TERRACE TALK: Liverpool - After hopes briefly raised, it has all come crashing down

The sublime, the ridiculous. Who knows what you’ll find in Kloppland?

There hasn’t been a Liverpool team quite like this one, and that’s coming from someone who watched all the games under Souness.

They were at one stage heading for a mundane draw with Newcastle — and even that would have been a bit of a joke.

Given what happened four days before, the subsequent defeat made the Mad Hatter’s tea party look like a four-hour lecture on basket-weaving.

Liverpool keep raising the bar when nobody’s looking, when it’s least suspected. Chelsea, City, now Southampton.

The problem’s with the weaker sides, who are only going to shut it down even more after this. There’s an awful lot of complacency in this league, it isn’t just us.

The same Swansea who left Anfield largely untroubled were pasted by Leicester, sitting on top because few take them seriously. Chelsea, as bad as they were before, can’t even raise it for Bournemouth.

Seems the Reds need adventurous opposition to flex their developing muscles.

They’re like talent vampires. Woeful, laughing-stock Newcastle were probably the worst team to face after thrashing Southampton.

The first 20 minutes at St Mary’s last Wednesday, they were all over us. We equalised with virtually a breakaway goal. That won’t be happening again any time soon.

It was nice to get Sturridge back, though he was hobbling like an old man after an hour. “Don’t worry, we’ve still got Origi,” said no one, ever, but where the hell did that come from?

I’ve seen hat-tricks from the likes of Michael Robinson and Ronny Rosenthal, who subsequently became famous for the worst miss of all time, so I wasn’t too overwhelmed and am holding fire on the Origi love for now.

Yet everybody was getting carried away. Some even apologised to the much-maligned Transfer Committee. It was much-maligned for a reason, folks.

Be interesting to see if Brendan emerges with a few “that was mine” and “he was my choice” face-savers.

I’m as willing to believe in Klopp the Magician as anybody but I remember those internet memes of Rodgers chatting with a heavenly Shankly. You never forget such monstrosities. Klopp’s been here two months.

So yes, the League Cup win was tremendous but no reason to go overboard.

A quick scan of cyberspace saw Mancs blubbering about Klopp, usually as a convenient detour to slagging off van Gaal.

Chelsea’s bid to lull everyone into a false sense of security before making their move seems somewhat overplayed, and City are being City again, despite being wealthier than Croesus after a lottery win.

We then got normally level-headed people talking about league titles. You wince, think “you’ll be sorry” but keep your counsel.

After all, people’s happiness and optimism is not to be belittled. Not yet, anyway.

I never used to mind Newcastle but they’ve been jerks the last few times they’ve visited Anfield.

You expect idiocy from others, but the Geordies seemed a decent sort.

If our club was run by Mike Ashley I suppose we’d lash out as well. There but for the grace of hedge-fund Bostonians go I.

So there was already a fear of this fixture for the simple reason we make the impossible look easy and vice versa.

No other explanation — and that’s how it turned out.

Benteke’s got ‘Andy Carroll write-off’ written all over him. Lucas is lost in any game where he needs to go forwards.

Firmino has somehow turned into our worst nightmare; clueless AND not bothered. He needs a rocket and quickly.

I could moan about Moreno’s goal but what’s the point of another two-hour lecture about the vacuity of the offside law?

You can’t beat anyone when four or five of your players don’t show. Klopp would have to be Merlin to alter that.

I think I will start belittling people now, actually. You clueless blowhards blathering about titles? Seems a long way off now, right?

It always was.