Terrace Talk: Liverpool - Salah, to steal a blunt political phrase, got it done

Now it’s getting tense, really tense. A simmering hubbub at Anfield flickered into genuine panic when Virgil van Dijk, of all people, almost passed into his own net and Watford, of all teams, kept missing good opportunities.

The points were won, eventually, and while it might seem unflattering, unsatisfying or even demeaning there’s no point in focussing on anything else right now.

Top versus bottom, they said, whatever that’s supposed to mean. It was almost-top versus almost-bottom for Leicester, and a fat lot of good it did them.

Everyone seems buoyed by Jurgen Klopp’s new contract, like it’s cast in stone that any manager (or player) must stay once he’s scribbled his name on a piece of paper. This isn’t a Faustian pact y’know, but fans always hypnotise themselves into believing it means something.

In fairness it does imply that Klopp intends postponing his rumoured sabbatical while the going’s good, but there are several stories circulating about Pep Guardiola looking for an escape hatch, months after a domestic clean sweep. That’s how quickly things can change.

Less fuss was made about James Milner’s extension but there should’ve been more — and it isn’t all sentiment, either. His influence around the place is incalculable, serving a similar purpose to Gary McAllister’s stay during the Houllier era.

It’s all well and good telling kids about longevity, about being professional and doing the right thing; much better to have a living embodiment of it standing right alongside you.

Europe was safely negotiated, with the potential bonus of swiping one of Salzburg’s best players on a cut-rate deal.

As well as things are going, there’s no time to rest on laurels. It’s heartening to see Liverpool at least attempt to surf this wave a while longer.

The country’s predictable lurch to the right was a downer, obviously. Football often makes you flippant about real life.

Liverpool’s golden age did coincide with Thatcher’s dominion. It was hard not to forecast further good fortune during another five years of her exploded-sofa spawn.

Not that the Watford game necessarily inspired such hallucinogenic flights of fancy. Against a team with any confidence in its finishing, Liverpool might well have been dead and buried.

Thankfully Mo Salah got it done, to steal a blunt but clearly effective phrase. Stick it on his right foot and he’s all-conquering, which is just as well since he’d been Sean Dundee-esque on the left. Now there’s an analogy…

Saturday’s fare was slack and sloppy, with poor decision making all over the pitch. Even VAR, Tonto to our Lone Ranger, went rogue and wiped out what should have been a calming second goal. It’s a mess, reducing the beautiful game to microscopic exactitudes and taking far too long to do it.

Injuries are starting to creep up on us too, rotation being borne of necessity rather than a manager deciding which opponents are or aren’t worthy of our best. They got away with it against Watford, but bigger challenges lie ahead, and the walking wounded had better burst into a jog soon or else.

We vacate these shores with a nice lead, while Leicester City and Manchester City thrash it out next week in our absence. I’ll admit that never being called “world champions” has rarely troubled me before.

The club set the tone early by not even competing for it after the first two European Cups. I did stay awake until the wee small hours for scratchy radio coverage in 1981, but Zico’s Flamengo had made it academic by half-time.

With the League Cup having to be casually abandoned, and the Champions League shelved for two months, it’d be quite understandable to believe the Premier League is all that really matters now.

It sucks that this will all be happening under a wretched, borderline psychotic government run by Ebenezer Scrooge’s unrepentant descendants, though.

God help us, every one.