away to Zenit Saint Petersburg in their first-leg clash last week, leaving their hopes of European silverware on a knife-edge.

This result followed a shock home defeat to West Brom in the Premier League, a game in which the Anfield side dominated for vast periods, but were unable to land the killer blow.

However, they bounced back from this with a 5-0 win over Swansea on Sunday, and Lucas feels that this result will help then in their tie with Zenit:

"We started the week thinking it could be a really good week for us.” He is quoted by Sky Sports.

"But we had the defeat to West Brom and then the Europa League loss but we have finished the week off in a positive way by scoring five goals and keeping a clean sheet.

"We know we still have to improve a lot but this victory will give us confidence going into Thursday to try to get through against Zenit.”

Although they were beaten in Russia, Liverpool created numerous chances during the 90 minutes, and were slightly unfortunate to concede two goals, which came in the space of three second-half minutes.

Lucas believes that if they match that level of performance this Thursday they still have a chance of booking a spot in the next round:

"With the way we played over there, we created a lot of chances, if we do that again and take them then we'll have a great chance of getting through to the next stage.

"We have to make sure we go with a positive and offensive mentality but knowing that if we concede it's going to be very hard."

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