Rafa Benitez: Javier Mascherano dismissal cost Liverpool FC dear at Portsmouth

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez believes the first-half dismissal of Javier Mascherano signalled the beginning of the end for his side as they fell to a 2-0 loss at Portsmouth today.The Argentinian midfielder saw red shortly before the interval after recklessly crashing into Tal Ben Haim, although his feet did not leave the ground.Liverpool were already trailing to a Nadir Belhadj goal when they were reduced to 10 men and Frederic Piquionne added another late on to complete the scoring.Benitez said: 'If you analyse the first half we were doing well, even with their goal but then came the Mascherano incident.'We were a good team in the first half and the sending off changed everything.'We had some chances, we should have scored, we were controlling the game and everything changed with Mascherano.'Now we have to hope we can win our next game.'

Source: Liverpool_Echo