Luiz Felipe Scolari insisted that he would not abandon his attacking principles after Chelsea suffered a shock 3-1 defeat away to Roma last night. The Chelsea manager blamed his players’ uncharacteristic errors for the club’s heaviest defeat since a 3-0 Premier League loss away to Middlesbrough 2½ years ago, which leaves their hopes of qualifying for the first knockout round in some peril.

A rare night of English disappointment in the Champions League of late was averted when Steven Gerrard converted a last-minute penalty to earn Liverpool a 1-1 draw against Atlético Madrid at Anfield.

Chelsea still lead group A, but need four points from their remaining fixtures against Bordeaux and CFR Cluj to guarantee qualification, a task that will be made more difficult by the absence of Deco from their next European match in the southwest of France in three weeks’ time.

The Portugal midfield player was sent off for two bookings, the second for the innocuous offence of attempting to take a quick free kick, and he will be suspended when Chelsea travel to Bordeaux. A second-half brace from Mirko Vucinic sealed Roma’s victory after Christian Panucci’s opener, leaving John Terry’s late goal as nothing but a consolation. “I think if one player for Roma made this situation he wouldn’t have received a red card,” Scolari said of Deco’s dismissal.

“But we didn’t play well. We made mistakes in critical times and gave Roma their two best chances. They scored the first two goals and killed the game. We gave great players good chances and they killed us. But I’m not going to change everything about what I think after one game. Today we lost the ball and gave them chances to score. In other games we haven’t made those mistakes. We are usually defensive when we lose the ball.”

Scolari is still confident that Chelsea will qualify, although he conceded that he has areas of concern after watching his side let in three goals in the space of 24 minutes.

“We’ll miss Deco against Bordeaux for sure, but maybe I have the players that didn’t play today,” he said. “Michael Ballack and others who are injured could come back in. I have good quality in our midfield.

“When we make this many mistakes as we did tonight, you need to think about the next game and work out why it happened. Maybe in the future we’ll need to be more relaxed.

“For the group it’s open for everyone. We have seven points, but if you are thinking about the points, if we win one game we should be there. We need three points. If we win one game we’ll have ten points, which should be enough.”

Deco was less resigned to his fate, hitting out at the decision of Luis Medina Cantalejo, the Spanish referee, late in the match. “It was never a red card. I touched the ball at the same instant the referee said ‘just wait’. It was crazy, there was nothing I could do.”

Liverpool avoided defeat thanks to a soft penalty awarded in injury time by the assistant referee after Mariano Pernía collided with Gerrard in the penalty area as they jumped for a loose ball. Gerrard stepped up to score from the spot and secure a deserved point.

There was immense relief around Anfield, but despite a good performance this was almost another night of frustration and failure for Liverpool after their unbeaten start to the season was ended by Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Thanks to a 3-0 win by Marseilles over PSV Eindhoven, victory would have put Liverpool through from group D with two matches to spare.

Gerrard said: “We controlled a lot of the game. In the first half we weren’t good enough. We sat back and they hit us on the counter-attack. We raised our game after half-time.” Of the penalty, the Liverpool captain said: “I got to the ball first. If that’s outside the area it’s a free kick, so I think it’s a penalty. The result is important because we stay up there at the top of the group [they are level at the top with Atletico on points]. Good teams usually don’t lose two games in a row.”