SOCCER ANGLES:For the sake of competition, we hope Liverpool reveal unanticipated depth. They can go top of the league again tonight but, as they do, we still await their fall, writes Michael Walker

LIVERPOOL CAN sit on top of the league again tonight. Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park, which should not be beyond title challengers – real title challengers, even injury-hit title challengers – and Liverpool will edge a point ahead of Manchester United, who face an awkward-looking match at upbeat West Ham tomorrow.

So while it could be for less than 24 hours, it is a fact, as Rafa might say, that Liverpool can sit on top of the league again tonight.

This should be a notion for Red pleasure, perhaps even pride, yet the fact, so inspiring to believers one month ago, feels more like something to cling to now. A lifeboat. How can you be top of the league and still feel like your ship is sinking?

The answer is all around. Form, fitness and frayed relationships produce a faltering in belief, and suddenly, my dear, don’t those waves look choppy? It should not be like this. Liverpool have just beaten Chelsea 2-0 in their last Premier League match and it is 14 games since they lost one in the league, on November 1st at Tottenham.

Such statistics should convince. But the buts keep coming: that Chelsea win came only after Frank Lampard’s unwarranted dismissal, so although it was a euphoric victory, it was not a euphoric performance; the three games before that were drawn, the 0-0 at Stoke coming 15 days after Manchester United won there.

And what was Rafael Benitez thinking of at Wigan, withdrawing Steven Gerrard immediately after Mido’s equaliser? Fernando Torres was already off.

Benitez sent on Robbie Keane for six minutes, but then we have known from almost the day he bought him what Benitez thought of Robbie Keane. Not worth the money.

So he sold Keane back to Tottenham on the last day of the transfer window. That left no time for a replacement, but then when you have Dirk Kuyt, who cost €10 million, Albert Riera, who cost €9 million, and Ryan Babel, who cost €12 million, maybe Benitez thought the cover was already at Anfield.

It should be. One of this trio ought to be capable of delivering 10 to 15 goals in the league, the sort of third-party striker contribution that can make the difference over 38 games.

Wayne Rooney was behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez last season at United; Rooney was third-top league scorer with 12. Twelve is a decent haul. Peter Crouch and Andrei Voronin (remember him?) were joint third at Liverpool with five. Five is not decent, it is insufficient. (Crouch will be playing for Portsmouth this evening.)

Kuyt is capable. In his first season at Anfield the Dutchman scored 12 times in the league. The trouble was that made him top scorer, and so Benitez went out and bought Torres. Kuyt’s striking role was compromised as a consequence and last season he got a whole three, two of them penalties. He went from November to the end of the season without a league goal.

This season, having appeared in every league game, Kuyt’s total stands at five. That is nearing respectability, though there has been none since mid-November. Now more of an attacking midfielder – and an admirable grafter – Kuyt has an explanation if not an excuse, and the same applies to Riera and Babel. But it is a fact that these three combined have a total of zero goals in 2009.

That adds further to the idea that, particularly as an attacking force, Liverpool are a two-man team: Torres and Gerrard. This remains the most troubling criticism of the Benitez years, that after all his deconstruction and reconstruction and rotation, Liverpool are reliant on Huyton-born, Academy- groomed Gerrard and a very fine striker from Madrid who did not take much “discovering”.

With Gerrard missing two games at least, due to the hamstring injury collected at Everton on Wednesday early in the FA Cup exit there, and with Keane returned to Spurs in the rushed manner of an unwanted Christmas gift – socks? – we are about to see what strength of squad Benitez has moulded four-and-a-half seasons in.

For the sake of competition, the hope is that Liverpool reveal unanticipated depth. We have been here before this season with that sentiment.

If they are to suffer a knock-out defeat at Old Trafford in 35 days, Liverpool will be pilloried for another domestic under-achievement, but if they struggle even before mid-March, Benitez will surely be examined as not before.

There is already a degree of that among a fanbase biting its lip when it can, but by then even the men in the boardroom, Hicks and Gillett, might agree. George Gillett is said to have expressed his concern about Benitez’ management style to a fans’ group before the Chelsea game. He and Tom Hicks then sat apart in the directors’ box, an illustration of a rum regime if ever there was one.

That tumult behind the scenes will be a Benitez get-out should he go. It clearly plays a role, and if experience is to go by then we are seeing only glimpses of its real effect. Benitez deserves to be heard on that.

But on the squad he has assembled, we are already in session and this team needs to provide some evidence that it can show authority in the absence of its leader Gerrard. Otherwise it is a fact that we think: yes, Liverpool can go top of the league again tonight but, as they do, we still await their fall. Making the doubters doubt that will require a display of all-round power. Tonight and week after week after that.

The cost of watching football

ON ONE level it is hard to argue with the new television deal concluded by the Premier League yesterday, worth €2 billion for the three seasons beginning 2010/’11. In a recession it is proof of the enduring popularity of English football and, it must be said, of television. The game remains one of the most inclusive aspects of English life.

But then it always was. That this was not always recognised by those in control of television – ie, the BBC and ITV pre the 1990s – remains shocking.

Is it really possible those at the BBC saw the golden era of English football in the 1960s and 70s, leading into the 80s, and thought, “We’ll cover this enormous sport with enormous public interest in 50 minutes on Match of the Day”?

What Sky TV have done is reflect the massive interest, but they are too smug to be congratulated on this. There is a determination on their part to make a generation believe the game did not exist before them. They also make a lot of money out of football due to subscribers – fans, they’re called – and advertisers. Without the game Sky TV as we know it would not exist.

How could we survive?

Six years a long time in lives of Saints

MAY 2003 seems like less than six years ago somehow. Or does it? Whatever, Southampton were in the FA Cup final and finished eighth in the Premier League. Gordon Strachan was manager. The club seemed solid and solvent.

Since then Southampton have had seven more managers, including current head coach Mark Wotte. They have dropped one division and avoided dropping another last season by winning their final game. But there is only pessimism that a similar escape can come again. That would be a pretty spectacular fall.

At least they won't lose today. Their match at Watford has been cancelled.