Nearly a right Royals slip-up

TO paraphrase Cilla Black – a close friend of Reading chairman Sir John Madejski – FA Cup third round weekend did not throw up a lorra, lorra laughs for Rafa Benitez.

Bar one memorable campaign in 2006, when Manchester United were flattened, Birmingham were pulverised, Chelsea were sent packing and West Ham were vanquished in Cardiff, Liverpool's manager has never had a great affinity with this famous old pot.

Think of some of the results Liverpool have suffered in the FA Cup since he has been at the helm - the experience at Burnley in 2005, for instance, was one of the worst nights in the club's recent history, while losing at home to Barnsley in 2008 was equally galling.

Fortunately, however, Benitez managed to escape another nasty 'Surprise, Surprise' at the hands of a lower division club in the weekend just gone but that will come as little solace to those who made the long journey south through Arctic conditions.

For having been so impressive in a blizzard at Villa Park, playing with assurance and confidence, Liverpool looked a pale shadow of the side that had dispatched Aston Villa so ruthlessly and efficiently five days earlier.

While it was always going to be inevitable that Reading, struggling so badly in the lower reaches of the Championship and without a permanent manager, would raise their game in front of a live televised audience, was it really wrong to expect more from Liverpool?

Had they shown the same dash and panache that carried them to three points in the West Midlands, this contest would have been won in a canter as, for a 15-minute spell in the first period, it looked a question of how many Liverpool would score.

After Steven Gerrard had restored parity with the help of a cute dummy from Dirk Kuyt, Fernando Torres saw a deft effort saved by Adam Federici and Fabio Aurelio screwed a fine opportunity wide following a slick move down the right.

This, though, came after they had been rattled by the Royals' opening salvo, which yielded a goal from Simon Church, bundled in from close range after Gregorz Rasiak had pulled back Ryan Bertrand's deep free-kick swung over from the right flank.

But therein lies the crux of the matter with Liverpool; they have given the impression in certain games that things are almost too easy for them and they need to make things interesting before upping the ante.

Like one of those racehorses that needs a pair of blinkers to maintain its concentration, or need to be waited with at the back of the field before flying through in the final furlong to win on the line, it's as if the more problematic the challenge, the more Liverpool like it.

It's why you are never surprised when they dismantle Manchester United but lose at Fulham; why they can win a war of attrition at Goodison Park but nearly fluff another at Blackburn; and why they are as likely to topple Barcelona, as they are to lose to Barnsley.

Yet the longer this trait persists, fans will become more anxious, critics will sharpen their knives with the greater frequency and this campaign - which is starting to resemble a game of snakes and ladders for its ups and downs - will continue to teeter in the brink.

Look at things this way: if Liverpool defeat Tottenham next Sunday, brush Reading aside in the Anfield replay - which they should do - and then follow up by taking three points off Stoke, the picture going forward will be much clearer.

Should Benitez also be able to do some wheeling and dealing in that period - shipping out Andriy Voronin, for example, and bringing in Maxi Rodriguez, the lift that everyone would receive would almost be tangible.

If, for some reason, the opposite happens and no new faces are recruited, the rest of the season would become a huge slog, a desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of three chaotic months.

What worries most at this particular juncture is that there are not enough players in the squad willing to ease the pressure on Torres and Gerrard by stepping up to the mark and giving Benitez more options.

Torres might be the best striker in the world but he is not going to score goals without any assistance from the flanks; for someone who takes so much of a buffeting off opposing defenders, he deserves better than to feed off scraps.

Should Rodriguez be recruited from Atletico Madrid, as the Reds hope, maybe this will change; the Argentine winger, after all, knows Torres' game inside out from the time they spent together at the Vicente Calderon and he is also a close friend of Javier Mascherano.

A wide player with pace and invention is something Liverpool's team is crying out for and it must be hoped that Rodriguez can be wrapped up in time for Tottenham's visit, to provide their attack with a different dimension.

Part of the problem at Reading was the predictability and the staid tempo of play in the second-half when the Reds should really have been going through the gears to avoid an unwanted extra game in their fixture list.

That said, there were notable exceptions - Gerrard always looked the most likely to find a way through, Torres worked his socks off, Jamie Carragher dominated at the back, Lucas's excellent form continued and then there was Stephen Darby.

Having pushed into the shadows since suffering disappointment on his full debut against Fiorentina last month, the young right-back was tenacious, committed and showed terrific character to get over the setback of making a mistake to concede a last-gasp winner.

He could easily have failed to recover from such an episode - football is littered with similar tales - but, thrust back into the starting line-up, he did nothing wrong and visibly grew in confidence the longer the game progressed.

Darby's performance was, unquestionably, the highlight of a match that will be quickly filed away under the category 'instantly forgettable' but, in a curious way, that is something for which Liverpool should be grateful.

Had they been the victim of the weekend's biggest giant-killing, one can only begin to imagine what headlines to which Benitez would have been subjected today.

Safe to say, adapting a Cilla song title this time, he would have been 'Surrounded By Sorrow'.

READING (4-4-2): Federici (Hamer 69); Gunnarsson, Mills, Ingimarsson, Bertrand; McAnuff, Cisse (Howard 74), Karacan, Sigurdsson; Rasiak (Long 77), Church.

LIVERPOOL (4-4-2): Reina; Darby, Carragher, Skrtel, Insua; Kuyt, Lucas, Gerrard, Aurelio (Benayoun 80); Ngog (Aquilani 68), Torres.

Goals: Church (24), Gerrard (36)

Bookings: Insua (23), Mills (90)

Referee: Martin Atkinson

Attendance: 23,656

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