Terrace Talk: No point building an ocean liner with holes in the hull

They could make a film about Liverpool optimism; Gone In 60 Days.

Obviously 60 is a stretch. About 10 is all it’ll take to shoot it down in flames this time around.

Numerous injuries; check. Frustrating lack of players added to squad; check. Major transfer request the day before season starts; check. Calamitous defensive performance in opening game … you get the gist.

I used to hate summer. Three months without football? It was hell. Later it became a soothing oasis before all the madness begins again.

Now transfer speculation has conspired to take even that from us. The game never goes away.

It’s actually blighting lives, an unending shriek of fuming demand punctuated by the stomping of tiny feet.

The world may blow up soon. In that final, agonised moment some may realise there were more important things than where Naby feckin’ Keita (whoever he is) earns his squillions. I suspect some will die still berating FSG.

The club did make an unholy mess of the van Dijk business, too busy PR-ing it to death with the media before belatedly wondering if anyone bothered to call Southampton first.

That gives the whole Coutinho mess a delicious karmic thrust for a nation never slow to savour Liverpudlian distress.

The idea that spending 70 million whatevers (euros or pounds, does it matter now?) on one defender fixes our problems received the shortest shrift possible on one uncomfortable afternoon in Hertfordshire.

Poor old Salah got berated for missing chances. Because obviously any team scoring three goals at Watford must realise that’s clearly not enough, right?

To be fair pining also broke out for a Hyypia or a Carragher, or a manager like Houllier who thought organising a team to repel attacks and corners might be beneficial to a team’s chances, the idiot.

Try putting a bet on Liverpool conceding from a set piece, the bookies laugh and mutter something about “free money” before offering further advice on which orifice your slip can best be preserved.

What did Herr Klopp say? “We will try and sort it out.” Yeah, you do that. Whenever you’re ready.

He’s been all mouth about Coutinho this week.

One stroppy e-mail later and a far less strident Klopp virtually admitted he’s as powerless as the rest of us.

God knows Rafa could be a pain in the arse but he’d have been rallying the troops if this happened on his watch.

It looks more and more like Jurgen was willingly hired to be the Mingebag Messiah, all words about spending whatever it takes to get “Plan A” targets were pure deception.

No point relying on the ingenuity that made Liverpool this big in the first place when you can make a quick trip to Players R Us in Southampton and ask “who have you got for us this summer?” They can’t even get that right, now.

Four main players weren’t fit for the opening game. Before a season with a much-increased workload, that’s something else to gladden the heart.

Is it all gloom? While clearly they weren’t at their best against Watford they still scored three and missed a raft of other chances. This team ever clicks and it will be something to savour, of that there’s little doubt.

But there’s no point building an ocean liner with yawning great holes in the hull. It’s been this way for years, and Saturday made it look as if the problem hadn’t even being addressed.

Coutinho isn’t anyone’s fault, PSG bullied Barca so now they do it to us. Because they know they can. I doubt he’s even going to solve their problems.

Not that it matters. It’s too late to sell, but if FSG do go over Klopp’s head, the subsequent turbulence will make a 3-3 with Watford look like a 3-3 with Milan.

That unpleasant screeching you can hear from across the sea? Well, buy some earplugs. It’s about to get louder.