But the City goalkeeper could do nothing five minutes after the interval when, after Pablo Zabaleta had held Ngog, Gerrard whipped in an excellent free-kick from the left that Skrtel reached ahead of Emmanuel Adebayor to prod home his first-ever Liverpool goal.

It was a deserved, hard-earned lead.

Yet Liverpool made the fatal mistake of then inviting pressure from City who twice exploited this recurring defensive nightmare that shows no signs of abating.

Yes, Benitez’s game-plan was disrupted by Glen Johnson withdrawing shortly before kick-off and the subsequent departure of Agger.

But questions will once again be asked of the Spaniard’s persistence with zonal marking and a failing to put players on the posts after Skrtel afforded Adebayor the freedom of the penalty area to head Craig Bellamy’s corner beyond Pepe Reina for a scarcely-merited 69th-minute equaliser.

More alarming, though, was the collective failure that allowed City to forge ahead seven minutes later.

Under minimal pressure from the Liverpool defence, substitute Carlos Tevez strolled infield off and fed Shaun Wright-Phillips, who turned Sotirios Kyrgiakos too easily and crossed for the unmarked Stephen Ireland to slot home from eight yards with Lucas Leiva and Emiliano Insua both dawdling to reach the City man as he jogged into the penalty area. Too easy. And that is Liverpool’s problem right now; they simply do not make the opposition do enough to earn a goal.

Thankfully, City have a similarly soft centre and just 72 seconds later, their failure to clear gave Ngog the chance to fire a cross-shot that deflected into the path of Benayoun, the patched-up Israeli reacting quicker than Zabaleta to force the ball home.

It was a fifth goal of the season for Benayoun, who has by some distance been Liverpool’s most consistently effective outfield player of the campaign.

Despite parity, an injury-hampered Liverpool were nevertheless there for the taking had City manager Mark Hughes shown the same level of ambition as his club’s billionaire owners.

But the visitors’ curious hesitancy meant Benitez’s side finished the stronger, and should really have claimed all three points in stoppage time.

Lucas failed to connect properly with a free header from Gerrard’s right-wing corner.

Instead, it’s now just one win in 10 for Liverpool. And such is there predicament, even a badly-needed victory in Budapest tomorrow may not be enough to rescue their Champions League hopes.