Win comes at a price

SOCCER/Liverpool 2 Everton 1: The result sent Liverpool closer to the fourth Champions League place but the consequences of this game threaten to keep it beyond reach.

While managers ought generally to be prohibited from gurning over missing players, exemption will have to be granted for Rafael Benitez. The Spaniard's vocabulary has mostly been enhanced by medical terminology since he moved to England.

Stephen Warnock, Fernando Morientes and Dietmar Hamann all had to be replaced before the interval, so preventing Benitez from savouring his team's superiority as Liverpool won a Merseyside derby at Anfield for the first time in five years. The manager's contentment will also be undermined by a weakness in one of his players that had nothing to do with strained muscles or joints.

After 77 minutes Milan Baros was as rash in the challenge as he had been in his finishing and lunged at Alan Stubbs in a way that ensured a red card. Benitez could not bear to make eye contact with the Czech as he left the pitch but could surely visualise what would happen next and, within five minutes, Everton had scored as Tim Cahill rifled in a shot from Duncan Ferguson's knock-down.

At the end it was understandable that a generally reserved manager should join the huddle of celebrating players on the pitch. Joy has to be grabbed because it vanishes swiftly for men in his position. Benitez was soon talking vaguely about the "two or three weeks" Morientes and Hamann will be absent.

The former is ineligible for the Champions League quarter-final with Juventus that starts on April 5th and the latter's involvement must be uncertain. Liverpool, still four points behind Everton, will worry, too, that their resources for the Premiership will be meagre in the short term.

Baros will be banned for three games and, at a club where the treatment room was already congested, Benitez has no pairing of recognised forwards for the next period of the programme. Luis Garcia might well be used there and even he had to struggle through the second half against Everton while hindered by injury.

The ill-starred existence of Benitez at Anfield was interrupted only by the puzzling decision of the referee Rob Styles to allow merely three minutes of stoppage time for a game with several pauses. David Moyes had the right to be aggrieved, particularly since his side has always had the potential to rescue itself.

Everton were outclassed by Liverpool but they were not demoralised by a savaging at White Hart Lane on New Year's Day and their endeavour, at least, will not let them down in the weeks that remain. At Anfield, however, Cahill's fine strike was just about the only occasion when they could stand comparison with Liverpool's verve.

Had Baros been steadier this would have been a rout. Instead the goals came from others. After 27 minutes Tony Hibbert fouled Garcia on the fringes of the penalty area and, when Hamann tapped the free-kick to Steven Gerrard, the captain was composed enough to see a gap to the right of the charging Cahill through which he could find the net.

Five minutes later Morientes gathered a loose ball and hit a dipping drive from 30 yards. Nigel Martyn, a goalkeeper surpassed only by Petr Cech in the Premiership, then made a rare mistake. He intended to catch the ball but changed his mind because, as Moyes confirmed, he feared his momentum might carry him over his own line. Belatedly Martyn decided to turn the shot over the bar but only pushed it against the woodwork. Garcia dashed in to head home.

Everton are best suited for a protracted struggle and, until Baros's departure, they could only have revived themselves by showing as much gusto as Liverpool. The visitors did not have players qualified to do that.

As for Baros, since there are so few forwards available, Benitez will miss him. The manager can, however, be encouraged that Liverpool did not suffer from one of their typical weaknesses. There is a theory they prosper in the Champions League purely because there is scope for counter-attacking there.

While they did break well on occasion yesterday they also prised open an Everton side that rarely lets itself be outnumbered.

Liverpool need only be afraid now that it is they who will be outnumbered in a head count of high-quality players as the injury list lengthens.

Guardian Service