Liverpool 4 Portsmouth 1

The Premier League match between Liverpool and Portsmouth at Anfield on Monday March 15 2010.

After six months of famine, Liverpool, at long, long last, have rediscovered their appetite for destruction. Relentless, ruthless, aggressive and offensive, Rafael Benitez’s side put Portsmouth to the sword with the sort of display which Anfield, in the depths of its bleak midwinter, must have feared had been consigned to history.

Fernando Torres scored twice, Ryan Babel and Alberto Aquilani once, the Italian’s first goal since his much-criticised £17 million summer move from Roma, but the details were almost incidental. The opposition may be the Premier League’s basement dwellers, their doom already definite, but there was an air of authority about their hosts.

Only the possibility of action against Steven Gerrard for an apparent off-the-ball swipe on Michael Brown provides a cloud from an evening in which Liverpool, reinvigorated, revitalised their challenge to Tottenham, Manchester City and Aston Villa for the fourth Champions League slot.

It is typical of Avram Grant’s side luck that Liverpool chose their visit to rectify that. It is equally predictable that they committed an act of dismal seppuku after emerging unscathed from an opening spell in which their hosts might have earned a penalty, Ricardo Rocha seeming to handle Torres’s goalbound shot, and enjoyed a flurry of set-pieces, the ball fizzing around a nervous Jamie Ashdown, standing in for the injured David James.

Just as Liverpool’s momentum was fading, just as Portsmouth were starting to settle, they imploded. One poor Ashdown clearance was charged down by Gerrard, only for the goalkeeper to be granted a reprieve. Gerrard again blocked, only this time did so in the box. Maxi Rodriguez, lively all evening, rolled the ball to Torres to open the scoring.

Scarcely 90 seconds later, it was two, Babel poking home after Torres teed the Dutchman, on one of those evenings where he was mercurial, rather than erratic, up on the edge of the box.

But where the opening pair were functional, the third was forged in fantasy. Gerrard, emerging from the sullen cocoon in which he has passed much of the winter, clipped a reverse pass to Torres, seemingly meandering down a blind alley to the left of Ashdown’s goal. His backheel, spinning the ball back into Gerrard’s path, flummoxed all but his favoured partner-in-crime.

The Liverpool captain, equally astute, feigned and dummied and Aquilani, to the delight of the Kop, swept home. Three in six minutes - an achievement Liverpool are familiar with - but, more pertinently, three goals in the Premier League for the first time since September.

There could, perhaps should, have been more. Torres, cutting in from the left, sent one fierce shot cracking against Ashdown’s far post, before Gerrard flashed wide from yet another Rodriguez cut-back.

Liverpool poured forward inexorably, unveiling a repertoire of flicks and tricks that suggested a confidence so evidently absent for so long. Glen Johnson and Emiliano Insua took up station as out and out wingers. This was a catharsis, a bloodlust, a bloodletting. For the first time in months, Liverpool were enjoying themselves. Even Jamie Carragher had a go.

Anfield knows not to get too excited, of course. After all, dismantling the league’s makeweights and, in this case, lightweights is what is expected in these parts. But as the onslaught continued, albeit with less urgency, after the break, even the most cynical fan would have been forgiven for a sliver of hope.

Twice Gerrard went close, Babel drove on to the bar from the edge of the box and Rodriguez, arguably the best player on the pitch, fizzed wide, Ashdown saved from Torres. A further three penalty claims were waved away by referee Stuart Attwell, though Benitez will no doubt find the generosity of spirit to forgive him in the circumstances.

Far more important than bemoaning officiating standards was the statement of intent his side had given.

Liverpool, on this evidence, are not yet finished in the race for the fourth Champions League slot. They restricted their guests to just two chances of note, the otherwise underemployed Pepe Reina producing a fine reaction save to deny Michael Brown but powerless to stop Nadir Belhadj notching a consolation from Frederic Piquionne’s cross, and in attack they brimmed and broiled with menace. The first is not yet out. The race is not yet run.