It is a sad indictment of Liverpool’s current Premier League standing that the encouragement gained by results earlier in the day meant they had a chance to move ahead of Birmingham City in the table. Yes, Birmingham.

Wolves manager Mick McCarthy had even delivered the pre-match insult of naming a full choice team, clearly fancying his chances of capitalising on the Anfield gloom having put out his reserves at Old Trafford a fortnight earlier.

The visitors made life difficult for Liverpool and, midway through the first half, had a purple patch in which Sylvan Ebanks-Blake turned and shot at Pepe Reina, Nenad Milijas solicited a better save from the goalkeeper with a 20-yard free-kick and, from the resultant corner, Kevin Doyle contrived to head over from four yards.

But Liverpool were ultimately deserving of victory, although admittedly the turning point was Ward’s red card.

The defender, having only minutes earlier been cautioned for a tug on Yossi Benayoun, brought down Lucas Leiva. Marriner reached for his pocket, but the Wolves players, mindful of what was coming, encouraged the referee to book Christophe Berra instead.

Liverpool were outraged and their protestations, led by Reina, who had sprinted the full length of the pitch to make his point known, eventually persuaded the officials to reach the correct decision

The hosts needed only nine minutes to take advantage, Emiliano Insua – atoning for a poor performance at Portsmouth with his best display for some time – delivering a teasing cross from the left that Gerrard met above Milijas to head powerfully in.

Eight minutes later the game was over, another cross from the left flank, this time by Fabio Aurelio, eventually finding its way to Benayoun at the far post, who cut inside man-mountain substitute George Elokobi before firing in off Karl Henry’s knee.

Benayoun almost netted another later on while the closing stages were enlivened by a brief Premier League debut for the eye-catching Spanish youngster Dani Pacheco.

There have been so many false dawns for Benitez’s side during the past few months that it would be pointless to speculate if this could be the result to kick-start their spluttering campaign.

A win, though, is a win.

And with a clean sheet and a welcome confidence boost for their skipper, Liverpool will at least believe a corner has been turned.

With Villa to come tomorrow, there is no other choice.