Brendan Rodgers admitted he was disheartened with his Liverpool side's penalty shoot-out loss to Besiktas on Thursday night, as he insisted the Reds should have made more in-front of goal in the first 45 minutes.

Despite travelling to Turkey with a single goal advantage and enjoying the better of the first-half, Slaven Bilic's substitute Tolgay Arslan found the top corner with a curling strike after 72 minutes to level the tie on aggregate.

But after neither side could be separated between normal time, as Demba Ba struck the bar from close range late on, or extra time meant the tie would be decided from the spot.

At the same end in the same stadium at which Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League back in 2005, the Reds could not repeat penalty heroics as they lost in a European shoot-out for the first time.

After Besiktas expertly netted all five of their penalties, to which Liverpool had responded well to four, Dejan Lovren's penalty flew over the crossbar and sent the Reds out - which the Northern Irishman admitted his disappointment at.

"We're disappointed, of course, to go out in the manner that we did," said Rodgers after the game. "We created opportunities in the first half, to make it really difficult for them.

"Over the course of the game, we defended very well and limited them to very few chances. But the one mistake we made, we got punished for, where we just got too deep and they scored.

"Up until they scored their goal, we were quite comfortable in the game. Of course, we're away from home, and the objective for us was to keep a clean sheet.

"We created chances in the first half and in the second half we were comfortable. But we were missing a lot of our creativity this evening," continued the Liverpool boss, who opted to leave Philippe Coutinho on Merseyside, whilst he also benched Adam Lallana.

"But it's no excuse. There were a lot of young players getting great experience with other players who are creative players. We played with two strikers, so it was an attacking line-up.

"And once Besiktas got the goal, we started to have more of the ball again, but we didn't create so much.

"But I didn't think Besiktas created so much either. It was always a tight game, but we just failed to finish the opportunities that we had in the first half."

The Reds still have two fronts left to fight on, with ambitions of finishing inside the top four of the Barclays Premier League well and truly alive, whilst the FA Cup still offers Rodgers the opportunity to win his first trophy as Liverpool manager.

But the Ulsterman was keen to address the fact that though the loss was a hard one to take, Rodgers' side have a lot to take away from the experience.

"A lot of our young players got great experience this evening in a fantastic atmosphere," he said. "The Besiktas supporters were outstanding, as were the Liverpool supporters.

"To come so far and give us that support, we really appreciate that. But of course we're disappointed, having put so much into the game.

"It was a good game, there wasn't a great deal in the game; the pitch was very difficult for both teams. Congratulations to Besiktas, they have gone through.

"We now just have to concentrate on our league campaign that is starting to go well for us. Our objective this season was to win a cup. It's not going to be in this competition, but we have an excellent opportunity in another competition [the FA Cup]."

The Reds were without two of their three best penalty-takers when the game reached the shoot-out, with Mario Balotelli having earlier been subbed off and Steven Gerrard at home injured.

Regardless, the Reds' first four takers - Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Emre Can and Joe Allen - all stood up to test well, guiding their efforts past Cenk Gönen. 

But Besiktas' superb efforts from the 12-yard spot saw them through, when Lovren couldn't hit the target with a decivise spot-kick - but despite criticism on social networks suggesting the Croatian wasn't the right man to take it, Rodgers maintained after the game that Lovren was a keen volunteer. 

"[Dejan] was happy [to take a penalty]," said Rodgers. "All the five penalty takers who opted to and wanted to take a penalty were all confident.

"You saw the four before Dejan were very good penalty takers, who have had experience already in the cup competition this year.

"We were happy with the penalty takers and Dejan was confident. We're obviously disappointed for him, because I felt in the game he played very well."