TERRACE TALK: Liverpool - The trick now is to stick around and keep going
That seemed to be that, yet four wins later and chest-beating mode’s been switched back on.
You may be sorry I never got to uncork a vintage column of derby-day gloating. Imagine how I felt.
Stoke couldn’t do it on a cold Tuesday night, and now Man City have been polished off too.
The early December stumble therefore separates us from a rampant Chelsea.
Klopp has started trying the mind games, wondering aloud if the top side in the country might somehow feel anxious after 13 wins in a row haven’t shaken us off yet.
Yeah, I’m sure they’re biting their nails down to the knuckle.
There is a flip side to that and it’s simple. We’ve got 43 points from the first half of the season, our best start since 1988, and we’re still looking up at somebody else.
This is all a bit churlish admittedly, like crying about your free Porsche because it hasn’t got seat-warmers.
The only thing Jurgen and the lads can do is keep going, keep improving.
The wins over Everton and City were different to how they’ve normally played but no less important for that.
Digging in and getting the points any way you can is never to be sniffed at.
There will be plenty of time for wailing and gnashing of teeth at the end of the season.
By then Klopp’s problem will be to stop going the way of all Liverpool flesh. Houllier, Benitez, Rodgers; they all got a glimpse of the lost ark, only to have their teams melt and slither back to mediocrity.
We’re there or thereabouts, the big task in future will be to stick around.
The City game was tense. When old lags feel their legs turn to jelly, particularly during that second half ‘siege’, you know it was fraught.
Looking back at TV replays there didn’t seem an awful lot to be so concerned about. That may be testament to how well Liverpool defended or how poor City were, depending on your mood or colours.
That was the kind of performance this Liverpool team wasn’t remotely capable of, we’d been told.
Experts are in such thrall to Chelsea’s solidity that the assumption is nobody else can do it and they might as well be given the title now.
That certainly wasn’t being said when Arsenal were hammering them but they’ve been on the kind of run since that can make lesser mortals wilt.
Fortunately Klopp has built a team that can show real character.
Wijnaldum has usually been quietly effective, but he was colossal against City and the goal merely underlined it.
James Milner, what a man. He probably won’t be interested in adopting someone 26 years older than himself, but I’ve not given up hope just yet.
Even Mignolet was doing party pieces outside the area with Aguero steaming in.
At the risk of repeating myself; what the hell is going on? I’m not proud of my feverish response to the second, equally fruitless, Anfield return of Raheem Sterling.
I’m rarely bothered by such things; players are professionals and can do what they like with their talents.
When your ship’s stopped sinking and is actually going full steam ahead, the rat analogy doesn’t even make sense but this is something between me and my analyst.
We won, he rarely troubled Milner. That should have been enough. It wasn’t, though.
Anyway, there’s another game today thanks to the ridiculous league scheduling. It’s decidedly paranoid to imagine TV doing its best to gift it to Chelsea but there’s little doubt the holiday fixture dates have favoured them.
Sunderland only played two days ago too.
That’s the straw we clutch for now.
Oh, and the fact that Jurgen’s Reds are looking damn good of late.
There’s always that.
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