It was an even more emotional occasion for his centre-forward Dirk Kuyt. Watched at Anfield for the first time by his father, who has recently undergone surgery for cancer, Kuyt scored one goal and helped a rampant Liverpool sew up this game by half time against a lacklustre Villa.
Benitez insisted that Friday's tabloid headlines had no bearing on the day, but it was not hard to draw the conclusion that fans and players alike showed a little more vigour than they have of late or, perhaps, Villa's first-half performance was just so inept that they made all things red look just that little bit sharper and more committed.
In either case, it was an inspirational Liverpool performance, for 45 minutes at least - one which brought three goals in 13 minutes just after the half-hour and, for the time being at least, made a mockery of the comments by that director that Benitez had paid over the odds for sub-par players and does not know his best starting line-up.
'I haven't talked with the players about those headlines,' said Benitez. 'But there were two or three things. The defeat against Man United last week was one of them - we wanted to show people that we really were a good team. To play at Anfield is always important for us and the players enjoy playing well. They were trying to show people they can do it. We have played well in a few home games this season and now we will try and do it away from home. You saw today that we have quality and we can play like that. Can we do it regularly? That's the question because if we can, we will be a lot higher in the table.'
This team looked unrecognisable from the one who capitulated at Old Trafford last Sunday, falling 11 points behind their hated north-west rivals in the process. Indeed, the only surprise about the first half of Liverpool domination was that it took until the 31st minute for them to get off the mark. A Jamie Carragher long ball was knocked down by Sami Hyypia for Kuyt to finish superbly from the edge of the penalty area.
In the 38th minute, Crouch scored with an excellent volley from a dozen yards, making impressive contact with Steve Finnan's deep right-wing cross.
The third goal was borderline brilliant. Steve Gerrard tried to work an opening for a shot on the edge of the area but, instead, worked the ball the other way to Kuyt, who did likewise to Crouch. The 6ft 7in striker showed a deft touch in slipping the ball through for Luis Garcia to advance and raise the ball over the advancing keeper.
To his credit, Martin O'Neill managed to coax a vastly improved second-half performance out of his team. Gabriel Agbonlahor exchanged passes with Chris Sutton and surged through to score a nice consolation in the 56th minute, shortly after Gerrard had struck Liverpool's best second-half chance against the post.
Jose Reina's excellent 71st-minute save from Chris Sutton killed off any notion of a comeback, leaving O'Neill to taste defeat for the first time as Villa manager. 'We were definitely overawed in the first half and I don't know why, but that contributed to our downfall,' he said. 'It hurts to lose the first game, it really does. But that is what we are aspiring to, to where Liverpool are, and that is not going to happen overnight.'