AS FULHAM’S delirious support sang “Can we play you every week?”, the nine Liverpool players who had remained on the field sloped off it knowing they had contributed only a majestically-taken Fernando Torres strike and Yossi Benayoun hitting Mark Schwarzer’s bar to a 90 minutes in which their ever-more-obvious frailty was exposed by clinical, exuberant hosts. Indeed, last week’s victory over Manchester United might as well have happened last century.

In mitigation, Liverpool were without the injured Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Martin Skrtel, Fabio Aurelio, Daniel Aggar and, of course, Alberto Aquilani, meaning manager Rafael Benitez was forced to test his own theory vis-a-vis his squad’s lack of depth against a team finally clicking into last year’s form.

“We were fortunate to go ahead,” admitted Fulham manager Roy Hodgson, “but our second-half performance was much better. We worked hard and there were some outstanding individual performances.”

Afterwards, Benitez was more adept in defence than his team had been. He cited his injury list; he claimed (not entirely without justification) that his team had been the better in the first half; and he argued that the dismissals of Philipp Degen and Jamie Carragher were both unjustified. And he conceded, albeit in the vaguest terms, that the pressure is mounting.

Of those who started, Andriy Voronin, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Degen had just four Premier League starts between them this season, the same total as Liverpool’s entire bench — so mostly youthful you wondered if Nathan Eccleston and the rest were on a half-term treat.

With Voronin looking especially eager, they started keenly enough. Torres, Liverpool’s sole piece of good injury news, missed a pottable early chance when he failed to connect with Dirk Kuyt’s low cross. And when Degen’s cross ended with Benayoun’s right-foot rasper rattling the bar, it seemed the die was cast.

It wasn’t. Fulham, lest we forget, were not without their own injured platoon of Andrew Johnson, Danny Murphy and Simon Davies. As poorly as Liverpool played, Fulham were admirable and they scored with their first attack. Diomansy Kamara collected Schwarzer’s long punt and found Damien Duff on the right. The Irishman crossed low. As Emiliano Insua slept soundly at the back post, Bobby Zamora nipped in to sweep home.

Fulham funnelled men back and a combination of Torres’s genius and the rub of the green brought Liverpool level. Degen ambled up the right and crossed for Voronin, whose aimless header cannoned up off Aaron Hughes. With one venomous strike, Torres volleyed home his 10th goal in his 10 Premier League games this season.

Fulham picked up two more injuries during the first half and re-emerged without Kamara and Duff, but Liverpool still resembled rabbits in the headlights, even before Torres’s troublesome groin meant he made way after the hour. Fulham sniffed three points and when Kuyt obligingly kept the ball in for Paul Konchesky, even Benitez could smell it too. Konchesky crossed averagely, only for keeper Jose Reina to flap. Zoltan Gera neatly headed back and fellow substitute Erik Nevland finished exquisitely.

Liverpool then lost two of their players in three calamitous minutes: Degen, rather unfortunately, for a mistimed but hardly malicious tackle on Clint Dempsey and then, much less arguably, Carragher, who hauled Zamora to the ground. “Degen was not looking to hurt the player and anyone could see that ‘Carra’ played the ball,” argued Benitez. “You are not allowed to lunge at players,” countered Hodgson. “And when the referee looks back at those decisions he will feel he was correct.”

Just to rub salt into festering wounds, Dempsey stroked home a third after lovely interplay with Nevland, and by the end only Fulham’s tentative finishing prevented further humiliation above and beyond what was already a Halloween horror show for those in blood-red shirts.

Star man: Bobby Zamora (Fulham)

Yellow card: Fulham: Baird

Red cards: Liverpool: Degen, Carragher

Referee: L Mason

Attendance: 25,700

FULHAM: Schwarzer 6, Pantsil 7, Hughes 6, Hangeland 7, Konchesky 6, Duff 6 (Nevland, 45min, 8), Greening 5 (Etuhu, 86min), Baird 6, Dempsey 6, Zamora 8, Kamara 6 (Gera, 45min, 7)

LIVERPOOL: Reina 5, Degen 6, Carragher 5, Kyrgiakos 5, Insua 5, Lucas 5, Mascherano 6, Kuyt 6 (Ayala, 84min), Voronin 6, Benayoun 6 (Eccleston, 78min), Torres 6 (Babel, 63 min)