For the first time in five years Liverpool topped the Premier League last night and they are beginning to believe the appearance will not be as fleeting or as false this season as it has been during the past 17 years. Indecent title predictions are nothing new at Anfield, of course, hence the appeal for calm and consideration from the manager after their heaviest home victory since a 7-1 win over Southampton in January 1999. But there is a formidable strength to Benítez's team and for perhaps the first time since the flowing yet flawed football of Roy Evans' side of the mid-1990s there is also an abundant supply of goals.
Three victories, three clean sheets and 12 goals scored are the headline statistics from Liverpool's last three outings but the sign of progress is that eight different names are on those scoresheets. Tempting fate and accusations of heresy, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard have not been missed. "I always prefer to have four, five or even nine different players scoring the goals rather than just one or two," said Benítez. "It's easier for defenders if they know they only have to control a couple of players who are going to score."
There is another truism to three impressive performances by Liverpool that needs consideration alongside talk of Premier League ambition, and it concerns the calibre of the opponents they have faced. Sunderland were poor at the Stadium of Light, Toulouse a discredit to the Uefa president Michel Platini's vision of a broader Champions League church, and Derby, to be blunt, were awful. Though lacking several key players through injury and two years ahead of Davies's schedule for top-flight consolidation, the players at his disposal on Saturday produced one of the weakest Premier League performances witnessed at Anfield for years. Liverpool, with Javier Mascherano the epitome of ruthlessness and Fernando Torres wondering what the fuss about English football was all about, executed accordingly.
It took 26 minutes and a fortuitous free-kick from Xabi Alonso to open the scoring, the delivery whipped beyond the head of Dirk Kuyt but also the distracted Derby goalkeeper Stephen Bywater, yet Liverpool authority and the visitors' weaknesses had been established long before that. Slow to press any player in a red shirt, careless in possession, blind to opportunity and offering minimal resistance, Derby were out of their depth in their first examination by one of the Premier League elite.
Ryan Babel struck a majestic second on the stroke of half-time to shatter Davies's team-talk and when Mascherano compounded a dire display by Robert Malcolm to steal the ball from the Derby midfielder and send Torres through for a nonchalant finish in the 56th minute the game was over and the rout was under way. "It was easy for us after that," admitted Benítez. "But we can improve a lot. You analyse the positives but especially in these games it is best to analyse the problems you have had and say, 'Next time we must be careful because it could be 3-1, not 6-0.'"
Alonso slotted the fourth from the edge of the area, the substitute Andriy Voronin prodded in the fifth after a flowing move involving Torres and the tireless Kuyt, and when Andy Todd deflected a through-ball into the path of the Spanish striker the £26.5m record signing rolled in the sixth.
"Fernando has settled very quickly and that is encouraging because it can be difficult coming into a new league," said Alonso. "He has shown he is not afraid of the physical contact here, with defenders trying to put him off, and that is really, really important. He seems to like the challenge of trying to come out on top against defenders."
Davies sought to add no gloss to a performance that would demoralise more fragile characters but his conviction that the Rams' campaign was always destined to rise after the trip to Anfield and the close of the transfer window would test the belief of the converted. "If people thought for one minute there would be no clouds or rain, they are taking the piss," he said. "The showers and rain are here but they will go away. The sunshine will come." For Liverpool maybe.