Besiktas demolition a sign of how things could be

SEE what happens, when you let the opposition worry about you for a change?

The situation in Europe still looks bleak of course. The mauling of Besiktas could well make Porto and Marseille more cautious than we need them to be.

But anyone complaining about eight goals is in danger of losing what little joie de vivre they still had.

It’s great hearing the experts denigrate the Turks’ admittedly lax defence. Funnier still to hear Rafa fans claim we didn’t do anything different tactically from previous matches! Throughout this tournament’s history giants have faced ‘minnows’ and no one else has scored that many.

Arsenal and United get seven? Attacking master-class. Liverpool score 8? Defensive catastrophe. So it goes.

I’m usually the ringleader of the “go on, impress me” gang but would a little credit kill them? TV commentators urging Rafa to smile completely miss the point. This is serious business. He’s not a game-show host.

Ignore too those who bleat about events in Turkey a fortnight before. They’re the Nouveaux with no history to fall back on. When football becomes an exact science it’ll be time to take up crocheting.

Such disparity is not uncommon. Liverpool’s last title winners put nine past Palace but they still knocked us out of the cup. We also put eight past Swansea after drawing away. What’s logic ever had to do with it? If the referee confused his sports and TKO’d Besiktas at half time we couldn’t have complained. Goals, near misses, woodwork glanced, desperate tackles, a frazzled goalkeeper: airtight evidence of a team finally unshackled.

I dislike the ‘superfans’ who sneer at their inferiors and utter that fatuous cliché “you want entertainment – go to the circus”.

Last week was how it ought to be, used to be and can be again if the manager only realised his own potential and that of his players.

If ever you hear the words “football manager who plays chess” reach for the nearest bludgeon and knock yourself out. Or simply wait for the ‘football’ to do it for you.

The second half was a wonderful bonus, the result of a shift in ambition that has been too long coming.

Accuse me of embroidering the theory somewhat but there does seem to be a karmic reward for adventure. Deflections fly in, saves fall to the nearest Liverpool player, decisions suddenly go in your favour.

You think that’s fanciful? Watch any game at Old Trafford and we’ll talk further.

Gerrard’s back in good form while Hyypia and Carragher have raised their game from a curiously low level. It’s great Sami found a second wind from somewhere. Legend isn’t a word to be bandied about lightly, especially for someone without a league medal, but in Hyypia’s case I’ll gladly make an exception.

Not that Fulham or Besiktas gave him much to do. In a way Saturday was the better result, a triumph of persistence over stiffer resistance.

Thank God Rafa still has a sense of fun and occasion. He last picked an unchanged team when he was on the brink of 100 rotations, then hands in a duplicate team sheet for his 200th game in charge! How he must have relished the irony when our fortunes turned once he made changes. The visitors were unnervingly comfortable, and it’s one of our biggest flaws that the clock needs to tick louder before we show the required urgency.

Some fans take comfort from a decent performance but the rest realise it’s a results-driven business. Another two points dropped at home, however unluckily, and a howl of derision out of proportion with our position would have woken the dead.

It was great to put one over on Sanchez, a man I’ve despised since 1988 and who has dined out on that goal ever since. He’s another of these two-bit managers who can only blame officials when things go wrong, and his assessment of Torres’ goal as a mis-hit was ludicrous.

Niemi meanwhile paid the ultimate price for refusing to acknowledge the traditional Kop welcome. He’s not the only one nowadays.

In a sport plagued by ill-mannered braggarts and impossibly poor losers it seems churlish and reckless to chip away at one of the few remaining acts of sportsmanship in the game.