It is a classic Catch 22 situation. Joseph Heller is probably immune to it all but the likes of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley are probably turning in their graves. The chicken is crowing, while the egg is lying peacefully on the straws. In the meantime it is impossible to determine who was first, the chicken or the egg.

I stand by every word I’ve said in my previous posts about the boardroom upheaval, insecurities and differences laid out in the bare in a sad unorthodox Liverpool way. It has definitely affected the players psychologically and it showed on the pitch. Now, though these last few performances and in particular yesterday’s match against West Ham can only aggravate the situation. And someone or even some have to stand up and take some responsibility. It is also the Liverpool way to repel adversity. In football or otherwise we had the classic militant stance taken by most Scousers in the eighties when their bread was getting snatched away. A certain female prime minister asked them to get on their bike. It seems some of the lads at the moment have certainly took this bike idea, as they seem to get on the pitch for a ride purpose. In the year when Liverpool has been crowned the European Capital of Culture, the beliefs, behaviours and characteristics of the true symbol of the city are getting lost and muddled in a humiliating way.

The manager has been getting all the support he could ever dreamt of whilst he was and probably still is in the middle of the whole controversy. At the start of the season we were debating rotation. Now it seems in the Premiership, the manager is intent not to rotate his strikers. There is no question about Fernando Torres as at the moment he is one of the very few who can give us a glimpse of hope but the insistence of starting Kuyt is quite baffling and verging on stubbornness of Houllier proportions. Kuyt is definitely not one of the lads getting on the pitch for a ride, but he does seem to be getting on a bike to challenge someone on a motorcycle. He pedals, sweats everything out but ultimately can never be at the finishing line when it matters. His goal scoring record this season says it all. In the meantime Peter Crouch warms the bench, and stays there till the very end.

The penalty at the very dying minutes might have been cruel. Sadly though and it is another anomaly of the situation it hasn’t left me as gutted as I usually am in such situations. The club, the situation and the match itself were already too messed up for a last minute incident to make much difference. In the meantime, the position in the table stares expressionless at us, at the same time giving an eloquent statement of affairs.

Another match, another draw. Another two points dropped. Another feeling of déjà vu. Another feeling of emptiness. Another match to confirm the distance between what we hoped for and where we actually are. In the meantime the air of uncertainty and unrest lingers on. It is not a cause of dirty laundry getting washed in public, but more of unwashed dirty laundry set in public to get examined and laughed at. Big Brother seems to be operating in the corridors of Anfield. The formality of a football match is only there to confirm the above.

The captain further confirms that such uncertainty has lingered for too long now and it is affecting the players. It hasn’t bonded the players together more. It has only fastened a noose on every player’s neck. While a big rope is felt by their necks, their future is hanging by just a thread. Hanging time it is. But the ones who should be hanging exonerate themselves from their jury and leave their seats empty. A football match for them is a mere side occasion in the grand scheme of things. And they probably can’t understand the fuss on it all. Much bigger companies merge, jobs are lost, a few headlines are made and in a few days the headlines look for a different story. Such is life.

Peter Crouch saved face. Rather than a giraffe he looked more like a gazelle. It was still not enough though. We have just moved further through the crossroads. We have to change the road we are in as there is only a big wall in front. The roads offered though are still unlighted and the map does not recognize them. In the meantime, another match will be just another formality. What for the Godfather was more important than life and death, it is now a formality. A word which probably was not allowed in his dictionary.

Times and things change, not always for the better though.

I watched the match today or yesterday, depending on the time zone you are in on ESPN. A haphazard guess would be that both Messrs Hicks and Gilett follow the fortunes of the reds from the same channel. As the match was one minute old they inform you on you screen, just below the small scoreboard who is playing in red jerseys and white jerseys. You can never assume that the viewer knows that Liverpool playing at Anfield always play in red. Being raised up on such information, some of the statements that have shocked me so much in the past few months start to make a tad more sense. You start stomaching them. While stomaching them you still have to close your eyes and there’s still every chance it will make you all sick and the body will thankfully only put it all out in no time.

This last Klinsmann story is simply unstomachable though. It defies belief, trust and credibility. It’s not just a hiccup while on the family dining room. It’s one in a series of blurts on a banquet that has now gone beyond all the elastic boundaries of acceptability. I now know that I am longing to see the back of Mr Hicks. I now know that I can’t stand the sight of him anymore.

And at the backdrop of all this, Liverpool faced the Championship side Luton Town in a replay for the FA Cup third round at Anfield. Anfield sold out on a very cold and wet Tuesday night, and the loyal servant Jamie Carragher recorded his name of the team sheet for the 500th time. A guard of honour including his boss Rafael Benitez started his night. But that was it, he quickly went back to business of leading the back four and the whole side. Just the Liverpool way. Trustable and without much fuss. Making a positive difference in the lives of the 40,000 at the match and the rest watching from anywhere that a Liverbird means much more to them than a logo, a brand or a franchise.

As expected the men in red pressed Luton back into their penalty area, but not into as much as into their shells. That was till the first forty-five minutes though. In the extra minute afforded, Ryan Babel drove home a right-footed shot into the corner of the net. The man in black rightly halted the match after that but the momentum in Liverpool had only just begun.

Just after the start of the second forty-five minutes, Steven Gerrard scored a hat-trick in no time and Sami Hyypia added another in between. Fernando Torres was rather off colour but it seems that he is picking and choosing his off days when the side can afford to, the last time being away to Newcastle.

The first win of 2008 has finally arrived then. No corners have been turned yet but at least a muddy surface created by insiders have been dealt through, and the name of the boss who once brought a European Cup for good has been aired with passion.

When Liverpool drew Blackburn away from home, we or just me found refuge in the fact that at least the unbeaten record in the Premiership is still intact and the wagon is thus still rolling. Just two months from that day, the scenario is completely different. Winter is now here, Christmas is past, a lot of happenings at the boardroom and a draw at the Riverside Stadium against Middlesbrough is only a fatal two points lost with no refuge to be soothe the disappointment. It’s January and the real target is a Champions League position rather than the title.

Talking about refuge earlier, the club at the moment is more looking that an asylum seekers place with refugee status still far away from the horizon. The trouble and squabbling at the very top coupled with the incessant media speculation has properly got to everyone now and it’s showing on the pitch. The first match after the first public outburst seemed to have brought the best out of everyone, running amok the black and white shirts representing Newcastle United, getting a 3-0 score-line in the process with the true star of the campaign so far, losing his scoring boots back at Melwood.

The adrenaline pumped then has well fizzed away and has been transformed to worry and uncertainty that together are shackling the player’s legs and the manager’s mind simultaneously. At times the display looked plain lethargic, that while watching from my temporary home in Melbourne at two in the morning made it very hard not to nod from time to time.

The tiny straw we can all clutch is the confirmation of Fernando’s class. His goal was once again on the superlative side of things, shooting outside the penalty area that still even two keepers would not have kept. The frustration of the whole match as yet, turned into one burst of sheer delight, admiration and realisation of what we have got in our hands.

At times, this is getting eerily similar to 2002/03 when the plot and foundations set in the previous seasons all got drowned off after the then manager’s health problems. Fernando Torres today seems to be replacing the Steven Gerrard of that season, as the only one really rising above the whole crisis and saving games single handedly. It was only the fourth round too that Liverpool got eliminated from the FA Cup in a replay at Anfield against a side from the Championship.

Hopefully next Tuesday against Luton, the tide is turned without the need of Torres and the possibility of this haunting similarity will be exorcised. No corner would yet be turned but at least the missing feeling of victory since Boxing Day would return, and the fragile confidence of a lot of the red men will be slightly boosted.

I’ve just landed at Dubai Airport. Next thing I do is switching on my mobile, but no messages come in. My mates wouldn’t let me down. I asked them to keep me updated about the goings on at Anfield, so after forty-five minutes the match must be still scoreless. A coach came to pick us up and I make my way to the gate, then take my trainees off as I go through their security procedures. Shortly afterwards I get a message in. Torres scored. A bit of relief, beats a massage after a seven hour trip on a plane. I look at the monitors to check which gate I am to board for my next flight to Melbourne via Singapore. It all turns in Arabic fonts and if you think Greek is hard, try that. The airport is dead busy, even though it’s their midnight. I stroll through a shop, it has all your classic polo shirts, but the price is as expensive as anywhere else in the world. Globalisation, at its best. I just go through the reception desk to ask which gate my flight’s at. The polite receptionist informs me it’s number 21, which now thinking about it is my lucky number. It’s when’s my birthday’s on and I still remember having that seat in Cardiff in the League Cup Final over the Mancs.

I made my way to the gate, with us still 1-0. Put my laptop out and tried to get some connection from the available Wi-Fi. I did get a network, logged on the official site, and the result hasn’t changed yet. Wigan gave the Reds a stern test in their backyard earlier this season. It was only a solo dinking effort by Yossi Benayoun that earned the Reds the three points. Pies weren’t exactly forced down the small town natives throats. Overall though, since Wigan moved to the Premiership, the reds always got the three points. And Peter Crouch broke his duck against them. In the meantime am through the e-season log in and get Steve Hunter’s commentary, helped by Phil Neal. It’s the first match I am just listening to rather than watching, for some three years I guess. I just try to visualize what’s happening without actually watching anything. It’s time to use my imagination. It feels like a laboured performance, that so far the class of Torres has made all the difference between three points won and two points lost. Being one up though am not feeling too bad. The hardest thing’s done. It’s much harder putting the shutters up than putting the same shutters down. The key is now in Liverpool’s hands and thus come closing time the shutters would be already half way down.

The weak connection gets cut out. Am thinking it’s the e-season ticket playing up and brings me back memories of trying to follow the commentary through a dial-up connection, at the same time learning the new word ‘buffering’. I actually re-connect and get through the commentary without much hassle.

Titus Bramble for some reason brings me memories of Phil Babb. Phil Babb probably got the edge over him in the one-time hit wonders, but over all the former edges him. It’s a travesty his one-time hit wonder actually broke him rather than made him. Bramble runs him well close though. Apart from the other embarrassments and indecisions, I remember him stripping off his trackie to come in for Newcastle at Anfield two years ago on a Boxing Day match. The whole Kop laughed and actually applauded him while getting on. It was not the Anfield’s usual show of respect reserved for classy players. No, it was a gesture of goodwill during the festive season, to someone who reinstated comedy into football.

Today, he apparently scores a scorcher. The poor comedian manages a good one-liner in a funeral.

A double save by the ex-Kirkland defies the captain, and the three points banked on earlier on. Dirk Kuyt and Peter Crouch are thrown into the fray, but the result feels already framed up. The ninety minutes are almost up and I’ve got to board in quickly. Pressing issues from both sides, a bit of a G-clamp actually.

With the shutters supposedly half way down, the usually picked on lad hid himself, sneaked in and helped himself.