Reds still on Razor’s edge

IT SAYS much about the enigma that is Liverpool under Rafa Benitez that, having knocked Real Madrid off their perch in their own sumptuous backyard, the conquering heroes can return home to headlines which barely find the time to muster a perfunctory olé before they are replaced by the bookies offering bets on the manager’s successor, Rick Parry jumping ship, a reopening of the debate about the genius or otherwise of Stevie Gerrard and the plaintive sound, as clockwork regular as the first stirrings of spring, of the Anfield faithful once again borrowing that line from Van The Man: wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?

When the fans and the pundits are united in bafflement, I always find that it helps to whip out Occam’s Razor, the 14th century philosophical principle which, as you won’t need me to tell you, posits that, when confronted by a range of competing explanations, the simplest is usually the best (Actually, I’m pretty sure that the concept is whole lot more complex than that but, hey, us sports hacks are not very sophisticated folk, so let’s just pretend that I’ve taken Occam’s Razor to it, okay?).

So, how to explain then that, one day, Liverpool can smite the royal household of Real Madrid and the next, struggle to cope with the potty men of Stoke? Before getting thoroughly lost in issues tactical, managerial and boardroom political, how’s about this for a simple, heretical notion: Istanbul was the worst thing that could have happened to Liverpool FC?