WHEN Joe Cole envisaged inspiring Liverpool on his Premier League debut for the club, this most definitely wasn’t what he had in mind.

Having been handed the centre stage that helped sway his move to Anfield, Cole assumed attention for all the wrong reasons, a first red card of his career turning a dream day into a nightmare.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The manager and the faces may alter, but Liverpool are still finding a way to make life difficult for themselves.

Yet that it ultimately took a similarly uncharacteristic contribution from Pepe Reina to deny Roy Hodgson a flying start to life in the hotseat indicated why disappointment soon made way for encouragement among the supporters filing out of Anfield yesterday.

Of course, after enduring a previous campaign of unremitting gloom and doom, those fans are desperate to cling on to any kind of positive. Thankfully, though, there were enough genuine reasons to be cheerful.

Not least the stirring second-half performance in which Liverpool, reduced to 10 men by Cole’s aberration, took the battle to Arsenal and, bolstered by David Ngog’s excellent 46th-minute strike, produced a consummate defensive performance to frustrate the visitors.

Unfortunate, then, that Reina should be labelled as the fall guy after fumbling the ball over his own line with victory within touching distance.

The Spaniard was Liverpool’s stellar performer last season and had yesterday continued that form with expert saves to deny substitutes Tomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott as Arsenal belatedly began to punch holes in the undermanned home rearguard.