Liverpool 1 Southampton 2They say that all teams are built in the image of their managers, but Liverpool seem to counter that trend. For while his players toil, Gerard Houllier is nothing if not creative.
At various stages of his various post-match interviews, Liverpool had plenty of chances and should have won, Southampton had plenty of chances but they should have drawn, Liverpool expected to win, and they could not possibly be expected to win.
Perhaps the reason Houllier's players seem so lacking in vision is that they are busy learning to mirror their coach's confusion.
Houllier points to the club's current injury problems as a reason for its recent derailment, but statistics suggest that even with Michael Owen and Harry Kewell - neither of whom have won so much as 50 per cent of their league games this season - they are frequently ineffective.
Liverpool play like their manager speaks English, their moves as short as Houllier's sentences, functional but uninspired, permanently in search of the passe juste.
In the meantime the pressure continues to build. The club's chairman David Moores last week asserted that the club expects nothing less than a Champions League place this season.
Over the weekend the club's captain Steven Gerrard admitted that he has thought about being forced to leave. "If we don't qualify for the Champions League over the next couple of seasons then I would have to think very seriously about things," he said. "I would owe it to myself to take another look at my future."
In the circumstances the manager needed a result on Saturday; instead Southampton scored after 72 seconds and rarely looked likely to lose their lead.
"My focus is on my team," Houllier said. "It's not what's written and said. The chairman said something which I've said all along. You (the media) made a big fuss, saying if we don't finish fourth he'll do this or that. So what? I'm working for the long term at the club, for the people here. And at the moment, because we've got six first-team players out, it's difficult. I mean, we finished the game with three players under 20."
Given that Houllier admitted that there was "no excuse" for their fourth home defeat of the season, and the 50th of his five years in sole charge, he certainly put some effort into finding one. But this result could not be blamed on their three youngsters, two of whom were second-half substitutes and the other the game's outstanding performer.
Jon Otsemobor was the one bright light in Liverpool's gloom, managing to roam in the gloaming while others lost their way. Reliable in defence, the 20-year-old (Houllier even got his age wrong) broke forward with some skill, twice jinking and driving into the area to threaten the Southampton goal. The second occasion, in the 73rd minute, forced a fine save from Antti Niemi and lifted home spirits to such an extent that they scored within two minutes.
Emile Heskey's reactions after Niemi had saved Gerrard's shot could not however save a game which Southampton fully deserved to win.
Gerrard wrote in the matchday programme about how "it's great to have Hamann back", but it was less great to have Dietmar Hamann at the back in the second minute, from which isolated position he was embarrassingly outpaced by Brett Ormerod, who opened the scoring.
After David Prutton, James Beattie and Marian Pahars had missed chances to extend the Saints' lead, Michael Svensson headed in Jason Dodd's corner. Vladimir Smicer ended up with the ball in the home net, where he started arguing with home fans.
Liverpool, who last came back from a half-time deficit to win a game in May 1999 - and that only after their opponents were reduced to 10 men - were beaten.
