Liverpool's woes at another dismal defeat on Monday could be further worsened after Steven Gerrard was pictured making a crude gesture at the referee.
Hugo Rodallega's goal gave Wigan Athletic a 1-0 win over the ailing Reds at the DW Stadium and as frustrations heightened among the away side, referee Andre Marriner rightly booked Gerrard late on for a careless tackle from behind on James McCarthy.
A photo of the England vice-captain giving Marriner the two-fingered salute, while eschewing a spew of verbal including a seeming obscenity, adorned several newspaper back pages on Tuesday and the player is now likely to be the subject of disciplinary action from the Football Association.
Unsurprisingly Gerrard's manager Rafael Benitez had nothing to say on the matter other than: "I don't know if Steven did anything or not, because it was too far away to see."
Meanwhile, the tame defeat leaves Champions League place-chasing Liverpool - who failed to get a shot on target throughout the 90 minutes - in sixth place and having played more games than all their rivals for fourth place.
Benitez added: "We have to win games. We cannot approach an important game like this and then play in this way.
"You have some good games, bad games, but at this time in a crucial moment I think we could do better.
"We had some chances but we didn't play well. If you approach the game in this kind of way you cannot win this kind of game or maybe any game. Everyone is very low.”