In short, it was the perfect 46th birthday present for the Spaniard. A sixth consecutive victory, courtesy of another goal by Robbie Fowler, kept alive his team's hopes of finishing second ahead of Manchester United, but the manager seemed more satisfied by the performance.
It was not so much that they beat a Blackburn Rovers team with ambitions of reaching next season's Champions League. It was the fact that they suffocated their hosts into submission, restricting them to perhaps a solitary chance. The home supporters and Mark Hughes would leave bemoaning the nature of Fowler's goal, which looked illegitimate even given the huge ambiguity of the revised offside law, but they could have no complaints about the result, given that Liverpool dominated and would have won comfortably had it not been for the errant finishing of Djibril Cissé.
“Once they scored one goal, they were content to protect that lead and not come out and they made it very difficult for us,” Hughes, the Blackburn manager, said. That sounded like a back-handed compliment at best, but Hughes might have seen something to admire in the way Liverpool's plan worked, with the contrasting qualities of Xabi Alonso and Mohamed Sissoko allowing them to dominate midfield and Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia the mainstays of a defensive barrier that has now kept 22 clean sheets in 35 Barclays Premiership games.
They, like United, have fallen short of a title-challenging standard, but they could yet put a large dent in Chelsea's season, just as they did a year ago, when they meet in the FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford on Saturday. It is a game that Liverpool will enter with confidence, with Steven Gerrard and Peter Crouch returning after being rested with minor ailments yesterday, with perhaps their only concern a lack of goal threat, given that Fowler, their match-winner for the second consecutive weekend, is Cup-tied.
Yesterday's goal owed something to fortune, with the referee and his assistant perhaps the only people in the ground who thought that Cissé was not interfering with play when the ball was switched between Fowler and Fernando Morientes after a throw-in by John Arne Riise. While others looked to the assistant referee, though, Fowler followed the ball and could hardly miss when it was returned to him by Morientes.
It was his fourth goal in four starts and, while he claimed afterwards that he remains “as much in the dark as anyone else” as to whether he will be offered a contract beyond the end of the season, there was the slightest encouragement from Benítez. “If he scores more goals, then the decision is easier,” the manager said. “If I say no, it's more difficult. If I say yes, it's fine.”
Hughes has already indicated that he might be interested if Benítez is not, but, given the parsimony of the Liverpool defence, Fowler would probably have found life very different had he been wearing blue and white yesterday. Blackburn's form over the past few months has been excellent, but even Craig Bellamy, unplayable of late, found the going tough here, ineffective other than a clever flick from which Robbie Savage wasted their only real chance of the game with 19 minutes remaining.
Cissé alone had enough chances to put the game beyond doubt for Liverpool, shooting too close to Brad Friedel when his pace took him beyond the home defence at the end of each half, but Blackburn were unable to punish his profligacy. This was a performance that showed how much Hughes's team have overachieved this season and, while a top-four finish now looks beyond them, top six and a place in the Uefa Cup would be some consolation. “It's very difficult for us now,” Hughes said. “We're running out of games and the sides above us are in better shape.”
Liverpool are testimony to that. A title challenge might be beyond them, but Benítez's table or car, call them what you like, is beginning to look the part.