Liverpool 1 Reading 2

The FA Cup third round replay between Liverpool and Reading at Anfield on Wednesday Jan 13, 2009.

Three down, one to go. With every embarrassment, every false dawn, Liverpool must feel they have hit rock bottom. Defeat, at home, in the FA Cup third round to Championship opposition should be as low as it gets.

Liverpool’s dip, though, has become an abyss. Rafael Benitez’s side keep on falling.

After 90 deeply insipid minutes, Liverpool looked like they had, at least, narrowly squeezed through to the fourth round of one of just two competitions which offered hope for a trophy to salvage a miserable campaign, thanks to an own goal from Ryan Bertrand. An injury-time penalty put paid to that.

Worse was to come in extra time. In three and a half hours of football against Reading, Liverpool could not score.

Worse still, they saw Fernando Torres trudge off after just half an hour with a hamstring strain. The welcoming optimism which accompanied the unveiling of Maxi Rodriguez before the game - after the Argentine completed his free transfer from Atletico Madrid, agreeing a three and a half year contract - seemed distant indeed by the end.

The statistics, as always, will bear out that Liverpool dominated. They enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, of territory, as befits a team of their status. Benitez could claim, as he is wont to do in such circumstances, that Liverpool controlled the game. What they failed to do, so often the case, is control their opponents.

Whereas their illustrious hosts struggled to carve out an opportunity even as they pressed forward, misplacing passes, misjudging runs, Reading could, and should, have led by two by the interval. More, perhaps. By the time Jamie Carragher misjudged Simon Church’s cross to gift, seemingly, the opener to Grzegorz Rasiak, Church himself and Gyilfi Sigurdsson had already gone close.

Rasiak missed, handing the hosts a reprieve Liverpool, devout recidivists, seemed determined to throw away. Four minutes later, Jobi McAnuff’s cross came within inches of Church’s head. Again, Liverpool had been the architects of their own destruction, allowing players on a fraction of their wages, with a fraction of their reputations, to ghost through them at will.

It took 39 minutes for Benitez’s side to create a chance worthy of note, to offer an increasingly fraught Anfield a glimmer of promise. Philipp Degen - the full back so derided by fans most would happily carry him to any club willing to take him, and the only player in red to display any impetus all evening - laid the ball off to Yossi Benayoun, who curled a right-footed shot just over. That apart, Reading deserved to emerge from 45 minutes of combat with one of Europe’s big beasts unscathed.

That they did not was harsh to say the least. As it was, Liverpool needed a huge slice of fortune and a brief emergence from his, and his team’s, torpor from Steven Gerrard to take an entirely unwarranted advantage into the break. The Liverpool captain swapped passes with David Ngog, Torres’s replacement, and saw his shot, or cross, ricochet off Ryan Bertrand and past Adam Federici. Anfield, subdued, could barely muster a cheer.

It was Gerrard’s last - and possibly first - contribution, the England international replaced at half-time by the enigmatic Ryan Babel. Benitez, having lost one talisman, was clearly not prepared to countenance losing a second. The FA Cup may have attracted an unusual pre-eminence on Merseyside because of Liverpool’s desperate thirst for a trophy, but winning this competition will not stave off talk of financial crisis at Anfield. The Premier League, and a top four finish, is more than Liverpool’s bread and butter. In their current parlous state, it is their oxygen.

Deprived of the two players so often credited with lifting them out of the ordinary, Liverpool toiled. Still it was Brian McDermott’s side, increasingly starved of the ball, who created the better chances. McAnuff, Church and Sigurdsson all threatened to equalise before Benayoun tripped Shane Long in the box and the Icelandic midfielder converted the spot-kick.

It was no more than Reading deserved. Likewise Long’s header, after good work from Bryn Gunnarsson, to hand the guests the lead. Babel and Benayoun went close, but to no avail. Liverpool continue to find new depths to plumb.

Match details

Liverpool (4-2-3-1, r-l): Cavalieri; Degen, Carragher, Agger, Insua; Lucas,
Aquilani; Kuyt, Gerrard (Babel HT) Benayoun; Torres (Ngog 30)
Subs: Gulacsi (G), Skrtel, Fabio Aurelio, Spearing, Pacheco
Booked: Degen
Reading (4-4-2, r-l): Federici; Gunnarsson, Mills, Ingimarsson, Bertrand; McAnuff, Cisse (Howard 59), Karacan (Long 81), Sigurdsson; Church, Rasiak (Kebe 65)
Subs: Hamer (G), Tabb, Matejovsky, Pearce,
Booked: Karacan, Mills
Referee: Phil Dowd