Fulham - 2 Liverpool - 4: Liverpool should be fearful they used up their month's quota of luck on Saturday, leaving none for tomorrow's visit of Deportivo La Coruna, but Rafael Benitez could not see it. "We keep the ball, we pass the ball, we control the game even in the first half," he said. This was whistling in the dark of the loot room.

Two down at the interval, his band of expensive imports got a freakish own-goal just afterwards and another deflection from a free-kick to go ahead, before Igor Biscan, butt of the Liverpool fans, came on in injury-time to score a fourth as Fulham went in head-shaking search of a saving point that should have been three.

The equaliser was genuine, albeit through a defence with a stand-in centre-back in Carlos Bocanegra, who sounds like an amalgam of Verdi operas to which The Masked Ball might be added. Luis Garcia darted in to meet Xabi Alonso's cross with a flashing header that Edwin van der Sar could only push into the path of Milan Baros.

Four goals cannot be gainsaid, but Fulham, fragile in overall confidence despite two crisp and crackling goals, dropped their heads at the first riposte. Coupled with the arrival of Alonso at half-time, who brought cohesion and vision, it was enough to kid the manager that "we played well".

Maybe the pleasure of a first league away win went to his head. It was also the first time for 13 years they have won from behind at half-time, the last being against Notts County, now 89th in the League. Times are changing at Anfield as well as Meadow Lane if they can seriously be content with this.

Under Gerard Houllier Liverpool got stuck in a "phase of plateau" way below the summit marked out by Arsenal. Benitez wants "to go step by step" from what he reckons is "perhaps 60 per cent".

If he is to get there in the next 10 years, he needs Steven Gerrard back, though he may get his man, possibly now in three weeks.

As it was, a sloppy pass by Salif Diao gave Fulham the first of two goals in quick order involving Steed Malbranque and Brian McBride, both converted by Luis Boa Morte. Malbranque's eye for the runner was the key in each case and Deportivo will have noted the squareness of Liverpool's defence.

Malbranque is Fulham's catalyst and they may pick up the rhythms and triangles of last season's confidence when he and Sylvain Legwinski are fit to start in harness.

McBride's intelligence, too, should not be left on the bench when Andy Cole is available again on Saturday after a four-match suspension, though Chris Coleman continues to prefer a disciplined 4-5-1 shape with midfielders bursting forward.

The manager, at 34 still the youngest in the league, was in no mood to make excuses, conceding that the team's belief drained away after that own-goal.

"It's no good unless we are all at the races for 90 minutes," he said. "There were two different performances but you can't crumble when you lose a goal. We started panicking. There was a lack of courage. If you start feeling sorry for yourselves, you're in real trouble."

With all their off-field distractions they could have done with kicking off this third start to the season on the right foot.

Proceedings continue in the high court over the transfer of Steve Marlet and the part played by agents. When the club's owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, is not there, he is dodging Turks with alleged designs on an Ottoman Empire alongside the Roman one in south-west London,

Nor is Coleman to manage Wales. "If I was to leave I'd be giving the chairman a slap in the face," he said. None of this can help Fulham keep their eye on the ball.