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Someone has to do something about unease at the club of Shankly, Paisley and Dalglish

Rafael Benítez forced a smile afterwards but his customary touchline pantomime – the dissatisfied grimaces, the dismissive shrugs, the odd little shapes he makes with his hands – had carried an extra edge of exasperation and frustration during Saturday’s match. A man accustomed to scrutiny during his five years on Merseyside is now seriously on trial.

If it is indeed true, as a few newspapers reported yesterday, that Tom Hicks Sr and George Gillett have finally managed to identify a Middle Eastern investor willing to fork out £100m in exchange for a 25% holding in Liverpool FC, then the US owners’ undeserved stroke of luck would enable them to prioritise the removal of what is coming to appear the biggest obstruction to the club’s progress. With a proportion of that new money – perhaps £20m, but almost certainly rather less after the lawyers had done their talking – they would be able to pay up the 4½ years remaining on Benítez’s contract and send their manager on his way.

Liverpool’s travelling fans cheered Benítez off the field on Saturday, at the end of a game in which Stoke City snatched a draw with a late equaliser. This was not a genuine salute as much as a sign of defiance aimed partly against the Potters’ supporters, who had consistently managed to drown the noise coming from the away end, but mostly at an outside world which is looking at the club and seeing only the signs of a sudden decline with serious long-term implications.

There can be little doubt that the wrong people are in charge at Anfield, which makes it hard to be optimistic that the right decisions will be taken. Somebody, however, has to do something about what is going on in the name of the club of Shankly, Paisley and Dalglish, where Benítez’s haphazard recruitment policy and cut-and-paste method of selection seem inadequate to meet the challenge presented by the prospect of a barren season.

The unease was underlined by the debut of the winger Maximiliano Rodríguez, a useful Argentina international in his time but now, at 29, seemingly fallen far from the highest standards of his seven years in La Liga and apparently picked up by Benítez at no cost, with no guarantee that he will do any better than the dismal parade of wingers who have trooped in and out of Anfield during the last five years. The failure of so many of Benítez’s mid-level acquisitions to leave a mark on the club reinforces the suspicion that, unlike several Premier League managers with more limited resources at their disposal, he takes moderately gifted players and makes them worse.

In Benítez’s opinion the Britannia Stadium is not the place for a Premier League debut, so Rodríguez was left on the bench until the 78th minute. His first contribution was to barge into Salif Diao in the centre circle, his second to overhit a through ball for Dirk Kuyt, his third and last to make such a cumbersome job of controlling a fine pass from Alberto Aquilani that he was easily dispossessed.

Aquilani himself had not appeared until the 88th minute, omitted from the starting line-up because Benítez feared the effects of playing 120 minutes against Reading in midweek. The £20m Italian began the season with an injury, but this was another example of Benítez’s sometimes bizarre attitude to his players. Given the chronic absence of creativity caused by the departure of Xabi Alonso, the Italian should be starting games at every possible opportunity, even if he cannot complete them. In his few minutes against Stoke, a couple of measured passes on the counter-attack gave a glimpse of what his team-mates had been missing.

Should half a season of poor performances be enough to invalidate Liverpool’s second place in the Premier League last season, not to mention the previous successes under his aegis in the European and FA Cups, and to override patience? The case for the prosecution is hard to dispute when Benítez’s side play with so little coherence, and attempts to defuse the sense of crisis by pointing to the absences of Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Yossi Benayoun are not persuasive.

For several weeks earlier this season Manchester United lost not one but two complete defences. Arsenal have been coping without Robin van

The irony of returning to the Britannia Stadium one year on from his attack on Sir Alex Ferguson was not lost on Rafael Benítez yesterday, as he produced another “list of facts” ahead of this fixture, but the contrast in pressure between the two visits tells a miserable tale about Liverpool. Last year they came here as league leaders and saw their title challenge falter irrevocably. And that was against a Stoke team involved in a relegation struggle. They now return weakened by injury and hoping to stay in touch with the top four. Andy Hunter

Venue Britannia Stadium Tickets £35-£45 (0871 663 2007) Last season Stoke 0 Liverpool 0 Referee L Mason

This season’s matches 12 Y31, R4, 2.92 cards per game

sportingbet odds Stoke 11-4 Liverpool 9-10 Draw 9-4

Stoke

Subs from Simonsen, Diao, Tonge, Kitson, Beattie, Tuncay, Cort, Pugh, Whelan

Doubtful Tuncay (hamstring)

Injured Am Faye (back, unknown)

Suspended None

Form guide WLLLDL

Disciplinary record Y39 R1

Leading scorer Beattie 3

Liverpool

Subs from Cavalieri, Gulacsi, Babel, Riera, Darby, Kyrgiakos, Degen, Ayala, Rodríguez, Spearing, Plessis, Pacheco

Doubtful Reina (back)

Injured El Zhar (hamstring, 26 Jan), Kelly (ankle, 26 Jan), Gerrard (hamstring, 30 Jan), Johnson (knee, 6 Feb), Benayoun (broken rib, 10 Feb), Torres (knee, 25 Feb) Suspended None

Form guide WWLWLD Disciplinary record Y26 R4

Leading scorer Torres 12

Match pointers

• Stoke have failed to score in their last four games in all competitions against Liverpool

• Liverpool have kept three clean sheets in their last four league away matches after going six on the road without one from the start of the season

• Stoke have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last six league matches

• Liverpool have drawn just one of their last 17 league away matches

• Stoke have had just 60 shots on target this season, fewer than any other side

Stoke CityLiverpoolPremier Leagueguardian.co.uk