For once, it wasn't the football field where Liverpool seemed ordinary last week. As the Liverpool players huddled around a TV monitor in the tunnel of the Ferenc Puskas Stadium on Tuesday watching the last few minutes of Fiorentina-Lyon, they looked like the squad of Havant & Waterlooville tuning in for the FA Cup third-round draw. Their noses were pressed to the glass and they were dependent on the kindness of strangers. They didn't get it and wandered away disconsolate, aware that, for the first time during Rafael Benitez's reign, they were among the also-rans of European football.

Liverpool had become used to this position before Benitez arrived and the shrieking headlines that accompanied their exit had no acknowledgement that it is thanks to Benitez alone that Liverpool once again eye the European Cup with a proprietorial gaze.

Now, they are back in an unwelcome but familiar place. In 2002, Liverpool finished second in the league, above Manchester United. They were a high-functioning side with little embellishment. Gerard Houllier had spent most of the season convalescing, returning only in the final weeks. In the summer, he was expected to strengthen the side, bring in the players who would make it more creative.

He spent the summer considering a move for Damien Duff, then the most sought-after player in Britain, but, in the end, decided he could get better value another way. He spent £20m on three players, El-Hadji Diouf, Salif Diao and Bruno Cheyrou. By the autumn of 2002, Liverpool were out of the Champions League and beginning a slide down the table that saw them move from top at the beginning of November to fifth by the middle of December. They never moved into the top four again that season.

Houllier lost his grip on the team but remained until the summer of 2004, the beneficiary of Liverpool's tendency towards patience, which in reality may be more like defiance. At Anfield, they don't like the rest of England, a foreign land, telling them what to do.

For those and other more straightforward reasons, Benitez should benefit from those factors now. There have been worrying signs in recent weeks that the pressures have affected him. He has a way to go before he matches Houllier for implausible statements but there have been times recently when the resemblance has been startling.

In his first season, Benitez had to cope with an injury crisis far worse than the present one. Yet he never mentioned it, seeing it as something he could not control. It might have been simply because, having inherited a squad containing Diao, Djimi Traore and Anthony Le Tallec, he didn't think it mattered too much which one of them played anyway or he may have held firmly to his principles.

Now he talks about the injuries constantly and when he has been robbed of Torres, Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Daniel Agger and a number of functionaries it is understandable. Rafael Benitez at his best never wanted to be understood.

Most of the people who believe Benitez should be dismissed have never considered him capable of doing the job. They never saw him as a success even when he was succeeding, so now that he has failed they can see nothing beyond his immediate dismissal.

There was a time when Benitez was able to disregard these noises at an almost Zen level of detachment. His critics took umbrage at being ignored and their voices, when they got the chance, were louder still. (Last season on a football journalists' discussion show, the panel were asked what Benitez had done right. There was a long silence before somebody finally said he had signed Javier Mascherano. At that point, Liverpool were top of the league.)

Benitez now appears to have been worn down by the criticism. He responds to much that comes his way and two weeks ago in a wide-ranging interview, he gave as evidence of his success the increase in value of the club since he took over. Houllier couldn't have done it better. Or worse.

Liverpool now look like a club on the slide again. They have qualified for the group stages every year since Benitez took over, but the poor start to the season domestically and the hostility towards the manager means that even one failure is not going to be tolerated.

Alex Ferguson had to endure something similar during the winter of 2005 when Manchester United finished bottom of their group.

There were differences. Ferguson had won everything -- although that did not ensure that Manchester United fans were particularly tolerant -- and he was in the middle of a rebuilding process. Liverpool had their best season last year and looked like a team ready to challenge.

Benitez has been without the two players it was agreed he couldn't be without too often this season. However, nobody could have envisaged Liverpool doing this badly without them. Last season, they coped when Gerrard and Torres were injured, finding goals most of the time through a force of personality which seems to have been robbed from the team. Players like Dirk Kuyt and, until recently, Mascherano have looked ordinary this season when they had moments last year of driving the team.

Kuyt is now the embodiment of Benitez's problems. He is a beta male and an essential part of Rafa's philosophy. Kuyt is always willing to allow somebody else to claim a goal that could be his or step aside. He was captain for the game against Birmingham recently but as soon as Gerrard was brought on, Kuyt went to the sideline and placed the armband round Gerrard's arm.

Benitez welcomes that humility but Kuyt now seems to be playing within himself, something a player of his limitations cannot afford to do.

Liverpool may have had to do without Gerrard and Torres at times last season but they rarely went into a game without one of them or Xabi Alonso, a huge presence and a player missed as much for his understanding of what was required from a Liverpool team as his passing.

Lucas has played well in recent weeks but will always be defined by his limitations. He demonstrated them when missing a header from six yards that would have won the game against Manchester City last week.

Alberto Aquilani has become another mystery. Liverpool got him on the cheap because he was injured, investing only €5m of the €32m they received for Alonso upfront to Roma, with the rest staggered over the term of his contract and heavily dependent on appearances.

As long as he continues not to play he will be a bargain on that payment plan but Liverpool need something from a player who threatens to bring a spark that is missing. Today, Benitez will probably stick with what he knows, even if he knows it too well. The City game showed the odds Liverpool are up against. Manchester City's defence cost more than the entire Liverpool team that started last Saturday but the patience for Benitez's remarkable achievements in solely competing in an uneven market and remaining in the top four is wearing thin.

Football fans' expectations are rarely rooted in reality and while it is Arsenal's turn to challenge in the winter, the financial might of Chelsea and Manchester United has seen them carve up the title between them for the past five seasons.

The expectation and the shrill and inaccurate criticism might have wearied Benitez but he remains committed to the club and the club, for various reasons including his long-term contract, seem bound to him.

The critics now have a seat at the table. If Benitez is to survive he will have to show that he is capable of returning to the place where their views didn't matter. At the moment, he appears, understandably perhaps, to be responding to them and he is in danger of becoming, as Houllier did, consumed by them.

That paranoia is not there yet. Unlike Houllier, Benitez knows precisely what he wants from his football team so, in theory, he knows how to get out of the mess.

Today, he faces a game he might not want as he searches for the exit. Liverpool have responded in most of the big matches this season but even against a struggling Everton side, Liverpool might find that Goodison Park is not the place to be this afternoon.

But this is where Liverpool are. Fighting for a win to achieve just the minimum this season: top four in the league and maybe a cup.

In past seasons, he has had the European Cup to turn to and the adrenaline of European nights at Anfield might not be so charged in the Europa League.

They are prizes and Liverpool managers should crave them, but the trophies they want most at Anfield are already gone for this season. They are on the outside once again and, this year, there is no way they are getting in. Liverpool are not in the wilderness yet but if they don't make the top four and Benitez is dismissed, they may spend many big European nights watching on tv.

Everton v Liverpool,

Sky Sports 1, 1.30

Sunday Independent