To avoid feeling the cold blast that gripped Anfield at the final whistle last night, you would have needed either the kind of fur coat modelled by Carson Yeung, Birmingham City’s new owner, or the thick skin of a rhinoceros.

Rafael Benítez, fortunately for him, has something of the latter, which is just as well, given the long, bleak winter that seems to lie ahead for him and his Liverpool team.

A sequence of one victory in the past nine matches in all competitions is simply not good enough for a club of Liverpool’s size and ambition and, no matter how much sympathy Benítez and his players might attract during an unforgiving crisis of confidence and personnel, they were grateful beneficiaries, as the manager admirably admitted afterwards, of a highly contentious penalty award midway through the second half when David Ngog went to ground without being touched by Lee Carsley.

A half-fit Steven Gerrard, who had come off the bench as a substitute for the hamstrung Albert Riera, converted the penalty, but, no matter what he and the enterprising Glen Johnson tried as they went in search of the winning goal in the final quarter of the game, Birmingham stood firm.

Alex McLeish’s team deserve credit for that and, whatever Yeung’s taste in coats, which made him look like a Chewbacca impersonator, his brooding presence in the directors’ box seems to have had some kind of galvanising effect on Birmingham. This was the kind of backs-to-the-wall exercise that traditionally ends only in defeat for visiting teams at Anfield, but, with Christian Benítez and Cameron Jerome scoring their first goals of the season to give them a 2-1 lead, Birmingham left Merseyside feeling a sense of injustice.

It was a strange game, with Liverpool starting like a house on fire, taking an early lead through Ngog’s acrobatic volley and yet somehow they were 2-1 down by half-time. Rafael Benítez was right to take some comfort from the way his team had performed, but, even when their football was at their most incisive when they led, there was a haphazard, reckless feel to their play that was contrary to everything that their manager has spent the past five years trying to instil in them.

It is nothing that an upturn in confidence should not be able to rectify, but what will come first: the confidence that yields a result or the result that yields the upturn? The momentum gained from one supposed turning point, the victory over Manchester United last month, soon dissipated and their first game after the international break, at home to Manchester City on November 21, has now assumed huge importance for both clubs.

Rafael Benítez was unsure whether Fernando Torres, missing last night, would be fit for that game. Likewise Gerrard — who will sit out England’s friendly against Brazil in Doha — Riera or Yossi Benayoun, who succumbed to another hamstring injury late on. But what is clear is that Liverpool need as many of their big players on the pitch as possible. Ngog performed admirably as a stand-in for Torres, even if there was nothing to admire about the way he won the penalty, but he is no substitute for the master.

When the Frenchman scored in the thirteenth minute, Liverpool were playing well, knocking the ball around confidently and it seemed only a matter of how many they would score. But when half-time came they were 2-1 down, struggling to comprehend how, having dominated possession, they were trailing.

The answer is that Liverpool’s luck continued to desert them whereas Birmingham’s forwards finally got the change of fortune that their efforts in previous weeks had deserved. The equaliser, in the 26th minute, came when James McFadden sent a free kick to the far post, Roger Johnson beat Glen Johnson to the first header, Scott Dann beat Martin Skrtel to the second and Christian Benítez was left all alone to convert the third header from close range.

“There’s only one Benítez,” the Birmingham fans chanted, delighted not only that their £7.7 million signing was finally off the mark, in his eleventh appearance for the club, but that his first goal had come at Anfield. Next came Jerome’s long-awaited breakthrough, a 30-yard shot that rose up, dipped down and flew over Pepe Reina’s head. As McLeish put it, you wait all season for your strikers to get a goal and then two come at once. Gerrard’s introduction was always likely to increase Liverpool’s sense of urgency in the second half, although he had no choice but to be Captain Sensible because of his lack of fitness. Nonetheless, Liverpool’s hopes of a fightback lay with him and, as Glen Johnson crossed from the right wing yet again in the 63rd minute, Gerrard headed against the foot of the post.

Finally, in the 71st minute, Liverpool’s luck changed for the better. Ngog’s run into the penalty area was twinkle-toed, but so was the way he dived to the ground when Carsley tried to stop him with an admittedly desperate tackle. It was the kind of penalty that Arsène Wenger might call “Anfieldish” — Carsley, as he confronted Ngog, was nothing like so diplomatic — but Gerrard kept his nerve from 12 yards.

That was the cue for Liverpool to push for the winner, but it did not materialise. The crowd was sympathetic afterwards, but the league table is not. Difficult times at Anfield.

Liverpool (4-4-2): J M Reina — G Johnson, M Skrtel, D Agger, E Insúa — Y Benayoun (sub: R Babel, 77min), J Mascherano, Lucas Leiva (sub: A Aquilani, 82), A Riera (sub: S Gerrard, 45) — D Kuyt, D Ngog. Substitutes not used: D Cavalieri, S Darby, S Kyrgiakos, J Spearing. Booked: Ngog.

Birmingham City (4-4-2): J Hart — S Carr, R Johnson, S Dann, L Ridgewell — S Larsson, T Tainio (sub: L Carsley, 15), L Bowyer, J McFadden (sub: G Vignal, 68) — C Benítez (sub: G McSheffrey, 86), C Jerome. Substitutes not used: M Taylor, F Queudrue, G Espinoza, K Phillips. Booked: McFadden, Carsley.

Referee: P Walton.