FIVE games from Wembley. When you say that sentence again and again, the more straightforward the task seems.

While its fiercest critics continue to treat the competition with scorn and deride its place in the English football calendar, the Carling Cup provides the most simple, straightforward task for a club to enjoy a red-letter day.

Perhaps the time has come, then, for Liverpool to become reacquainted with a tournament they once called their own; flick through the history books and you will see no team can come close to matching the Reds’ tally of seven wins.

What’s more, their tally of 10 appearances in the final is also a record but, since that galling defeat to Chelsea in 2005, you get the feeling mention of it has elicited a degree of indifference around certain parts of Anfield.

That cannot be the case this year. For a club with a past that is littered with pictures of its captains hoisting silver trophies triumphantly aloft, it is vitally important the glorious album gets freshened up with some new entries.

Last week’s draw for the third round, could hardly have been kinder and a date with Northampton Town at Anfield is likely to be seen by many as a bye through to the fourth round.

Roy Hodgson or his players would never be so arrogant to presume that will be the case – who remembers the fright Chesterfield provided in 1992? – but, all things being equal, it would be a shock of almighty proportions if they fell at the first hurdle.

Should, as expected, they progress, Liverpool will then find the draw opens up considerably, as while they were being paired with Northampton from League Two, five all Premier League ties were drawn out of the hat.

Among them was a showdown between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, which inevitably means one of the favourites to go all the way will find their interest in the tournament ended before the clocks go back.

How many occasions in the last few years have you watched a tournament unfold without Liverpool’s involvement only to have a sense of ‘what if’ gnaw away, as you reflect on an early exit?

Barnsley in the 2008 FA Cup is probably the best example of missing a chance that was there for the taking – the sight of the Tykes, West Brom, Cardiff and Portsmouth contesting the semi-finals was a source of dismay – and all regrets need banishing.