HOW many of these games have we seen this year, eh?

The Reds were totally, brilliantly dominant first half. A machine – a pressing wrecking ball of a machine that could have run over anyone. Newcastle couldn’t cope; Liverpool’s shape, organisation and pressing was too much for them and in fairness would have been pretty good against most sides.

This was a Klopp side at its destructive best, able to wrestle the ball back whenever it wanted, without too much of an actual wrestle really. We’re not talking showstopping wrestling like jumping off the top turnbuckle and elbowing a baddy in the grid or a cage match where some fucker makes someone climb a ladder to the sun and then jump off and then uses said ladder to give them a hiding with all over the show.

We are talking a million million-dollar dreams, forced submissions left right and centre, a thousand legal strangulations that cuts off a team’s ability to breathe and allows the heroes to flourish. It was so efficiently impressive we were busy filling our time marvelling at the lack of impact changing the personnel had on the overall ruthlessness of the team.

Their goalie caught the ball off a corner halfway through the half and Kolo, fresh from a big Mama diet pills debrief, decided to do an impression of a dog out of nowhere, put his face to the ball and sniffed the life out of it, looked inquisitively at it for a bit like it might make the goalie throw it for him to chase and then sprinted back to centre half with his dog urges suitably sated. It was as memorable as it was mental and one of them that you needed to be in the ground to see, as I wouldn’t imagine Match Of The Day focused too much on it.

Then the referee blew for half time, George fucked up his Prince tribute, twice, and somehow set the tone for what was coming next. Newcastle didn’t do much different apart from figuring out a way to nullify our threat from the first half. Rafa introduced the kind of Rafa black magic that he has done for years, Christ knows what it was, but our lads who were getting loads of joy and hunting in packs looked isolated and a bit lethargic for 10 minutes. That was all it took.

That and a keeper who can at best be called shite. The only way I’d be alright with his performance would be if he declared that he had confiscated Sakho’s fat burning pills, chopped them up with a kilo of ketamine and demolished the mixture in a show of solidarity to Mama, and it all only kicked in as the cross which led to the first goal came into the box.

That would be just about understandable. This Liverpool team has only allowed two shots on target in the last two league games and yet it has conceded two goals. If we had a goalie with no arms I’d be alright with it. Seeing as though our goalie has got arms and has definitely not taken any drugs in his whole entire life except that time he took two aspirin in error then it’s safe to say I’m not alright with it and he should be run out of town. To make matters worse, I’ve just watched the goal back on Match of the Day and after the first goal has gone in, Big Si The Mig tries to spit on his gloves and misses. Frigging hell, Si.

I wonder why no-one ever gets caught taking decision-enhancing drugs? Like in that film Limitless where the fella takes something and he can correctly read every permutation. That would be helpful. It’s probably because they don’t exist but in the very least, if Mignolet is going to play every week, can someone make him eat some oily fish to see if we can improve his brain power, while we try to commission some clinical trials on a couple of Dumbos using a mixture of Pink Calpol, honey, cod liver oil, salmon fillets and Amoxicillin?

There is a wider issue here though. Liverpool shouldn’t need to maintain the effort of the first half in order to win the game. We need to be able to manage these games in future, especially if we are going to challenge for leagues and cups. If we are playing Wednesday or Thursday, Saturday or Sunday we will need to find a way to win that doesn’t require such relentless work rate or graft.

I think Kloppo will have an expectation of the Reds winning games by grinding teams into submission, getting a lead and then shutting the game down. Whether we currently have the personnel to set up to do this once in front is questionable, especially given the evidence of today and the wider season, for that matter. Liverpool being two up in a game should be as good as a victory – in fact, it should be a victory. I’d expect and welcome a pragmatic recruitment approach to facilitate this next season. A tall full back that can play either side, a new keeper, the new centre half and possibly another one depending on the length of any ban Sakho may or may not get.

In fairness to Sakho there is probably a really good explanation. I’m not having it that the changing rooms at Old Trafford could be classed as a sterile enough environment to conduct such an experiment. I mean imagine the amount of hair drifting about in there that has fallen off Rooney’s head. They would have needed to kit the whole inner sanctum of the stadium out like ET’s human mother’s house when the feds are on him just to get a clean sample. Sakho would only have needed to cough whilst he was pissing into the tube and it would have been like a ticker tape parade of pubes, hair and cobwebs; a similar environment to a loft when new insulation has just been fitted. I’m surprised he hasn’t been ruled out with some sort of bronchial infection in all honesty.

It will all come out in the wash I suppose; not the hair – no chance of that – the truth and subsequent punishment. It’s an unnecessary distraction going into the game on Thursday and the truly bad news is that it brings Martin Skrtel one step closer to getting back on the pitch in a red shirt. If he plays on Thursday we can all look forward to him taking the earlier wresting analogy literally and trying to lash the million dollar dream onto one of their lads in the box, instead of looking at and possibly even head ing the ball. For fuck’s sake, Mamadou.

Hopefully by then the medical trials will have been successfully completed and I will have developed a rather fishy-tasting clever juice that I can drip feed to Big Si The Mig, Albie Moreno and Martin Skrtel in their sleep so they wake up on Thursday morning full of the joys of spring and able to count to five.

Up the clever Reds.