Surprisingly because Birmingham came looking only for one point, but ended up looking much the better team. Liverpool are unlikely to panic while they are still progressing in Europe and simultaneously short of fit strikers, though the manner in which they lost this game did not inspire their supporters with confidence.
Regularly giving the ball away, missing a succession of chances and failing to communicate with each other right up to the final minute, Liverpool handed Birmingham the initiative and found their visitors eager to accept the gift.
'Our work rate and application were excellent,' Bruce noted, before going on to sympathise with Liverpool's striking problems. 'We know only too well that at this level you are only as good as your strikers,' he said. 'If you lose them it's difficult now, with the transfer window.'
Benitez was not offering injuries as an excuse. 'We created many clear chances and did not score,' he said. 'Then we lose concentration for two seconds, and that is enough. It was not bad luck.'
In the opening quarter, Maik Taylor made saves from Harry Kewell, Xabi Alonso and Luis García as Liverpool peppered the Birmingham goal, but the crowd was fretful as the interval arrived without any chances being converted. By then it was abundantly clear that Kewell was having a stinker, that the delightfully nimble Florent Sinama-Pongole can go past people all day but not necessarily lead an attack and that Luis García is a far from lethal finisher. The Spanish acquisition is adept at getting into dangerous positions, but like Heskey he then tends to hit the crowd rather than the target. He managed to put one goal attempt into the top deck of the Anfield Road End, which caused amusement, but when he blasted his next opportunity wildly high from only eight yards out there was an audible gasp of shock.
After surviving their early pummelling, Birmingham could even have turned round in front. Liverpool were careless in allowing Julian Gray's pass to run through to Muzzy Izzet and grateful for Chris Kirkland's quick reactions. Izzet was also involved in Birmingham's best attack of the first half when he whipped over a dangerous cross from the right. Heskey made exactly the right near-post run to meet the ball, but predictably it had to be retrieved from the Kop rather than the back of the net.
By the second half Robbie Savage and Stephen Clemence were bossing a midfield in which Alonso was disappointingly quiet, and with Gray making increasingly confident excursions up the left wing the crowd began to grow anxious. The home side should have gone in front in the 54th minute, when Kewell stepped over Luis García's pass to open up Birmingham through the middle and give Didi Hamann a clear sight of goal. The German international strode purposefully into the penalty area only to unleash a shot that failed to carry the same conviction, allowing Taylor to spring from his line to make another important save.
Liverpool had Neil Mellor on the bench, yet when Benitez finally decided to call time on the ineffective Sinama-Pongolle he sent on Steve Finnan, not really the gung-ho approach the crowd was looking for. Mellor did make it eight minutes later, just after Jamie Carragher and Luis García had seen shots cleared off the line by Izzet's foot and then elbow, but had only been on the pitch three minutes by the time Birmingham took the lead. Liverpool were unable to deal with a simple Savage short corner routine, and Matthew Upson's header back across the face of goal was easily turned in by the freshly arrived Anderton for Birmingham's first league goal in 380 minutes.
'He deserves that, the luck he's had,' Bruce said. 'Maybe a bit of luck came our way today, but not before time.'