Gerrard Leads Rampant Liverpool Through to Give Benítez a Boost

Rafael Benítez will walk out of his meeting with George Gillett and Tom Hicks with a new and improved contract should he make as light of his row with the American owners as Liverpool did their Champions League predicament in Marseille last night.

The first of the pivotal encounters that will shape the club's season and the manager's future was handled so supremely and serenely that it is astonishing to think Liverpool even flirted with a dramatic fall from grace in the Champions League. Now if only the club's hierarchy can follow suit.

It is what Benítez says during his impending reunion with the Liverpool co-chairmen that will influence the length of his stay at the club, but the observing Gillett cannot doubt the European pedigree of this team any longer. Once again Liverpool have proven masters of rescuing a lost cause, producing the victory they required here to secure a place in the knockout stages of their favored competition for the fourth consecutive season under Benítez having taken one point from the opening three group games.

Such outstanding recoveries have saved the Spaniard before, and that was before he brought his superb compatriot Fernando Torres on board. El Nino breezed into port here and Marseille withered.

The Stade Vélodrome did not fail its team, piercing the cold Mediterranean night with incessant screams as they kicked off and brandishing the crests of all six English teams to fall here in European competition like heads on Traitors' Gate, but Marseille failed the Stade Vélodrome. Amid the intrigue to Liverpool's return to the most hostile outpost in France, the inadequacy of their hosts as a Champions League club had been largely overlooked. Within 11 minutes here it could be denied no longer as Liverpool brutally and brilliantly made amends for their Anfield aberration when the teams met last.

On that October night Liverpool delivered the worst performance of Benítez's reign and a Marseille side desperate to impress Eric Gerets in his first game in charge prospered with 13 minutes remaining. Here they were exposed for what they are, 13th in the French league, three points above the third from bottom club, Lille, and with only one point from three Champions League games since that shock victory on Merseyside. With Steven Gerrard inspirational once again on the comeback trail and Torres simply irrepressible, Marseille were blown away.

The high-octane occasion brought adventure from Liverpool's players but produced no risks from their manager, who selected the strongest XI available and dispensed with the experiments that backfired in their first meeting.

His wisdom soon became as clear as the gaps in the French defense. From an inauspicious start, when Gerrard injured himself attempting to collect Dirk Kuyt's weak kick-off, the captain soon dispelled his own fitness fears and the tension of his team when he surged clear of a static rearguard after a neat combination involving Torres and Harry Kewell on the left.

Inside the area Gerrard was stopped by a strong tackle from Gael Givet, who appeared to take the ball and the man and was aghast when the Norwegian referee Terje Hauge pointed to the spot. Gerrard himself drove the spot-kick straight down the center and, though Steve Mandanda made a firm one-handed save, the midfielder followed up to hit the rebound.

But if Marseille had doubts about the opening goal, the quality of the second spoke for itself. Kewell drifted down the left and flicked a pass inside to Torres on the corner of the penalty area. With an instant turn the Spaniard was away from one fluorescent pink shirt, ghosted inside another and then slotted a precision finish inside the far corner. A sublime goal, his 12th in Liverpool colors already this season, and a swift repayment on half of his record £26.5m transfer fee given the Champions League riches it ensured.

The personal cost to the striker, however, was more painful. At the end of a second slalom run he appeared to take a punch to the head from Julien Rodriguez and the other Marseille center-half, Givet, clattered through him on half-time, damaging himself in the process.

Kewell was another of the men in black to shine and his ingenuity and instinct produced a third goal for Liverpool inside three minutes of the restart. Yet again Marseille were culpable for their own problems, Mandanda scuffing a poor clearance, and again Liverpool punished immediately. Kewell lofted a pass forwards for the onside Kuyt, who strolled clear and sweep a shot beyond the keeper.

In the final seconds the substitute Ryan Babel latched on to Fabio Aurelio's pass, touched the ball wide of Mandanda, and rolled the ball into the empty net. For Liverpool and Benítez, this was a comfortable stroll through a time of crisis.