Hull win proved a false dawn

WHO was the crowing idiot who wrote “so that’s the easy part out of the way, what’s next?” after we walloped Hull?

Yes, yours truly, and after two months of hideousness you’ll be delighted to learn they make dunces’ caps in my size.

Commiserations on your World Cup woe, but we’ve got problems of our own so sympathy is in injudiciously short supply. Besides, you Reds can always watch your Istanbul video to cheer yourselves up.

You will particularly enjoy the prancing Polish sprite stopping Milan from scoring penalties.

And there lies the rub; we won, so a little bending nay twisting of the rules soon makes you realise you can turn a blind eye to almost anything.

Winning whatever the cost has become so engrained in the game, from you ! the supporter right on up to the greedy guzzlers at the FIFA trough. It has not been a ‘sport’ for decades.

Why do you think Liverpool fans are sweating over something so patently NOT an achievement as fourth in the league? First place? I would lust after it if I could see it.

The international break is Harvest Time for seasoned Benitez observers. He gets bored and feels something, anything, must be done. One sometimes wishes he’d take up thumb twiddling.

Last week was especially bountiful, providing a series of articles that would make Pravda blush. When the opening gambit is “Enter Rafa, and instantly the Academy staff are bathing in a little Spanish sunshine” you just know your cup will floweth over.

For someone regarded outside Anfield (and by a growing number inside) as a drowning man, the last requirement is a barrel of syrup poured on top. Some science nerd will no doubt claim it provides buoyancy, but I’d prefer to throw him a life jacket tied to three points.

There were valid arguments that there’s so much press hatred of Rafa lately that it was nice to read something that didn’t stink of a plot to oust him, though claims that he’s used as a deflective shield for Ferguson’s woes, such as they are, were overdoing it.

There’d also been a wave of blather about how well we played against Birmingham, stretching a point in more ways than one. No such luck against the nouveaux riche, sadly; we were indisputably poor.

It was built up as a battle of the sackables, and despite his dubious claims of superiority afterwards I’m not sure Hughes can take heart from it either.

So used to coming here and clutching any straw for moral victory, City’s post-match preening was entirely out of order. What are they doing in training?

Maybe it’s the kit design but I haven’t seen a fatter team than theirs since Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and Barry was especially lousy. Rafa’s gophers still torment Parry (the scapegoat that keeps on giving) for screwing up that deal, but on Saturday’s evidence the words “dodged bullet” sprang to numerous minds.

It was such a casually inept performance, disorganised and almost disinterested, that it merely brought our own inability to beat them into sharper focus. We’re certainly not helped by injuries but even so everything just seems wrong at present.

I’m not happy about Carragher forever being shunted to the right, especially when Kyrgiakos or Skrtel make big mistakes and Agger can never be trusted to survive even minimal contact. We’re beginning to wonder about Aquilani too. Saturday was the wrong time, especially after Daniel’s woes and Babel also limped out, but his absence is causing concern.

All those stories about Roma screwing up and Liverpool’s healers curing him with almost Messianic ease now seem like spin, par for the course with this club nowadays.

Stats bores work overtime, rediscovering past examples of victory drought to placate the mutinous masses. I can pull that trick with both eyes closed. In the Hillsborough season we started like this, doubly galling when we’d been magnificent the year before. Then our heroes returned to fitness and played better than ever. Now, we wait and wait to restore a side unproven in its post-Alonso/post-Hyypia effectiveness. Sami has been colossal in Germany. As we watch one set piece after another undo what he left behind, we can only shed a silent yet manly tear in his absence.