NORMALLY a last-minute own goal denying us two points would have been enough to send me, and several thousand round me, into the sort of hissy fit normally associated with Naomi Campbell on finding the wrong colour curtains in her dressing room.

Yet strangely, Pepe Reina’s ungainly juggling in the dying minutes of Sunday’s game induced only a feeling of mild disappointment, akin to hearing that Cheryl Cole could not make your birthday party but Kelly Brook was coming instead. Of course much of this was down to an innate reluctance to criticise last season’s Player of the Year who is fast approaching cult status amongst the Anfield faithful.

More likely, however, was that even the most critical fan could see that, given the circumstances, one point was still a tremendous achievement and one which we would have gladly signed away our first-born to secure at half-time.

Having been passed to death by Arsenal in the opening half – albeit with little direct threat to our goal – the thought of having to chase shadows with nine outfield players rather than 10 was not a prospect to relish.

Joe Cole’s dismissal may have been a tad harsh, but it was clear that his frustration at being unable to get on the ball was behind the rash challenge which gave Koscielny the chance to demonstrate powers of recovery that might more appropriately be displayed over the Easter weekend. The noise before the kick-off had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, so Joe’s must have been performing somersaults; wanting so hard to please yet being unable to make a positive impact must have been almost too much to bear.

We admire your commitment Joe, but leaping into reckless tackles by the opposition corner flag in the last minute of the first-half is not the most sensible way to show it.

That we should start the second-half so breathlessly in the resultant circumstances was reason for much optimism; while in last season’s encounter an unfortunate equaliser was enough to completely drain our self-belief and induce a fatal passivity, here we responded like the Liverpool of two seasons ago, relishing the challenge of overcoming apparently insuperable odds.

Ngog’s strike was as devastating as it was unexpected, and gave us a platform from which we could control the game.

The young Frenchman has been subject to much criticism, most of which has seemed to stem from the fact that he’s not Fernando Torres, which seems slightly unfair.

He’s clearly got a lot to do on his work outside the box, but he’s proving to be an accomplished finisher inside it.

Here, criticising Almunia for letting his shot through at the near post was rather like blaming Abraham Lincoln for not catching John Wilkes Booth’s bullet in his teeth.

Although all deserved credit, the performance was built on the outstanding parings of Carragher and Skrtel at the back, and Gerrard and Mascherano in the middle.

I confess to having been ambivalent about Mascherano starting; his belated noises about respecting Liverpool sounded a little opportunistic given his failure to prevent his agent from fantasising about moving to Inter Milan over the summer.

Yet the commitment he showed was unimpeachable, and showed what we’ll be missing if he gets his wish to move.

So pride and dignity restored in just a few weeks; keep this up Roy, and you may yet find your face on a Kop flag.