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Summertime Blues: Fulham 2 - Liverpool 5

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Exit Stage Left...
Exit Stage Left...

The reason I've titled this with that is I can't believe we're all at a point where we don't want the season to end. There's only two games left, but I could watch this Liverpool side every day for the next six months right now. And that's from the complete opposite just over four months ago. Football, she be a strange game.

And that's not some dummy side Liverpool swatted aside with a pimp hand the size of Northern England. Fulham are in the top half and have only lost three times at home this year. United and Chelsea only got a point on their visit to The Cottage. And this was over in 15 minutes.

You can talk about the passing, the movement, the work rate, anything and everything. But for me, it's the swagger. The belief. The feeling cursing through this team right now that's asking the other side "The fuck you gonna do about it?". And there isn't anything. It's like the spring of '09 again, when we turned on the television not to see if Liverpool would win, but by how much. Could they put up five or six this time? Right now, that stretch and this one are competing in my mind for most fun I've had watching Liverpool, and that includes 2005 and 2001. While the results were better in those years, and they came with silverware, this side is Errol Flynn swinging in on the chandelier. It's that confident grin, almost a sneer, at what they can accomplish. And it's all being done shorthanded.

And this is where I get worried. Because the end of '08-'09 was supposed to portend to something bigger. And it never did. Xabi Alonso was sold, Alberto Aquilani was never healthy, something in the squad turned, and it all got jaded. I don't think that's going to happen here, as no major piece is going to be jettisoned. This will only be added to. And you want to quell your excitement, as it's hard to imagine an 18-point gap from the top can be gobbled up in just one season.

But you see Shelvey's inch-perfect ball to Suarez, and Suarez's complete donging of Mark Schwartzer to score laughably easy. You see Maxi, heretofore and inexplicable blob on the pitch, popping up in all the right places and then crashing one home from 25 yards. You see Lucas and Spearing squatting on every midfield that comes before them, and picking out passes from everywhere. And you can't help but dream, can you?

-This is probably where you expect me to eat crow about Maxi. Far from it. If the more I say he sucks the more he scores, I am more than happy to look like a bigger and bigger idiot (no, I don't really think I have any influence, but it's fun to pretend). But you have to wonder why it took Dalglish to unlock him. Maxi has always been an attacking midfielder who made late runs into the box. Why were Rafa and Roy so quick to deploy him defensively.

-Meireles's injury is worrying. That's probably his season, and with this crunch tilt against Spurs coming up you wonder how much more stripped the midfield can get.

-That said, if Shelvey can make that pass look so easy how come he makes all the other ones look nigh-on impossible?

-There's a part of me that thinks Carragher should retire on 666 appearances. Because that's kind of badass, right?

-Luis Suarez is all that is man. I don't think we came close to paying what he's worth.

-Can Sunday get here fast enough? Especially if City and Spurs draw? Or even a Spurs win?