Brendan Rodgers has said Liverpool must embrace their Champions League return but warned it would be harder to remain among the European elite than it was to qualify after a five-year absence.

Liverpool host the Bulgarian champions Ludogorets Razgrad in their first Champions League game since 9 December 2009 on Tuesday , with Jordan Henderson confirmed as the club’s new vice-captain

The Anfield club qualified for Europe’s premier competition eight times in nine seasons under Gérard Houllier and Rafael Benítez, finishing as winners, runners-up, semi-finalists and quarter-finalists with the Spaniard, before faltering under the near-ruinous ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

Rodgers’ team also face the holders, Real Madrid, and Basel in Group B but considering the competition for a top-four place in the Premier League, the Liverpool manager admits preserving a Champions League place in the future is a greater challenge than sealing a return with last season’s second-placed finish.

“The club had a great period for many years in the Champions League and was then out of it, with all the struggles that brings,” said Rodgers, who will be without the injured Daniel Sturridge, Martin Skrtel and Joe Allen against Ludogorets.

“We are still a work in progress in many aspects of the football team and the club, but it’s very important for us to embrace everything about it and look to ensure we stay in it. I think it’s difficult to get in it and it will be even harder to stay in it. That’s the reality.

“It has brought greater resources to the club and allows us to add depth and strength and build something here, but it doesn’t make it any easier. It’s still going to be remarkably difficult. You’ve got a fight on your hands to be up in it every year but that’s something we are looking forward to doing.”

The Liverpool manager has appointed Henderson as vice-captain to Steven Gerrard following the departure of Daniel Agger to Brondby, illustrating the impressive form of a player who could have joined Fulham during Rodgers’ first summer in charge.

“Jordan represents a lot of what we are about,” the manager said. “I said to him he’s the moral conscience of our team. Him and Stevie are the moral compass of our group in terms of how they conduct themselves on and off the field, how they train and how they work.

“He has really grown in confidence. You see now for club and country that he holds himself really well, he’s got a great stature and I think he will be around here for years to come.”

Ludogorets are only the second Bulgarian team to reach the group stages and will start with Milan Borjan in goal only four days after signing the Canadian on an emergency basis. The first-choice goalkeeper, Vladislav Stoyanov, is suspended having been sent off in the play-off defeat of Steaua Bucharest when his replacement, the defender Cosmin Moti, saved two penalties in the shootout. The understudy Ivan Cvorovic then suffered a shoulder injury last Thursday to prompt the move for the free agent Borjan.

The coach, Georgi Dermendzhiev, said: “It was a situation that no one was able to predict. Everything is confirmed by Uefa and everything is by the book. He is a free agent and he will be the goalkeeper tomorrow. We can’t allow some technical mistake at this stage.”