Terrace Talk: Liverpool - Mo Salah and his goal of the season challenge

AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE: Mohamed Salah torments Craig Cathcart before scoring a glorious individual goal in Liverpool’s 5-0 rout of Watford in Saturday’s Premier League game at Anfield. Picture: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

It was the weekend after the internationals. It was a midday kick-off. There were injuries, and Brazil had once again messed us about.

The opposition had a brand new manager. There was a big European challenge a few days later, and Jonathan Moss was the referee.

Five years ago, any one of these things would have been enough to derail Liverpool. Now? We’re winning 5-0, with a hat trick from (checks notes) Roberto Firmino. It’s a sign of our inexhaustible progress, or else it’s proof you can never predict anything in this the silliest of sports.

Let’s enjoy it while it lasts, as apparently (checks notes again) Newcastle are about to sweep everybody else aside. That will definitely be the moment that madness, to say nothing of greed and immorality, rules football with an iron grip. Even City’s rise wasn’t as ludicrous.

But Liverpool, amongst others, are culpable in all this. The ‘elite’ did their level best to wipe away a level playing field so that Saudi takeovers are the only route to the top.

The Reds and Tottenham seem to have done the most crying about it, too. Super league candidates, lest we forget – and how easily some have. Back in the day free enterprise and market forces were unleashed in football, and these are the tragic consequences. No point crying over spilled milk, as my gran used to say.

We’ve done our fair share of fiscal intimidation over the years, ask Southampton, but God forbid anyone else try it, eh?

Their big plan was the super league, greatness by invitation only, but if the authorities really are considering a biannual World Cup even ESL might be the less noxious option.

Brazil’s weakening of Klopp’s options for Watford was a callous case in point. The stranglehold countries have over football needs to be loosened, particularly in pandemic times, but we ask for common sense and get blank, arrogant stares back. Again.

There’s too much football already. Squeezing the udders of the cash-cow till she bleeds must result in extinction one day, yet Liverpool fans howl for the club to give one player half a million a week so who’s really at fault here?

Probable

As I said a Vicarage Road debacle seemed probable, like the last visit, but they’ve slumped since. Even Norwich weren’t this easy to swat aside.

Before the game there was talk of Sarr and how he was, ahem, “Mane’s successor”. It’s this kind of arrogance and disrespect that makes everyone hate us. Besides, Sadio isn’t done yet by a long way.

Henderson and Milner were both run ragged by City a fortnight ago but coasted and excelled here. At 2-0 we awaited the usual complacency in the second half. It was a good sign, that the points we should win we probably will.

Salah now seems to be participating in his own goal of the season competition. Messi at his peak had that aura, Matrix-like, of being able to function at speed while others appear frozen in time. There’s another 20 months left to bore ourselves witless about contracts, so let’s just revel in what we’re watching.

The top players should be able to write their own ticket. After Kane’s long contract only served to handcuff himself inside a Tottenham basement, stars like Salah will be ever more reluctant to imprison themselves.

At 4-0 there was a sense of coasting, unsurprising given the challenge of Atletico tomorrow. It’s been a good start in the group, but Diego and Luis the gruesome twosome could soon put the skids under that.

We got a fifth anyway, with enough time for Mane to miss a sitter and remind us the red world hasn’t completely transformed overnight.

With Old Trafford to come. Gleeful gloating about Solskjaer’s fate doesn’t sit well with me. It’s there, it’s them. We’re playing great, but don’t think for a moment United have lost their hold over us, particularly at their place.