Benitez’s task now is to save season

Richard Jolly

• Last Updated: November 02. 2009 11:12PM UAE / November 2. 2009 7:12PM GMT

Upon signing for Liverpool, new arrivals are presented with DVDs and books acquainting them of and educating them about the club’s glorious history. The events of Wembley and Paris, of Rome and Istanbul are as sure to figure as the achievements of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish. It is to be presumed there is scant mention of Tom Watson.

That is scarcely surprising. But Watson was the last Liverpool manager to lose five of the opening 11 games and still win the league. That it was in 1906 indicates the scale of the task facing Rafa Benitez and his team. Financially, the more significant challenge is to ensure Champions League football at Anfield, both in the second half of this season and in the next campaign. They face Lyon tomorrow severely depleted, but must not be defeated.

The faltering – some would say finished – title bid was always dependent upon certain factors: the fitness of the first team, especially Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, a respectable start that would have ensured Liverpool were in contention for long enough for Alberto Aquilani to make an impact and maintaining the defensive frugality present in the past four seasons.

They had a slender margin of error, and they have erred. With his focus on details, no matter how small, Benitez has been a devotee of micro- management. At Fulham on Saturday, however, the problems were major. Events spiralled out of control. Virtually everything that could have gone wrong did, barring an injury to Torres. In that context, his removal on the hour may prove the day’s finest decision.

A scapegoat culture demands someone is to blame. For many, it was the sweating Spaniard in the dugout. While Benitez can be faulted – and the presence of the expensive misfits Ryan Babel and Andrea Dossena on the bench was one indication of failings, while any team selection that includes Andriy Voronin can be queried – he also merits sympathy. A manager who did not complain about misfortune after Sunderland’s already infamous beach ball goal could wonder why luck has deserted him so spectacularly.

The sendings-off of Philipp Degen and Jamie Carragher, both debateable decisions, mean that, having started without 10 players due to injury and illness, another two are suspended for Monday’s game against Birmingham.

There was a time when talk of strength in depth at Anfield referred to David Fairclough, the original super-sub. It is lacking now, but defeat is easily explained with reference to each department of the team at Craven Cottage. The dismissed Degen has probably been relegated to the role of third-choice right-back, but neither Glen Johnson nor Martin Kelly was fit. With Carragher red-carded, Liverpool ended with their fourth- and fifth-best central defenders, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Daniel Ayala, in harness.

With the enforced withdrawal of a semi-fit Torres, the substitutions of Dirk Kuyt and Yossi Benayoun and without Gerrard and David Ngog, the forwards to finish the game were the eternally undistinguished Voronin and the untried teenager Nathan Eccleston.

The absentees also included Aquilani and Fabio Aurelio. It is no exaggeration to call it the worst injury crisis of Benitez’s five-and-a-half years at Anfield.

It does not require any hyperbole to describe tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Lyon as among the most important games of his reign. And it must be of concern to both Benitez and the owners that the doomsday scenario of defeat in the Stade Gerland is followed by a finish in fifth place, or lower, in the league. And if that is the case, the books and DVDs of the future will mention the 2009-10 campaign less than the forgotten Watson.

rjolly@thenational.ae