Even in victory, Liverpool fail to convince

Perhaps it is the worst indictment of a manager if a victory only highlights his failings.  Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday may have arrested, if only temporarily, their alarming slump but even the most optimistic of Kopites – you know, the ones who hold aloft signs on the Kop reading ‘In Rafa We Trust’ or similar blandishments – could not have been convinced.

When Mick McCarthy was widely criticised for fielding the Wolves tea-lady and board of directors at Old Trafford, it was not out of moral outrage but out of disappointment for his defeatism in a league that has suddenly embraced the iconoclastic ideal.

It was not because he had been persuaded of the error of his ways that McCarthy took the first team to Anfield.  He had seen Portsmouth, the Premier League’s worst team, play Liverpool off the park the previous weekend and sniffed blood.  It wasn’t to be.

Rafa Benítez picked his usual side with one change, Alberto Aquilani, who has presumably been hidden away in some kind of witness protection program since August, finally making his first Premier League start.  Were Javier Mascherano not both injured and suspended, who can say whether the Italian would have appeared at all?  He was alongside Steven Gerrard and Lucas, who was his usual self in the Liverpool midfield.

It is not as though every time the Brazilian kicks the ball he passes it to the opposition; or that he concedes penalties every time he tackles an opponent.  He is just so ordinary and represents, in the eyes of observers, the hand brake which Benítez has permanently engaged in the Liverpool team.  Steven Gerrard and Aquilani should be more than enough of a presence in central midfield for Liverpool to negotiate a home fixture against Wolves.

The indirect consequence of Lucas’s continued presence on the Anfield pitch is that Fernando Torres remains isolated, ill-served and burdened by the ever-increasing pressure to provide the goals that will haul Liverpool’s increasingly disastrous season back on track.  Benítez has another problem on the horizon: Torres is set to require surgery on a hernia during the season, to avoid disrupting his engagement in South Africa next summer.

He can hardly be blamed for setting out his priorities thus.  With Spain, Torres is just one of many world class players.  He is not even the main striker; David Villa, of Valencia, is regarded as the main goal threat in Spain.  In other words: less pressure, but with greatly better service.  In his other red shirt – the one with white trim – he appears increasingly burdened.

At least on Saturday Benítez was a lucky general.  When referee Andre Marriner showed Christophe Berra a yellow card by mistake instead of the already-booked Wolves left-back Stephen Ward, he was easily persuaded of his error by Pepe Reina, the Liverpool goalkeeper, who sprinted the length of Anfield to point out the mistake.  Reina should have been named Man of the Match; rarely this season has a forward run from a Liverpool player had such a beneficial effect on the team’s fortunes.

All this kerfuffle distracts from a more pertinent observation: that neither Ward, nor anybody else pretending to be him, should have been punished at all as his contact with Lucas was minimal and it was not something less pure than the laws of physics that caused the Brazilian to go down.

Once Liverpool had the extra man, the victory seemed inevitable.  It was Steven Gerrard, of course, who broke the deadlock.  Emiliano Insúa provided a fine left-wing cross and Gerrard beat Marcus Hahnemann with a bullet header.  Eight minutes later, a deflected Yossi Benayoun shot sealed the three points.

But the real Liverpool were on display before Ward’s dismissal.  The Liverpool we have grown used to in recent months: slow, careless, pedestrian, uninspiring and lacking confidence in the ability of their back four to keep the ball out of their own net.  Liverpool have a group of cursed players – Lucas, Andrea Dossena, Ryan Babel, Andriy Voronin, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, David N’Gog – who tend to receive the ire of the fans but it is the key players who have not been performing.

Torres is plainly still not within a postcode of being match fit.  Gerrard looked half-hearted at Portsmouth.  If those two aren’t firing, it is tempting to believe the rest of the squad wonder why they ought to bother.  I’d be very interested to see the face of Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano, Yossi Benayoun or Albert Riera the next time Liverpool are witlessly dubbed a ‘two man team’.

The problem is, Liverpool are a zero-man team.  If they lack depth now it is little more of a weakness than it was last season.  Yes, Xabi Alonso has left, but Aquilani is a fine player and would prove it regularly if only Benítez would play him.  And this season they have a half-decent right-back.  By and large, players who played very well last season are playing very badly this season.  Gerrard and Torres are as open to this criticism as the rest of the squad; possibly moreso, as they have the greater capacity to perform.

On the go tomorrow to Aston Villa, a team licking their wounds after losing 3-0 at Arsenal yesterday, a result out of proportion with the balance of play.  God help Benítez if Ashley Young remembers how to cross a ball, or Gabriel Agbonlahor or James Milner recover their shooting boots.

Benítez, though, is safe, for a number of reasons.  The Liverpool fans still largely blame the owners, Statler and Waldorf, for the club’s inertia.  This is a club usually loyal to its managers, sometimes to a fault.  Anyway, for all his failings, Benítez is not asking his players to pass the ball to the opposition, to defend like clowns and to miss glaring chances.

If Benítez is over-defensive, it is nothing new.  Before coming to Liverpool, he led a very conservative Valencia side to the Spanish title in 2001-02 and 2003-04.  An ageing Barcelona side, before the arrival of Ronaldinho, Eto’o, Deco and Messi, stood obligingly aside while the galácticos at Real Madrid were neglecting their defence.  It would have been rude not to win La Liga.

Benítez’s conservatism was no barrier to success then and nor should it have been in the second half of last season, when Liverpool almost took the title off Manchester Utd.  The difference this season is the players.  The same players, yet somehow different ones.  Either they have stopped believing, or their opponents have stopped believing in their reputation.  Perhaps they have just been found out.