There is an unnerving familiarity about the way that Liverpool are playing at the moment. With the passing of every game, the team is increasingly resembling that of Gerard Houllier’s final season: one that is overly reliant on a couple of individuals’ brilliance (for Gerrard and Owen read Gerrard and Torres), with a squad weighed down by players who either aren’t good enough or simply don’t care and a manager apparently too stubborn to change his ways.

And the sense of deja-vu doesn’t end there. Just as Houllier took the public backing that he received when he returned from his heart-attack to mean that the fans would support him no matter what, so too Rafael Benitez is in danger of feeling that, given their recent backing, the support won’t turn against him.

Indeed, whilst there are still many who feel that he deserves more time given his past successes, what the fans were really angry with was Tom Hicks’ manner of running the club and how he went behind the manager’s back. It had as much to do with principle as it did with faith in the manager.

In hindsight, Hicks would probably acknowledge that putting public pressure on Benitez wasn’t needed as the Spanish manager is doing a fine job of alienating the fans by himself.

Most certainly, he is the only one who sees the validity in playing Harry Kewell. It is easy to pick the Australian as the weak link in the side when in reality there are at least four or five others who have been playing poorly.

Yet no one has played with as little interest and passion as Kewell has who pays more attention at avoiding tackles than he does to beating his man. He has lost whatever pace he had and offers Liverpool absolutely nothing. Apart from everything, why play someone who is out of contract in the summer and who doesn’t look like he will be offered a new deal?

Kewell’s regular inclusion is a tacit omission by Benitez that he does not have anyone who is good enough to play on the left wing. And that is half the problem because in reality Liverpool are lacking on both sides of midfield. Liverpool often lack width which makes them predictable: all West Ham did to starve Torres of chances was to start the game with three central midfielders

For all the doubts that he might not be a top class player, Jermaine Pennant has to be a better solution than Benayoun who might be right footed but tends to cut inside too much to be a threat. If he really doesn’t want to play Peter Crouch alongside Fernando Torres – as his regular inclusion of Dirk Kuyt and Andriy Voronin seems to imply – then it would be better to play Benayoun there.

The good news for Benitez is that he has some time to turn around the club: the fans’ protests have seen to that. In the past he’s shown that he’s more than capable of moving on players who aren’t delivering (Josemi, Antonio Nunez, Jan Kromkamp, Mark Gonzalez) and he is more than adept at finding good players even without spending too much (Alvaro Arbeloa, Daniel Agger, Pepe Reina) so in that regard he’s better placed than his predecessor.

What has been lacking is a distinct playing style, the willingness to dominate games and play. It is in that direction that Benitez must start to push his team and results will inevitably follow. Otherwise, he’ll be yet another to have failed to learn from the mistakes of others with no one but himself to blame.