There comes a point in every season when a manager - or in Liverpool's case, managers - must dispense with any semblance of bravado and honestly address the decisions they take on behalf of others.
As the Liverpool team slunk away to the sanctuary of the dressing-room, Roy Evans turned and glanced in the direction of Gerard Houllier: two men, one problem.
The eye contact was brief but it was probably long enough. When those in whom one has placed trust have betrayed one with such disgraceful relish, words can prove a useless tool.
Afterwards the Charlton manager Alan Curbishley pleaded for recognition for his side's contribution to a game which held excitement but contained too many errors. "Don't say Liverpool played badly; give us some credit," he asked with the knowing smile of a man who knew he was wasting his breath.
The point to be debated was not Charlton's fearless performance but Liverpool's ineptitude. It was a display so utterly hopeless as to cast a dark shadow over the idea that Liverpool might win the Premiership this season.
What comfort there was for Evans and Houllier was of the small-crumb variety.
Robbie Fowler returned after an absence of seven months and scored twice despite a lack of general fitness. Michael Owen proved that the penalty he won against Argentina in the World Cup was but one of many he will get from gullible referees, and Patrik Berger's new-found discipline was worthy of the highest praise. Apart from an undeserved point, that was it.
Liverpool will score dozens of goals between now and May but it will be the number they sloppily concede that will shape their fate.
They were queueing up to contest the award for the least accomplished contributor but, despite the impressive claims of Steve Staunton - looks like Stan Laurel and plays like him too - and Steve Harkness - doesn't look like Graeme Souness but believes he can play like him - the runaway winner was Phil Babb, who was so wretched he was jeered as he made his way down the tunnel - the first thing he had found all day.
Babb was at the heart of all Charlton's best moments, constantly conceding possession while displaying the positional awareness of a blindfolded man in a hurricane.
As Curbishley pointed out, had his team taken all the chances gift-wrapped and lovingly presented by Babb and the buffoons to his left and right, Charlton would have won easily.
But, ridiculously, they would have lost to Fowler's fortuitously scrambled second goal with eight minutes remaining had Babb not presented Steve Jones with an equaliser 90 seconds later.
After missing three very presentable openings Charlton finally poked a hole in Liverpool's tissue-paper defence after 24 minutes, when Richard Rufus climbed well to head home a John Robinson free-kick.
Fowler hauled his side level from the spot after Owen had tumbled - and twirled and twisted - over Rufus's leg but the problem was in those moments of panic when the whole concept of Liverpool as a proficient unit began to fray at the edges. The senior professionals in their ranks could not summon up the guile to take responsibility and lead the less mature towards higher ground.
Clive Mendonca and Berger, the former precise, the latter spectacular, scored before both defences disintegrated to ensure a gripping finale. "We were not at our best today," said Houllier as if to proclaim that he has now mastered the very English art of totally understating matters.
Liverpool: Friedel, Staunton (Matteo 64), Babb, McManaman, Fowler, Owen, Redknapp, Harkness (McAteer 61), Heggem (Thompson 85), Berger, Carragher. Subs Not Used: James, Murphy. Booked: Carragher. Goals: Fowler 33 pen, Berger 67, Fowler 82.
Charlton Athletic: Ilic, Mills, Powell, Redfearn, Rufus, Youds, Newton, Kinsella (K Jones 74), Hunt (S Jones 77), Mendonca, Robinson. Subs Not Used: Brown, Petterson, Mortimer. Booked: Redfearn, Mills. Goals: Rufus 24, Mendonca 61, S Jones 83.
Referee: P Alcock (Halstead).
