You wouldn’t have expected Ryan Babbel to finally step up to the plate and deliver. I shrieked with delight when he did. Not for him really, as I’ve lost my faith and patience but simply because this was the least the men in temporary white deserved. The more optimists would even have thought that this is even a momentous change in tide for the surely talented Dutch. But a skewed free-kick finally put paid to that and in the grander scheme of things the tide didn’t even last for seven minutes to get Liverpool safely on shore before their other travels, as an inexplicable lapse of concentration afforded their Lisandro a dry path to goal that he made the most of it and left Liverpool with a feeling of frustration and unbelievability that a victory and a sense of hope got undone with such abrupt nonchalance.

Lyon looked to will use their home advantage early on in the match, as they had most possession and looked to press the make-shift Liverpool’s defense. It didn’t last long though as in their first opportunity to attack the French rearguard, a cross by Emiliano Insua was met by Fernando Torres. He was the lad you would pray such chance would fall on but while he tested their keeper, the test didn’t look rigorous enough for the French number one. It did give hope though that really when you get behind them they will wilt. Shortly afterwards it was Andriy Voronin who got his coolness tested. The Ukrainian looks cold enough when he’s on the bench but on the pitch, one on one with the keeper, receiving a pass that had their rearguard all over the place and nowhere near him he resulted simply temperate as he shot in the keeper’s legs and missed a glorious chance to for once get on the good books of some reds.

A draw had been missing from all Liverpool’s matches till yesterday. It was conspicuous by its absence as much as guile and character had been in some of Liverpool’s matches. Destiny though contrived that the return of the latter two be upstaged by an unwanted former. In most instances a draw away from home coupled with guile and character would have been welcomed but the situation rendered the return of a draw as at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It is hard to feel positive after such bad timing and destiny is now far from Liverpool’s hands. It must be the same way Rafa Benitez felt in this summer when a lack of support from the board kept his hand tied behind his back. A winter without proper European football looks bleak and watching from a plateau that this side seems to be stuck at makes you long for the rollercoaster that once this side used to ride under the same manager.