Terrace Talk: Liverpool - Say what you like but at least Rafa could organise a defence

Welcome to the annual bar lowering championships, earlier than usual, where Liverpool are looking for their umpteenth title in a row. Practice makes perfect, after all.

It’s almost impossible for this club to lay off the Beatles references, usually in toe-curling promos. Not wise for an enterprise embodying the lyrics of Yesterday. We’re not half the men we used to be, either. Klopp picked his (urgh) Fab Four for the trip to Moscow. I’m assuming that’s why Firmino did his best Ringo ‘along for the ride’ impression.‘There was predictably only one goal to show for it all, with the obligatory throwaway at the other end. It’s reached a point where one conceded is quite the coup, nobody expects otherwise.

Much head-scratching about goalie swapping. There may be one person on Earth who thinks it’s all genuine indecision about ability. The rest believe it must be contract obligation. Or worse; Klopp is worried Karius might leave if he doesn’t get games. The collective shrug would measure 6.5 on the Richter scale.

Managers are all the same though; bullshitters. Spartak thanked Conte for advice that helped ‘achieve’ the draw. If the advice was drop deep, cross fingers and hope we squander chance after chance, it worked like a Swiss watch.

It shouldn’t harm Liverpool’s prospects too much but you never know with this team. You can’t predict what they do from game to game, never mind by December.

Then we found out Lovren’s on tablets, just to get through a game. There are so many punchlines for I’m not even going to sink so low. Such easy pickings are beneath me. LFC; football’s straight man.

Next stop Newcastle and the usual misty-eyed catch-up with old Rafa. Someone inevitably asked if he’d be willing to come back to Anfield one day. I had my fill of Rafa woe in 2010, somebody idolised beyond admittedly considerable gifts and shrink-wrapped in iconic mummification. Least he knows you need to organise a defence. The goals his last Liverpool back-line conceded are still fewer than anyone who followed him. He must scratch his head about Oxlade Chamberlain. You spent £40m on someone you’ve no intention of putting in the team? Meanwhile, at the back Lovren’s on more drugs than The Grateful Dead in order to keep Klavan from making a horse’s arse of himself.

Even worse, Moreno is strutting around telling critics to shut up after he… well, what exactly? Have we reached the point where being adequate is enough for an undignified squirt’s spurt of insufferable arrogance? Seems so.

The only one who should tell anyone to keep quiet is Coutinho. Another brilliant effort, then we waited for Liverpool to take a firm grip of the game. What a delightful seven minutes that was.

Basic stuff. Again. Buy van Dijk if you want, get a time machine and bring young Hansen and Lawrenson back; nothing changes until the manager changes.

There was still plenty of time to miss more sitters and pop a few extra blood vessels. Drowning in a sea of froth and fume, I’m just bewildered by how outraged people can get.

The ones who breezily wafted all protest aside; it’s a new way of playing etc. They are the ones most irate now.

Spare me. You buy into the voodoo of “wishing will make it so” every damn time, and you never learn.

So you must suffer. Slowly.