Hope snuffed out in six minutes!

But the odds and, it seems, the gods are now so heavily stacked against him he must be wondering whether he'd be better off just putting the cheque book back in his desk and locking the drawer.

"We need someone to give us a sparkle," Todd said after seeing his side beaten at Anfield. "And, whatever people think, I've been working hard to bring people in.

"But up to now I've had no joy."

Whatever new recruits Todd is able to bring in before 5 o'clock on March 26 will need the escapology skills of Houdini and the survival instincts of the SAS to get Wanderers out of the fix they are in now.

A miserable haul of five points from a possible 36 since they beat Newcastle at the Reebok on December 1, has left them needing nothing short of a miracle in their final 10 games.

Yet, for the best part of an hour on Saturday, there were signs of light flickering at the end of the Premiership escape tunnel.

Alan Thompson had silenced the whingeing Anfield crowd with his magnificent seventh minute strike and a hard-working team performance was starting to frustrate the Liverpool players.

So when Per Frandsen gave Arnar Gunnlaugsson a clear run on goal just moments into the second half, you thought Wanderers had finally shaken themselves out of their relegation stupor.

Memories of that titanic FA Cup triumph of 1993 - the game that started the Great Adventure - came flooding back but the lively Icelander hesitated with the goal in sight and Dominic Matteo raced back to poke the ball to safety.

Normal service was resumed. Paul Ince popped up unmarked to head in a Mark Kennedy corner then, six minutes later, played a swift one-two to send in England's newest hero, Michael Owen, for his 19th goal of the season.

Relieved Liverpool boss Roy Evans spoke of character: "After that fantastic strike of Tommo's it would have been easy to say it wasn't going to be our day

"It took some heart to come back and win the game."

Suddenly the fickle home crowd was in full voice for the first time since the traditional pre-match rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" while Bolton fans found themselves singing the same old song; witnessing another defeat and, for the umpteenth time this season, wondering what would have happened if...!

Like what if Thompson's curling left footer had dipped another couple of inches instead of striking the bar? And what if the ball had squirted a yard to the left, where Dean Holdsworth would have had a tap-in when Brad Friedel fumbled Gunnlaugsson's dangerous low cross? Even in the closing minutes, as enlivened Liverpool threatened to stretch their lead, Wanderers still had chances to rescue a point. Frandsen reckons he couldn't have been closer when his measured shot flashed wide of Friedel's right hand post and Nathan Blake couldn't have done better than summon every ounce of energy and pace to leave Steve Harkness flayling...other than to have hit the target instead of skying his shot into the crowd with Holdsworth unmarked!

It seemed Todd was being a tad cruel when he criticised his defence for conceding the all-important first goal from a set-piece - the 12th of Liverpool's 20 corners - and basically admitted that his side, decent though it is, just can't get it right in the two penalty areas.

But those are the harsh realities, the fundamental reasons why Wanderers look like heading back to the Nationwide League. They've played some decent stuff at times and had their share of near-misses and hard luck stories but the league table doesn't lie and the 'goals for' and 'goals against' columns tell the story.

Nevertheless, this was one defeat they really didn't deserve.

Evans, desperate for a win for altogether different reasons, felt the need to give a half time team talk on the lines of "keeping our nerve and self-belief". They'd had chances - Keith Branagan doing well to deny Jamie Redknapp, Oyvind Leonhardsen and Stig Inge Bjornebye - but, as he admitted, survived some "hairy moments". On balance they were lucky to have gone in trailing by just the one goal.

Yet it still took Ince's equaliser to put that familiar spring back into their step and confidence into their stride that gave 18-year-old Owen another the chance to excite the watching Glenn Hoddle.

Hence Todd's annoyance. "We know Liverpool will pass the ball well but they do have a lack of height," he explained. "We should have been able to deal with set-plays.

"It shouldn't have mattered whether they had 20 corners or 40, we should have been able to deal with them. Instead we were punished at one and that goal cost us the game and a good performance.

"After that we tended to chase the game, when we didn't really need to. That's when Liverpool will play through you, which they did for the second goal. Yet we'd frustrated them and, if that chance of Arnar's had had gone in, then who knows?"

The "what ifs" can be traced way back to the chances Blake missed at Barnsley in the third game of the season and the "goal that never was" when Everton took a point on the Reebok's first night. In truth, Wanderers have been a relegation-haunted side since the turn of the year and the drop has seemed inevitable since heads went down in the 5-1 home defeat by Coventry.

But they have fought hard since and, despite setbacks, have given good accounts of themselves - albeit inconsistently.

Thompson, indifferent against West Ham and criticised by his manager at Spurs, bounced back to give one of his more influential performances. His super strike from Blake's lay-off speared into the top corner, leaving Friedel no chance.

And the American keeper was equally helpless when his second distance shot hit the crossbar nine minutes later. After that there was a buzz of expectation every time he was on the ball.

Despite his late rush of blood, Blake's performance will have reinforced Wales boss Bobby Gould's opinion that he has in his international squad one of the Premiership's most powerful strikers. The Liverpool fans weren't enamoured, though. They didn't enjoy seeing their defenders given such a tough time and every boo aimed at the Wanderers top scorer was a back-handed compliment.

Holdsworth's efforts were less of a nuisance to the Liverpool defence and, five months since his arrival and three games into his comeback from injury, the record signing is still way short of living up to his £3.5 million price tag.

John Sheridan offered experience in a midfield Todd was forced to shuffle in the absence of Scott Sellars, whose expected return from suspension was ruined by a muscle strain in training, while Gunnlaugsson's liveliness on the left gave the attack a hint of unpredictability.

But the manager, who dropped Jamie Pollock and switched Frandsen wide right to accommodate the Icelander, wasn't entirely satisfied. "I was expecting more from Arnar," he said, "in terms of getting at people and Per wasn't at his best out there."

This was a day when Todd, hoping against all hope, needed more from everyone.

He got good defending but not when it mattered; saw good midfield performers in Thompson and Sheridan but not quite good enough to eclipse Ince and Redknapp; and saw Blake menace the Liverpool defence but, without sufficient support, not quite menacing enough.

"We acquitted ourselves well," he added. "But again we have nothing to show for it.

"We couldn't have asked for a better start and, for all the effort we put in, we deserved something out of the game."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.