TERRACE TALK: Liverpool - Players must display a bit more backbone

Klopp will need to hone his alchemy skills. He’s certainly got enough raw sewage to practise on.

The win in Russia proved somewhat elementary, making everyone wonder how Liverpool made the previous three Europa games look so awkward.

Some of these players need to go back to finishing school, mind you. Sturridge’s brittle bones are only annoying because it seems he’s the only one who knows how to score.

That might be a little uncharitable to FC Rubin’s dogged defending, more so to their keeper who remembered the fifth commandment of the custodians’ bible: Thou shalt reserve the performance of thy lifetime for Liverpool.

Everything else was decent. The difference in Klopp and Rodgers’ sides is evident. Add goals, and we’d be off to the races. I wonder if anyone else has latched on to that.

Milner remains an enigma. You do wonder if his appearances and captaincy are contractual, because Klopp’s almost putting him in positions where he clearly cannot function properly. The subsequent injury hinted at him carrying a knock all this time, but that’s clutching straws, frankly.

Henderson’s been mentioned in dispatches, coming back in two weeks, apparently. It’s amazing so little’s been said about him.

The blanket coverage of Klopp’s every sneeze and snicker is beginning to grate slightly. He’s such a character, such an easy headline, that you suspect the obsession will go on a while longer.

We’ll know the team is on the right lines when they become the main story, I suppose. His refusal to let tiredness become an excuse was lauded by many but since Liverpool have yet to win a league game straight after Europe even (especially?) when it’s at Anfield, you suspect fitness is still a factor in our failures.

Crystal Palace were bound to be a major physical test after such a long trip. Sunday games are a massive drag anyway. It’s OK for the occasional TV game, but it’s the main reason people hate the Europa.

Klopp’s technically correct; Wednesday/Saturday is really no different from Thursday/Sunday, or ought not to be.

So why is it then?

Thursday is just not a football day. It’s hard to shake off the feeling that everyone’s nose is being put out of joint for not very much reward, just so the great god Champions League won’t suffer even the tiniest diversion.

Bow down, mortals.

All that crap about City fans being charged with booing Uefa’s ‘anthem’ symbolised how out of control these egos are, and it’s painful to know your own club’s rabidly impatient to renew its role in the whole ghastly shebang.

Pardew, like most top-top English managers, isn’t lacking in comical arrogance (“I see some of myself in Klopp” — indeed) but he’s become a right pain in Liverpool’s backside over the years.

It was an exciting game actually, probably because we’re still so fragile at the back. This manager will sell Mignolet as soon as possible (Palace clearly targeted him) but those in front of him can’t rest on their laurels yet.

It was quite alarming seeing Sakho go off injured. I notice Martin Kelly never misses games since he escaped Anfield.

Consolations? Early days, but Ibe and Clyne look like Liverpool’s right side for years to come. Look at the left side and it’s Moreno and Can. Hmmm. I wrote last week about Can’s candy-floss brain and it went positively gooey yesterday. He didn’t even learn from the catastrophic first goal.

Both thrust forward well but with little end product. To be fair this was a game Liverpool could easily have won. They lost points because of doziness at a late set-piece, same as against Southampton.

Perhaps physical tiredness isn’t the problem, but mentality? The manager knows he can’t talk his way around this, the players have got to find some backbone of their own or they won’t be hanging round.

First stumble. They’ll need to make sure it doesn’t become a tumble. City away next…