Who better to exploit weakness than creator

HOLA, MUCHACHOS. I spent the second international week in Barcelona, taking in the obligatory tour of Camp Nou since we might not get a competitive chance for a while.

You can take the boy out of Liverpool etc. The tour passed through the away dressing room with TV screens displaying the all-time greats who, erm, got dressed there.

Gary Neville? Gary fecking Neville? And no Steven Gerrard. If there’d been a grape handy I’d have happily crushed it.

In fact the only red cited was former Barca star Litmanen. My super-sized shoulder fries grew larger. We have never lost there and they’ve clearly let it get to them, the small-timers.

One dreads to think what they’d do to us now but given our bizarre league record even this bunch of miscreants might give them a good go.

I required lashings of beer and tapas to restore my cheery equilibrium and hoped I would miss little during my absence.

Actually the column could have written itself; international quibbles, stadium name-changes, Lucas debate, risible Hodgson remarks and a nasty bite from another struggling team.

How do we keep turning minnows into piranhas? Hack mischief saw Capello comments on Carroll’s lifestyle dredged up from months ago. Kenny wasn’t fooled; indeed he thanked the Italian for taking Andy off on 60 minutes and cracking a few funnies. How calm and assured he’s been at the helm thus far.

It seems even if we stayed at Anfield the name will change to suit any generous sponsor aka ‘sucker’. Dignity, always dignity… the arguments about Lucas go on after his new contract. Laughable, really. Like most things in life, veer to the centre and you’ll find truth.

He’s okay, y’know? There are four or five positions that need fixing before his. He’s effective in games where we need to stifle opponents, he’d probably have Xavi on toast, but on days we need a shred of creativity he’s clearly not up to it. The most curious Brazilian player ever? Well, there was that guy who screwed the goat I suppose.

Then there’s Roy. With some games you can’t avoid hype and this was one, albeit proving little or nothing about the managerial combatants. As always he tripped over his own tongue and contradicted himself sentence by sentence, but I’m afraid in one instance he’s perfectly correct. The fans never wanted him.

We love our mythology and even now you find people blithely forgetting the Dalglish chants in September and Kenny’s own book virtually begging for the job, convincing themselves we backed Roy to the hilt.

The hilt in his back, more like. Ultimately though Roy was the architect of his downfall. Anyone unaware he was slurping from a poisoned chalice has no right to oxygen, let alone the highest distinction in the game.

Especially when it turns out you’ve neither the stomach nor the will to withstand that venom, which became abundantly clear early in the day.

But he got paid and he still has friends in high places. One BBC ponce said before: “He has steered Albion away from the relegation zone.”

Of course he hasn’t, not even after this win. That’s the kind of blithe indifference to truth that makes some of our number hate him more.

They’ll be chewing their own foot off with rage by now of course but it was painfully inevitable. Who better to exploit our weaknesses than someone who helped create them?