HOW good are Liverpool?

Only eight days ago they were being lauded as alternative champions to Chelsea, yet they have started the season with as much a stutter as a swagger. They beat West Ham United in a repeat of last May's FA Cup final yesterday, but as barometers for their form that is about as reliable as a politician's promise.

Through good and bad, Liverpool nail the Hammers at home and it is 43 years since the Londoners won at Anfield. Yet West Ham pushed Liverpool beyond a zone you could describe as comfortable yesterday and could easily have slipped away from Merseyside with a point. As it was, Lee Bowyer hit the post with nine minutes to go.

That was the case for the prosecution. For the defence Rafael Benitez pointed to opportunities that could have doubled his team's tally and it is difficult to be to hard on a side who had the character to overcome going behind.

Bobby Zamora put West ham ahead courtesy of Jose Reina's error, but Liverpool prevailed thanks to a thunderous strike from Daniel Agger and a rare piece of clinical finishing from Peter Crouch.

It was, not for the first time, a mixture of the sublime and the untidy, by Benitez's team.

"We created a lot of chances, " the Liverpool manager said, "but when you play good teams you need to kill the game by getting the third goal. The last 15 minutes we looked nervous."

Liverpool started like a team willing to gamble and within the first 10 minutes Luis Garcia, Crouch and Fabio Aurelio thumped shots towards the West Ham goal.

A goal looked likely at any moment, and it arrived after 11 minutes, although the fact that it was the visitors who opened the scoring was a shock . . . Zamora crossed to the near post from the right in the hope of finding a colleague's head, only to locate the net instead. There was a touch, but it was Reina who supplied it, the Liverpool goalkeeper losing his bearings completely to tip the ball into the corner of his own goal.

There followed a 25-minute spell where Liverpool went through a grisly repertoire that included most errors open to a footballer, but the fact they had so much possession to squander gave them reason for hope and the cavalry arrived in the altogether unlikely shape of Agger. The Danish centreback received the ball in midfield after 42 minutes, advanced like a man who did not looked entirely comfortable with it and then confounded everyone by firing a into the top corner with his left foot. It was a strike worthy of a Gerrard rather than a stand-in for Jamie Carragher.

If that goal was a surprise then the next, three minutes later, also had its eyebrowrising elements. Garcia took off from the right wing and then slipped a clever short pass for Crouch who took the ball round Roy Carroll and passed into an empty net.

"The most important thing is that we won, " a relieved Benitez said. But then they nearly always do against West Ham at Anfield.