Rafael Benitez had to withstand a tortuous trip to the Ukraine on Monday before walking straight into an astonishing assault on Liverpool's motives and character ahead of tomorrow's Champions League showdown against Maccabi Haifa.

Liverpool's flight from John Lennon airport was delayed for 90 minutes due to mechanical problems before they were forced to wait for another 90 minutes at Kiev airport to get their baggage because their plane 'had been parked in the wrong place'.

Eventually the charter plane was moved to the correct place to allow the baggage to be unloaded but not before there had been further delays over Chile international Mark Gonzalez's visa, while Peter Crouch was unable to produce his passport because it was stuck in the hold while the baggage row continued.

Both players eventually continued their journey to the city centre with their team-mates before embarking on a delayed training session.

Liverpool arrived for this third qualifying round second leg, with £12million hanging on the outcome as they hold a 2-1 lead over the Israelis, they were without injured defenders Jamie Carragher, John Arne Riise as well as youngster Gabriel Paletta.

But then their manager was ambushed by a remarkable sustained assault of questioning from Israeli journalists who criticised Liverpool's part in having the game moved from Israel because of the Middle East crisis.