James Lawton: Merseybeat finally finds its own rhythm

If this had happened to another team you might have said they had rampaged into the heart of a crisis and won. But Liverpool's coach Rafa Benitez doesn't do crisis... or the building blocks of a team's confidence.

He has periodic reassessments of his available strength. They can come as frequently as twice a week, depending on the time of the season. Who knows, one day a Liverpool team which has a life and a rhythm of its own might just emerge. Last night one happened in spite of itself – and left a spellbound crowd dreaming of a new phase in the club's history.

In the meantime everything depends on the chemistry produced by strangers in the night and here the big mea culpa of Jamie Carragher on behalf of himself and his team-mates – "blame me and Steve and not Rafa" he was said to have declared – was suddenly redundant.

Liverpool at times dovetailed much less than perfectly, but by early in the second half they were unrecognisable as the team who for so much of this season have come on to the field in search of introductions as much as veins of golden form. Their conquerors in Istanbul, Besiktas, were promptly swept away.

Whether this proves a foundation for the avoidance of the embarrassment of failure at the group stage remains a significant question as the American ownership apparently flinches at rising costs for the proposed new stadium at Stanley Park, but for 90 minutes there were again a few certainties at the home of the team who, it had becoming increasingly difficult to recall, had appeared in two European Cup finals in three years.

Benitez, who early in the game resembled a puppet-master nervous about the movement of each of his marionettes, relaxed to the point of retiring from the technical area for several minutes on end. Entirely coincidentally, perhaps, the less he bombarded them with staccato hand signals, the more Liverpool seemed to touch the mythic status of a team doing what comes naturally in the company of team-mates whose next move they could anticipate.

This reached a wonderful apotheosis in the 69th minute when Steven Gerrard hammered home the fifth goal after two breath-taking one-twos, the first with Javier Mascherano, the second with Andriy Voronin. Here was the kind of cohesion you get with more than occasional contact with players whose every little instinct you need to know.

Gerrard's goal, it is true, came long after the Turks had laid down their scimitars, not that they had wielded them with any great flourish at any point of the game – and certainly they had been cowed into deep submission by the time Yossi Benayoun completed a hat-trick that England coach Steve McClaren must hope has not left him spent of all potency when the Russians arrive in Tel Aviv later this month. However, Gerrard's strike, coming at the end of such a burst of fluency, signalled the surge of belief which has been such a crucial need from so early in the season.

Here was the blazing argument for a settled team grooved into a way of playing that doesn't make every new game a journey into the unknown, and when Ryan Babel came on and seemed not to be able to stop scoring, the point could scarcely have been more spectacularly underlined.

Peter Crouch, the neglected folk hero, was the first to make the point that he hungered for something like a prolonged run into the team. He played with a vigour, and an optimism, of a man who believed that he had been given all that he needed: a chance to operate along the peaks and the valleys of one whole game, and soon enough he had struck a blow at the Turks, who had played prettily enough until the first serious rise of pressure.

His opening goal – he would score a second at the climax of this extraordinary Liverpool breakout – was a statement about what can come from extraordinarily committed players who are given the chance to be part of something more permanent than the tactical sketches on a super coach's notepad.

Benitez has racked up formidable achievement at Anfield. He is a man who has carried Liverpool to the peaks of football, but here we had a glimpse of what can happen when a team is given its head.

Gerrard, Crouch, Benayoun and Voronin all produced exceptional performances, but it was Mascherano who perhaps produced the most compelling evidence of a player operating at peace with himself and his role. He was endlessly productive, both in the tackle and the pass – here was a central, consistent theme of easy accomplishment.

Benitez has more of this at his disposal than he sometimes suggests. Last night this was not so much an escape from crisis as a glimpse at what all the Anfield yearning has been about.