Debate: has Benitez cost Liverpool the title?

Call it a loss of nerve, a loss of the plot or simply a lack of the class required to win championships. Whatever it is, it has afflicted Liverpool at the very time when they were desperate to prove a point to Manchester United and, whatever Rafael Benítez might try to persuade himself about the twists and turns on the road ahead, it seems that this will be remembered as the bleak winter when he and his team blew the chance to claim their first league title in 19 years.

With seven minutes remaining last night, Liverpool were breathing, or at least wheezing, down the necks of United, on course for a scrappy victory thanks to Yossi Benayoun’s superbly taken goal four minutes before half-time. But a wretched second-half display — Benítez called it “crazy”, without specifying who had taken leave of their senses — allowed Wigan Athletic back into the game. As anxiety grew, Lucas Leiva inexplicably brought down Jason Koumas for a penalty from which Mido crowned his debut for the home team with a goal that will have been greeted with even greater joy by United’s supporters.

This was Liverpool’s seventh draw in their past ten Barclays Premier League matches and, as Benítez made the bewildering decision to take off Steven Gerrard moments after Mido’s goal, it was easy to wonder just what has happened to them over the past couple of months. Benítez has been talking and behaving increasingly erratically, his calm exterior serving only to compound the impression of a man who is feeling severe pressure under the surface, but, as in the previous league match at home to Everton nine days earlier, his team would have won — won ugly, but won all the same — had it not been for fundamental lapses of concentration and errors of judgment in the closing stages.

Wigan, having spent the first half feeling sorry for themselves after the departures of Wilson Palacios and Emile Heskey, were not as quick to sense that vulnerability as Everton had been, but, eventually, Steve Bruce’s makeshift team began to threaten in the closing stages. Buoyed by Mido’s goal and by the subsequent departure of Gerrard, with Fernando Torres having long since departed, Wigan went for the throat after that and almost claimed an unexpected victory in stoppage time when Hugo Rodallega, another debutant, hit the bar with a superb free kick. Having looked comfortable for so long, Liverpool ended up grateful to be leaving the JJB Stadium with a point.

This kind of thing does not happen to teams with serious title aspirations — or at least not with the regularity that such calamities have befallen Liverpool in recent weeks. It is not bad luck. Many will wonder whether it is bad management. What is certain is that, just as Sir Alex Ferguson predicted, Liverpool have grown nervous and made mistakes almost as soon as the going started to get tough. The majority of the points they have dropped have been cheap ones — in particular the draws at home to Fulham, West Ham United and Hull City and away to Stoke City and now Wigan — and the club’s supporters have found themselves clutching to the straw that they will raise their game when Chelsea visit Anfield on Sunday afternoon.

By that stage, they could be five points behind United, who might have feared the worst after Benayoun put Liverpool ahead last night with one of the few moments of class in a disappointing spectacle. Javier Mascherano seized on a loose ball outside the Wigan penalty area, forced his way past Michael Brown’s meek challenge and threaded a pass through to Benayoun. The Israel midfield player took the ball around Mike Pollitt and found the net from a position where everybody expected him to cross.

That should have been the cue for Liverpool to take control of the second half, having earlier come close when Torres headed against the post from a cross by Gerrard, but those two players were struggling to exert any kind of influence on the game. In the case of Torres, there is a clear lack of fitness after his return from injury, while Emmerson Boyce and Paul Scharner also deserve credit for keeping them quiet, but above all the Liverpool pair were frustrated by the lack of composure and quality service offered from the midfield. Mascherano was in headless chicken mode, while Lucas was no stand-in for Xabi Alonso, who was rested.

For all that, Liverpool should still have won. Wigan were missing the influence of Palacios and Heskey, not to mention the injured Chris Kirkland and Antonio Valencia, while Mido, their loan signing from Middlesbrough, was struggling to make any kind of impression. Amr Zaki, the other member of their all-Egyptian strikeforce, was barely noticed until he made way for Rodallega, but somehow Wigan came good in the closing stages. Brown, leading a spirited move down the left, passed to Koumas, who was brought down by Lucas, and Mido did the rest from the penalty spot.

Not for the first time, the JJB Stadium reverberated to the strains of The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian. Not for the first time, Liverpool’s title challenge had been undermined — and not, you suspect, for the last.

Wigan Athletic (4-4-2): M Pollitt — M Melchiot, E Boyce, P Scharner, M Figueroa — R Taylor (sub: H Camara, 80min), M Brown, L Cattermole, D de Ridder (sub: J Koumas, 64) — Mido, A Zaki (sub: H Rodallega, 77). Substitutes not used: R Kingson, E Edman, B Watson, O Kapo. Booked: Figueroa.

Liverpool (4-2-3-1): J M Reina — Á Arbeloa, J Carragher, M Skrtel, F Aurélio — J Mascherano, Lucas Leiva — Y Benayoun (sub: D Kuyt, 75), S Gerrard (sub: R Keane, 84), R Babel — F Torres (sub: A Riera, 72). Substitutes not used: D Cavalieri, D Agger, A Dossena, X Alonso.

Referee: P Dowd.

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