But I'll ask you all a question. Who in their right mind on here was tipping Liverpool to do that well anyway?
![rock ???](https://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/images/smilies/rock.gif)
The difficulty with assessing us at the moment is setting the benchmarks by which to judge the team fairly. A new manager and new players at a club who last season were so far off the pace that they may as well have been lapped. That represented gross underachievement, of course, worse still than the previous term in everything bar league position.
We can agree with Rafael Benitez though, that they are very much a work in progress. And he is playing at present without the two players who have done most to keep the Reds above the run of the Premiership in the past two seasons, the departed Michael Owen and the injured Steven Gerrard. Of course it will take time to sort things out.
At home, at least, we are certainly more entertaining. When did Liverpool last manage a 0-0 draw worth staying awake through?
We also appear to have a plan B now, or at least a more attacking plan A. Against Manchester City in August we overturned a half-time deficit at home for the first time since 1999, and at Fulham we repeated the feat away for the first time since 1991.
We can say that Xabi Alonso looks an excellent purchase. We can add that it is unlikely we have seen the best of him or some of his compatriots, though perhaps Josemi is being found out a little bit lately.
Djibril Cisse still seems to be playing a one-man game, rarely slotting into the team. The previously underused Milan Baros, on the other hand, is playing with guts and confidence. At Fulham he played with gallons of luck too, and at Anfield last night he proved that he deseves a starting place on Saturday.
You wonder, too, if Benitez is preparing a January sale, of Salif Diao if he can find any takers, maybe Harry Kewell unless he can find some sparkle soon, and Igor Biscan who - though it's not saying much - has never looked more like a footballer than at present.
The two plainest problems as I see it are our defence and the away form. If you look at it, the two kind of run together.
We won't achieve much if we consistently need Fulham-style miracles to avoid losing away from home.
Chris Kirkland needs to fulfil his promise now that he is at last fit; he has looked indecisive at important moments and was nutmegged on Saturday. But the bigger work is in front of him.
Whether Benitez can make a zonal defence system work with his current players, or buys new ones, or abandons the tactic, we need to be more solid.
That will be especially true in La Coruna and Monaco next month. Even if we have at last learnt to win when trailing, that will be far harder against those dastardly continentals with their 'possession football'.
So we must wait and watch to see how quickly, if at all, Benitez can complete his Anfield rejuvenation.
At least on Tuesday night's evidence we won't fall asleep finding out.
![smile :)](https://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/images/smilies/smile.gif)