Rafa Benitez forged his reputation in the Champions League - what's gone wrong? Martin Lipton's Big Lunchtime Read

By Martin Lipton in Laptop with Martin Lipton

Published 11:41 24/11/09

• 

It is the biggest game of their season, 90 minutes which will define the rest of the campaign.

But while Rafa Benitez and Liverpool have been in this position before in the Champions League, this time they are cast in the role of desperate, fingers-crossed fans.

No matter how many Liverpool win by against Debrecen in Budapest - and that, even in this season of toil, turmoil and just one win in 10, is a given - it will be meaningless if Fiorentina make home advantage count when they host already-qualified Lyons.

That is the measure of how poorly Liverpool have performed so well in the competition in which Benitez forged his reputation and indeed his relationship with The Kop.

Four points out of 12 means that, while the other three English sides are odds-on to all be safely through by 10.30pm this evening - Chelsea and United have already confirmed their knock-out berths - Liverpool will be out even before their last game, at home to the Italians next month.

No statistic will be more damning, more illustrative of the problems that Liverpool appear intent to pile on themselves at every opportunity.

Of course, we all know Liverpool under Benitez have been backed into a European corner before and twice, spectacularly, come out fighting.

No Liverpool fan will need reminding that the Miracle of Istanbul would not have been possible without the Steven Gerrard-inspired comeback to beat Olympiakos six months earlier .

And two years ago, after one point from three games against Porto, Marseilles and Besiktas, a 4-0 win in the Stade Velodrome completed a stunning recovery to make it through to the last 16, en route to another showdown with Chelsea, which this time went the way of Avram Grant's side.

But on both of those occasions, no matter how bleak the situation looked, Liverpool always remained masters of their own destiny, knowing that what happened next was down to their efforts and achievements.

That hold on events ended in the Stade Gerland earlier this month, when all the hard work of the previous 89 minutes, capped by Ryan Babel's terrific strike, was undone by a moment of defensive aberration, capitalised on by Lisandro Lopez.

Perhaps that instant summed up what is in danger, even at this early stage, of descending into a catastrophic season for a club which had ever reason to begin the campaign harbouring rich dreams of finally ending that near two decade wait for the title to return to what was for so long its natural, ancestral home.

United, Chelsea and Arsenal, irrespective of what the statistics say, are not actually defending that well. But they are not conceding the sort of soft, unacceptable, debilitating goals that have bedevilled Liverpool all season.

It is not about zonal marking or man-to-man marking. It is about bad marking, about players not taking responsibility for their own actions and inadequacies.

Benitez has not helped the cause. For all those who claim he had no option but to sell Xabi Alonso this summer, the response is clear - yes he did! After all, he told us last week he would quit if he was forced to sell Fernando Torres.

It may well be - and from the few glimpses we have seen, it is eminently possible - that Alberto Aquilani will be a better player for Liverpool than the Spaniard.

But even if Aquilani had turned up fit and ready to play, he would have taken a few months to simply comes to terms with the pace and intensity of English football.

When he arrived four months short of fitness, as Benitez knew, then it was asking too much to expect the Italian to make any sort of real impact until deep into the campaign - by which time Liverpool, on current form, may be playing to steal the last Europa League slot for next term.

And knowing that Torres is prone to injury-forced absences, what on earth possessed Benitez to go into the season without adequate, reliable, experienced and proven back-up for the best striker in Europe?

Events in the Stadio Artemio Franchi may yet conspire to hand Liverpool a final chance. Let us hope so.

If not, though, they will have nobody to blame but themselves. And when it does go that wrong, the manager must be willing to hold up his own hands and take the flak firmly in the chin.