The hoardes who cram into the Kop to savour Anfield’s unique European flavour will have tasted few more unappetising dishes than what was served up by The Reds against Atletico Madrid.
Disjointed, unconvincing, uninspiring or lucky are a few choice words that have been scattered unimaginatively on newspaper pages, but facts are facts and Liverpool were poor.
The ever-pragmatic Rafa Benitez can console himself in the knowledge that trophies are reserved for the month of May and not November, but The Reds, for all their resilience and dogged determination to turn scorelines in their favour, have yet to hit top gear.
But perhaps their failure to hit the high notes in their early season skirmishes is no bad thing. They are after all only behind Chelsea in the Premier League rat race on goal-difference and are now primed for Champions League qualification.
Championships and Champions Leagues are not awarded by a panel of judges for style and artistic interpretation, they are won by results and victories – and this season, Benitez’s record at delivering the latter is not in doubt.
Liverpool have been lucky, so we are told, and Steven Gerrard’s 94th-minute penalty against Atletico would go someway towards supporting this idea.
But with a hatful of chances going begging and a more legitimate appeal for a penalty being turned down, a little reflection suggests if anything it was only misfortune that prevented The Reds walking away from Anfield on Tuesday with three points in the bag and Champions League qualification safely tucked away.
Perhaps Liverpool’s failure to put sides to the sword in more emphatic fashion is not down to luck. Perhaps they are just a different type of team to that which the entertainment-hungry football fan loves to laud.
They are not an all-guns blaizing, all-out-attack-minded destroyer. Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, when on song, will leave their opponents for dead in a far more convincing fashion than their Merseyside rivals. But again, Benitez will care little if his side keeps producing results. After all, a win is a win and goal difference rarely comes into play at the season’s end.
Benitez sets his side up first and foremost to be hard to beat. And having only lost once all season, in rather unfortunate circumstances at White Hart Lane, they are certainly that. Fans of Premier League football demand entertainment first and foremost and Benitez’s teams rarely deliver this valuable commodity in such quantities as the other members of the ‘Big Four’. But this does not make them a lesser side – merely a different one.
Their priorites are maybe different to the other Premier League power-houses. Chelsea and United invest heavily in attacking talent and make these players central to their systems.
While Benitez is not averse in splashing big-money on a forward, with the exception of Fernando Torres, you get the impression Robbie Keane and Dirk Kuyt were recruited for their industry and defensive qualities in equal measure to their goalscoring prowess.
Not conceding is clearly of an equal priority to finding the back of the net for Rafa’s Reds. And perhaps therein lies the reason why Liverpool are thought to be in second gear, while we are constantly told that Chelsea and Manchester United are purring like finely-tuned Rolls Royces.
This is not to say that all is rosy in Rafa's garden. Questions remain that will need answering as the season progresses. For all Liverpool’s possession against the Spanish, they looked blunt, and resorted to lobbing hopeful balls into the box as the game wore on.
The return of the hamstrung Torres should give them the edge they have missed in recent weeks, but his comeback will give rise to an even more fundamental problem.
With Torres in the side, Benitez must decide whether to stick with the misfiring Robbie Keane and return to a 4-4-2, or jettison the Republic of Ireland striker and stay loyal to the policy of employing a solitary striker that seemed to be paying dividends at the tail-end of last season.
With Alonso currently Liverpool’s best midfielder and Mascherano almost undroppable as the enforcer, switching to four in midfield would involve shifting Gerrard to wide right. While Albert Riera, whose place in the starting line-up seems assured after beginning his Anfield career with such a flourish, seems happier as an out-an-out left winger than in the more advanced role that Ryan Babel made his own last year. Benitez, perhaps, has the answers.
But the only answer the Spaniard will ever be able to give to truly silence his critics, is the Premier League crown. And while they are currently playing without flare or innovation, they remain comfortably placed to continue their title charge.