I realise in the wake of the magnitude of recent performances/results my statement might appear outlandish, possibly a bit delusional even. The reality is, however, that it is precisely in games such as yesterday that a team with any lofty aspirations simply has to fall back on a 'middle level game' to deal with such tenacious 'middle level' opposition.
Our abilities to vanquish opponents of the highest class has, for some time now, not been in question. As I wrote in that recent 'David Lynch' piece and as many others have expressed too, this team does not appear to have a problem in raising its performance level against the best. Rather its problem has been against those infuriating teams - such as Charlton - that have reasonable standard players throughout the their team who themselves raise their own games against us both individually and collectively.
What we have seen in the recent past is such teams hustling and harrying Liverpool out of their stride. Charlton were doing that yesterday as well as we have seen any team of their quality level do so. In recent seasons we, meanwhile, have struggled to adapt to such disruption and have tended to resort to a long-ball fall-back plan which has often comes unstuck. The consequence has tended to be that the outcome of such games has invariably hung in the balance. Certainly you could NEVER put your money on us grabbing a win.
Not any more it would seem.
Yesterday, we saw a resurgent Liverpool resort to their latest fall-back plan. And what a plan. What a heartening revelation it was to witness us play well within ourselves, yet continue to play decent team football and in the end make our superior talent, individually and collectively, pay dividends.
The upshot was a performance and a result that for me announced that we are certainly witnessing the infancy of a team that, notwithstanding the massive over-achievement of last season, will surely now go on to re-write our history books.
Indeed, when you reflect on the youthfulness of the current squad and the prospect of those two French lads plus Vignal, Baros, Walsh and others still to emerge, the prospect is positively awe inspiring.
Gerard Houllier - and Phil Thompson for that matter - you have an awful lot to answer for. Indulging people in the way you are doing to us is not really the thing to do. That said, seeing as it's you, we'll allow you to continue doing it. I, for one, can put up with once again being spoilt to high heaven!
Alan is the author of Faith Of Our Fathers - a must-read for Liverpool fans everywhere.