The decade had begun with Liverpool as champions. It was, admittedly, an ageing side but for the previous two decades Liverpool had carried out such transitions silently with new players being brought slowly in. And it would have been the same this time round as well if Graeme Souness had been of a more patient nature.

Instead, the Scot who had taken over after Kenny Dalglish's resignation concluded that the time had come to revolutionise the side. Souness decided - wrongly, as it turned out - that Peter Beardsley, Steve Staunton and Steve McMahon were no longer good enough. To replace them he went for the likes of Paul Stewart and Michael Thomas, big money transfers who wouldn't have come anywhere near to playing for any Liverpool side of the previous three decades.

The result of his ripping up the previously succesful side coupled with a series of injuries that many blamed on his coaching regime soon started to show. Going into this UEFA Cup game Liverpool had won only two of their previous eleven games, a negative run the likes of which the club had not witnessed since Bill Shankly had led the club back to the First Division thirty years earlier. One of those games had been the away leg in France where Liverpool had been completely outclassed and somewhat lucky to lose by just two goals.

Confidence that the result could be overturned wasn't high and Anfield wasn't even half full as a result. After all, Liverpool had never managed to overturn a two leg result before (although the strength of the previous sides meant that they rarely found themselves finding such a deficit) so what hope was there for this hapless side? That the limit of four foreign players had forced Souness to field a number of young players - Mike Marsh, for instance, started the game at right-back - further strengthened the belief that this was an impossible task.

For all the negativity, however, the atmosphere inside of Anfield more than matched that of other famous European nights. An early Jan Molby penalty helped fuel the hope among the supporters that they were about to witness something special and by half-time the aggregate score stood at two-all after Marsh had headed in a corner.

Auxerre had caused some worries early on and Bruce Grobbelaar had to pull off a good save midway through the first half. In the second, however, they were nowhere to be seen as Liverpool created one chance after another. Extra-time looked to be on the way when, seven minutes from time, Molby played one of his usual defence splitting passes into the path of Mark Walters (pictured) who took the ball between two defenders and then slotted it past the keeper to mark an amazing come-back.

For Walters this was about as good as it was going to get. A decent player who would have done quite well elsewhere in the English first division and indeed had been brilliant at Rangers, the fact was that Liverpool didn't need him given that there was John Barnes filling his favoured position on the right hand side of midfield. Indeed, the fear that he had been brought in to get rid of Barnes made fans wary whilst his middle name of Everton didn't help in the popularity scale.

It was also going to get much worse for Liverpool. There were no more heroics in the next round of the UEFA Cup when Genoa won both in Italy (2-0) and at Anfield (2-1) whilst Souness' horrendous transfer dealings irriversibly weakened the team. But on that night against Auxerre it looked as if it was the Liverpool of old playing out there on the pitch. Sadly, it was to be a rare bright spot in a decade that was to be the worst in Liverpool's modern history.

UEFA Cup second round 2nd leg (November 6 1991)
Liverpool 3 Auxerre 0
Liverpool go through 3-2 on aggregate