Terrace Talk - Liverpool: Savour the good times while you can

Liverpool's Sadio Mane celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game, marking his 100th goal for the club

Victory; it’s the kiss of death for an irreverent, contrarian column. When the team’s doing well, a grumpy demeanour is entirely inappropriate.

The Kop, with traditional witty bravado, sings about the club having no money — but we’ll still win the league. We’ll see. That’s the spirit, anyway.

When a player limps off (Thiago this time) you’ll get more grievance about transfer indolence, but results are what count. Scoff all you must about United fans’ revolution evaporating at a whiff of Portuguese muscle, but we’re all the same at heart.

Milan in midweek evoked the happiest memories. My old sparring partner Trizia used to complain “do you ever talk about anything but Istanbul?” Guilty as charged.

It was a troubling memory at 3-2 with a minute to go, though how they were even in the game then was a question they’d surely asked themselves in 2005.

Some yearn for the good old days when Houllier or Benitez’s men knew how to shut it down.

Klopp isn’t made of such pragmatic sinew, but it works for him. He does like a mad one; Dortmund, Roma, Salzburg, Atletico, now this. What’s important is that players have the freedom to try something, failure never discourages them. He will applaud the thought, if not always the execution.

Look at Mane at Leeds. Anyone else who’d missed that many chances would beg to come off, but he kept going until the end. Origi, a player who’d used up all nine lives at Anfield, got to flick a perfect chip to Mo to put us back in the game.

And, of course, Henderson’s volley. There were two more sensational strikes on Saturday. That’s our team.

You can speculate on Klopp merely being a lucky general, few pick a totally different defence then get a clean sheet, but he’ll also point to Liverpool’s ability to rectify any situation and, to me anyway, that’s far more satisfying than watching “two flat rows of four” go about its smothering business.

Liverpool's Naby Keita (8) celebrates with team-mates after scoring their side's third goal of the game

We certainly needed it against Palace, also memory-evokers of six-goal thrillers. It could easily have been another but for Alisson, standing behind a completely changed defence.

We finally saw Konate, who had his moments good and bad. I’ve seen worse debuts certainly — Skrtel’s was atrocious — but he was given problems and dealt with most of them.

Milner filled in for Trent. We’d already got his traditional late cameo against Milan, heading straight for the corner flag in the late stages.

It must’ve been hard to stand in for “the best right back in the world” (ahem) but he did it so admirably that you forget how old he is and just want him to play more often. He was wilting before the end but still wouldn’t let Zaha get any foothold in the game.

Ah, that brat; a curious mix of some talent, but mostly petulance and an eternal struggle with gravity. Had Salah got up to any of his nonsense, there’d be 10-page inquests. No wonder we think everyone’s against us.

As for Mo, pay him. His conducting of the Kop after the goal lent more credence to contract standoff rumours. You can ask whether we can afford to give him what he wants. You can more justifiably ask whether we can afford not to.

Palace seemed more fluent, more capable somehow, Viera’s already having an effect. He’ll get longer than De Boer for certain, though Palace must fear it’s a mere audition for the Arsenal job.

It was a tricky week, after Leeds on Sunday and Milan on Wednesday. Klopp’s use of the squad baffled some (Origi? Seriously?) but he again came out smelling of roses. The time for criticism and doubt is when he gets it wrong.

You can tell we were struggling late on, Salah’s goal coming at a crucial juncture. We may be making every match a struggle but that’s how it is.

Relax and savour, while the going’s good.