I’VE always liked these international breaks. An important friendly played amongst the dunes of Qatar is more than enough reason to take a break from the hectic pace of the Premier League.

A chance to regroup, take a breather, put your feet up...or in our case, hopefully pick up the paper without reading about the latest catastrophe to befall our cherished club, be it genuine concern over our dire position or, more likely, invented nonsense that will see Torres, Gerrard and the Anfield Road end leave the club if we don’t buck our ideas up.

These are difficult times indeed, as tricky as I can remember in recent years, though perhaps made worse by the crushing disappointment that often follows raised expectations.

Where we expected ourselves to be nestling comfortably near or at the top of the table at this stage, instead we’re well off the pace, and realistically looking at a struggle to grasp the fourth Champions League spot for next season.

The FA Cup is about to sneak up on our priorities again, while hopefully the Europa League will be jettisoned at the first non-embarrassing opportunity, much as the League Cup used to be in the mid-60s. We all want trophies, but there are limits.

The nightmare continued at Anfield on Monday, although in truth the last two games have shown some encouraging signs. The torpor that enveloped us at Fulham, where we succeeded in passing ourselves to sleep, was thankfully absent against Lyon and Birmingham, the latter now firmly occupying the bogey team status that Leicester City once exercised over us many years ago (if you’re under 45, ask your parent or guardian).

There was no doubting the energy with which we tried to retrieve a desperate half-time position, and the players deserve some credit for not wallowing in self-pity at recent reverses of fortune, even though they probably exhausted that particularly well at the start of the season after Alonso’s departure.

Johnson has been a revelation, the odd defensive lapse a price worth paying for the threat he offers down the wing, and Ngog is starting to show us that he might be more than just another promising yet ultimately unfulfilled French talent.

The sight of Gerrard re-entering the fray, and the prospect of him linking up with Aquilani, is also reason to be cheerful. If Torres can get fit over the next couple of weeks, then who knows, we might re-emerge from this international-induced pupation and take wing as a free-flowing attacking force.

On the other hand, it is just as likely that our catastrophic defending and the inability to complete a match without at least one player signing on for long-term invalidity benefit will prevent us from reaping the full benefit of this attacking intent.

Ulrika Jonsson can remember more clean sheets than us at present, and the twang of hamstrings at Anfield on Monday made it sound more like a Country and Western concert.

The defensive situation must surely be the easier to sort out, and most likely to respond to hard work on the training ground.

A simple lob into the box should not be creating the havoc it did against Lyon and Birmingham, and at least one of the three centre-backs (and Kyrgiakos if he feels like it) needs to step up and become the dominant aerial figure we need to repel this most simple of tactics.

With Gerrard, Torres and Agger safely at home, let’s hope that this particular international break solves some of our problems rather than causes them.