Another late goal, another late defeat and another typically sorry night for Liverpool in Europe. The performance against Fiorentina was insipid, the atmosphere Carling Cup like – it wasn’t always like this. The roar of the Kop silenced by the insignificance of the occasion and there wasn’t much on the pitch to inspire the crowd anyway. At least Alberto Aquilani was allowed to start.   The patience Liverpool fans show for their managers is a rare thing in football – a far cry from the usual sharpening of the knives that goes on at other clubs the moment something goes wrong.   It’s even worse when it happens to a manager who hasn’t been in the job long but it’s a different story for someone who has had five years at the helm and doesn’t do enough to earn the respect loyal fans graciously provide. At this point, it’s time to start asking questions.

Yes, you haven’t had the funds available and you certainly have two idiots running the club. But you have had ample opportunity to build a team that doesn’t fall apart when one of their star players is missing and the sterile negativity that engulfs the side is more of a conscience decision rather than one that has been forced on you.

And this is the real problem, even more so than failing to win the League. You don’t care for flair because of your stubborn faith in bog-standard functional players who provide the work-ethic to grind out one-off results every now and again that disguises the obvious lack of progress and overall ambition.

The simple truth is that your Champions League triumph in 2005 has bought you time – and your backers have bought into the hype of that night. Let’s remind ourselves of the talk after that triumph in Istanbul. It wasn’t ‘how do we turn the best team in Europe into domestic winners?’ More like ‘how do we turn an ordinary team that finished nearly 30 points off the pace into title challengers?’

It wasn’t just one or two changes that were needed either. They were wholesale changes. Out went Dudek, Biscan, Baros, Smicer and Traore in the subsequent clear out – hardly something that should be required from newly crowned European Champions.

Now the fans who made their bed by backing Rafael Benitez are being forced to lye in it - and no amount of one-off results against the big teams will change the fact that he has been found out. With his bankrupt tactics, dislike of real football and insulting team selections he cares little for his critics and even less for those who have backed him to the hilt.