Bordeaux 0 Liverpool 1: Efficient rather than exhilarating, Liverpool owed their latest European win to a goal from a set-piece and some reassuringly doughty defending.
It was sufficient to leave them favourites to win Group C, while effectively ending Bordeaux's hopes of an extended Champions League campaign but they missed Steven Gerrard's customary midfield dynamism and will need to be far more inventive if their flagging Premiership campaign is to be revived in Sunday's crunch game at Old Trafford.
With Gerrard either hamstrung or rested ahead of the date with United, Bolo Zenden was offered a rare start in central midfield.
Zenden is far from a shabby player but the portents did not look bright when he was soon dispossessed by Lilian Laslandes.
The Bordeaux striker's lumbering gait will have proved uncomfortably familiar to anyone who watched Laslandes during his woeful stint at Sunderland five years ago but a litany of intelligent off-the-ball runs and impressive interceptions must have come as an unpleasant surprise for Liverpool, who initially found the 35-year-old a nuisance.
Indeed, without ever looking truly menacing, Ricardo Gomes's side created the better early chances as they looked to break their scoring duck in Europe this season.
Shortly after Steve Finnan was required to make an important defensive clearance, Wendel whipped in a free kick which found Johan Micoud as he stole into the space between Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia. But Micoud failed to make proper headed contact and a glorious chance was duly put wide.
Nevertheless, much to the disappointment of those home fans clutching banners emblazoned with 'Bordeaux Piranhas', the French attack lacked bite and Pepe Reina was largely redundant.
Yet, worryingly for Liverpool's manager, the Merseysiders were struggling to conjure even half chances and much of that was down to Rio Mavuba's excellence as Bordeaux's midfield enforcer.
Born at sea on an overcrowded, extremely rickety boat making the hazardous journey between Angola and France, Mavuba is evidently not a man to be daunted by expensive reputations and he delighted in repeatedly putting Liverpool's midfield in their place.
The back line fared just as well. Tellingly, on the odd occasion Craig Bellamy's pace seemed to have offered him an escape route from Carlos Henrique, he was invariably flagged offside.
Jean-Claude Darcheville might have done better with a shooting chance at the outset of the second period, that opening having initiated with good work from Fernando Menegazzo, whose impressive contribution was lending Bordeaux an assurance which, for protracted periods, Liverpool appeared unable to ruffle.
Similarly Mark Gonzalez was making a negligible left-wing impact while, across on the right, Luis Garcia enjoyed little success against Wendel. Or at least not until he finally managed to burst beyond the left-back and dispatch an angled shot which Rame tipped away for a corner.
That dead ball was executed by Bellamy, whose delivery was met by Crouch's head and instantly redirected into the back of the net.
Thirteen minutes into the second half Liverpool at last enjoyed the ascendancy and Benitez responded to this alteration in the power balance by quickly withdrawing Crouch and replacing him with Dirk Kuyt.
Bordeaux, though, were not quite done and Carragher, captaining Liverpool in Gerrard's absence, needed to be back at something approaching his best when clearing a dangerous cross supplied by Julien Faubert.
With Faubert, on as a substitute, proving an awkward attacking customer and Wendel going close from a free kick, Carragher and Hyypia were offered late scope to prove they are not in terminal decline after all, but Liverpool might have doubled their advantage had Rame not saved substitute Stephen Warnock's late strike with his legs.
BORDEAUX: Rame, Jurietti, Henrique, Jemmali, Wendell, Alonso (Faubert 63), Mavuba, Menegazzo, Laslandes (Chamakh 63), Micoud, Darcheville (Perea 71). Subs not used: Valverde, Ducasse, Enakarhire, Marange. Booked: Jurietti, Rame.
LIVERPOOL: Reina, Finnan, Hyypia, Carragher, Riise, Luis Garcia, Alonso, Zenden, Gonzalez (Sissoko 68), Crouch (Kuyt 65), Bellamy (Warnock 87). Subs not used: Dudek, Pennant, Paletta, Peltier. Booked: Zenden, Kuyt.
Referee: T Ovrebo (Norway).
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