IT wasn’t just the icy breeze on the south coast which sent a shiver down Liverpudlian spines on Saturday.
Coping with the freezing temperature was nothing compared to the agony of watching events unfold on the pitch.
A season which has lurched from one wretched experience to another reached a new low at Fratton Park.
If the midweek win over Wigan offered hope of a revival, it was snuffed out by a pitiful defeat at the hands of the Premier League’s bottom club.
Javier Mascherano’s controversial sending off before the break left Rafael Benitez fuming but this was no hard luck story.
When the Argentine saw red for his lunge at Tal Ben Haim, Liverpool already trailed to Nadir Belhadj’s goal.
And so desperate was their first half display that there was nothing to suggest they were going to mount a fightback.
Referee Lee Mason was bewilderingly bad but Benitez would have better off directing his ire at those in his own dressing room.
The travelling fans, many of whom had left in the middle of the night to make the 550-mile round trip for a lunchtime kick-off six days before Christmas, were badly short-changed.
Twelve months ago Liverpool were on top of the tree and dreaming of Premier League glory. This time around festive cheer at Anfield is in desperately short supply.
They find themselves slumped in eighth and with the gap to the top four now eight points Benitez’s public guarantee of Champions League qualification seems ever fanciful.
Liverpool have won just four of their last 17 matches and one of them was against Hungarian whipping boys Debrecen.
They haven’t secured back-to-back league wins since September and so far this term have dropped 27 points, only one less than in the whole of last season.
So where did it all go so wrong? Of course Xabi Alonso has been missed but to blame his departure for Liverpool’s ills is far too simplistic.
This is largely still the same side which secured a club record Premier League points haul.
Undoubtedly injuries have hit hard but the fact is far too many players have simply failed to deliver.
Confidence appears to be so brittle that when things go against them they wilt. They are in a rut and have been for three months.
