JAMIE Redknapp has been this particular way before. Indeed, in the six years and 10 months the England midfielder has spent at Anfield, Liverpool have never quite managed to rediscover their title-winning direction of old.
Redknapp, in fact, was a 17-year-old new boy on bench duty the very match after Liverpool started to lose their bearings. Four days after his ?350,000 arrival from AFC Bournemouth, in January 1991, a 1-1 home draw against Wimbledon cost the defending champions leadership of what was then the First Division of the Barclays League.
Kenny Dalglish departed the following month and Liverpool ended the season runners-up to George Graham's Arsenal. They have failed to finish in the top two ever since.
For seven years now, Liverpool's championship credentials have been on the line. At Highbury on Sunday it was no different in that respect and the 1-0 win was encouraging. But the seasonal pressure is mounting earlier than usual on the Liverpudlian Reds.
Redknapp and his teammates were jeered as they descended the tunnel steps at Anfield, after a Barnsley victory which, even accounting for Liverpool's susceptibility to the odd shock in recent years, still registered on football's Richter scale.
With Manchester United, who visit Anfield tomorrow, already threatening to disappear over the horizon, Merseyside's merchants of doom might suggest there is more chance of that red Reebok top being paraded on the planet Zog than of Liverpool hoisting the Premier League trophy in May.
