Liverpool Comment: Jekyll & Hyde Form Continues As Liverpool Unravel

From the sublime to the ridiculous. The feel-good factor brought about by last Sunday's momentous triumph over Manchester United was never going to last forever, but few at Liverpool expected it to be so comprehensively nipped in the bud within seven days.

Especially given the pattern of play for the first hour at Craven Cottage today. Liverpool's side - depleted by illness and injury to such an extent that five academy graduates sat on the substitutes' bench - bossed Fulham throughout the first half, monopolising possession and dragging their hosts out of position at will. It seemed only a matter of time before they added to Fernando Torres' 10th goal of the season and wrapped up the game.

Quite what happened next is anybody's guess. Rafa Benitez's critics will point to the fact that he withdrew both Torres and Yossi Benayoun, Liverpool's other main threat, but that is over-simplifying a quite monumental collapse on the Reds' part.

Fulham had scored with their only meaningful attack in the first half, with Bobby Zamora nipping in between a dozing Sotiris Kyrgiakos and Emiliano Insua to finish off Damien Duff's cross, but still Liverpool looked comfortable. Lucas and Javier Mascherano were dominant in the midfield battle, and Benayoun was looking likely to open up the Cottagers regularly.

But from the moment Paul Konchesky's deep cross had been nodded down by Zoltan Gera for his fellow substitute Erik Nevland to clip home, Liverpool retreated into a shell. A shell which, rather than offering protection of any sort, allowed their hosts access almost at will.

Philipp Degen had already had a far-from-impressive Premier League debut, he infuriated the travelling support by withdrawing from a couple of early tackles, and his positional play allowed Fulham to play hopeful balls into the left hand channel, into the space vacated by the errant Swiss.

His late dismissal, for a clumsy lunge at Clint Dempsey, was perhaps slightly harsh, but Degen can have few complaints after lifting both feet off the ground as he made the challenge. For a manager who prides himself on almost total discipline, Benitez will have been livid. Especially as Glen Johnson is still struggling to regain fitness after a calf injury.

The Liverpool manager will have been equally incensed soon after too, as Jamie Carragher followed Degen down the Craven Cottage tunnel, after hauling down Zamora as the Fulham striker threatened to get in behind the Reds' backline.

Carragher was deemed lucky to have escaped a similar punishment last week after an almost-identical tangle with Michael Owen, today he did not escape, and can have few complaints. The three-game ban which will accompany his straight red card (and will encapsulate games with Manchester City and Everton) will hurt Liverpool almost as much as Dempsey's third goal, which arrived late on as the Reds were opened up at will.

There are extenuating circumstances of course. There always are. Benitez was denied the services of eleven potential first teamers, with absentees including Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Fabio Aurelio, Alberto Aquilani and David N'Gog, to add to the confirmed injury-victims Johnson and Steven Gerrard, but the manner, and the haste, of the Reds' collapse today was alarming.

Players like Insua, Degen and even Andriy Voronin had all shown relative promise in Wednesday's Carling Cup defeat to Arsenal, but today, in the cut and thrust of a must-win Premier League clash, they were again found wanting. Liverpool fans' frustrations may border on the knee-jerk, but today they are justified.

Credit must go to Fulham, who responded to a first-hour in which they played little part to simply steamroll their more-illustrious opponents in the closing stages, but for Benitez and his side, it is back to the drawing board that the Manchester United defeat should have rendered redundant.

Chelsea's win at Bolton, arguably an equally tough away trip, stretches their lead over Liverpool to nine points. Not an insurmountable margin by any means, but when your league record has such a schizophrenic look about it - won six, lost five - it is starting to look like Mission Impossible.

Even more pressingly, Benitez takes his side to Lyon on Wednesday for what he has already described as a "must-win" clash in the Champions League. Defeat there could, over-reaction aside, precipitate the end of Liverpool's participation in both their premiere competitions before Bonfire Night. A sobering thought.

The Reds respond well when their backs are against the wall, though Benitez must wish they didn't have to do it quite so often.

Neil Jones, Goal.com UK