WHEN teams are playing well but failing to bother the ‘goals for’ column significantly, you’ll often hear the hopeful manager or a hopeless pundit offer the opinion that some side or other are going to cop it soon and disappear under a veritable landslide of goals.

The fact that no-one has been rushing to come forward with this particular cliché with regard to Liverpool FC this season has less to do with a sudden aversion to hackneyed prose amongst those who populate our press boxes than a general acceptance that most of our players couldn’t hit the back of a Mersey ferry never mind a goal net.

Much of the blame seems to be being shouldered by Andy Carroll at present, which is slightly curious since he’s not even on the pitch most of the time, or more perversely by Luis Suarez, who is pilloried for not finishing enough of the chances he has created for himself by using more nutmegs than a mulled wine merchant.

Of course both of these theories have a base in truth, given the disappointing form of the former and the penchant of the latter for trying to burst the net from impossible angles while others await a simple pass to secure a more mundane but effective outcome.

But the malaise runs wider than this.

Once again we seem to be building a side without enough goalscorers in it.

Plenty of statistics have been trotted out recently to show that while we’re not shot shy, our conversation rate of shots to goals is one of the poorest in the league.

Downing and Enrique can threaten down the left wing, but panic at the sight of the goalposts and thrash wildly wide or over the bar.

Lucas and Henderson rarely trouble the goalkeeper, our centre-backs rarely chip in from set-pieces and Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy have only bagged three goals between them.