Liverpool FC And The Premiership Title: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint!

So it's back, the attractive lure of the Premiership for those lucky enough not to have to endure working weekends.

Whilst Chelsea sprinted to the top of the Premiership in Usain Bolt style fashion, Liverpool meandered along slowly but surely like Paula Ratcliffe in a 100 metres dash.

Similarities between last season's opening last gasp 2-1 win at Aston Villa, and the 1-0 win over Sunderland can be made to some extent. However, the fact is that Villa were a team on the up and we outplayed them; in contrast, Sunderland are a side left feeling hard done by for not having something to show for their efforts.

The Keane and Torres partnership shows more signs of improvement, with the Irishman cleverly controlling with his right foot on the edge of the box before shooting narrowly wide of Craig Gordon's right hand post. As the two carry on, they'll prove to be a deadlier twosome than Riggs and Morter from the Lethal Weapon movies.

As the season progresses there will be twists and turns galore, that's a given, especially with title favourites Manchester United dropping points at home to a much maligned Newcastle side—which I'm sure Kevin Keegan absolutely loved.

Deco impressed magnificently on his debut, Anelka appears to have found the perfect man to take him from Sulk to Silk, in fact everything in the Chelsea engine appears to need no maintenance for the time being.

But just wait until Big Phil comes up against the Wigans of this league, who ex manager Mourinho would describe as 'Park the bus in the goal' teams. Patience is one of the English words Phil needs to learn as soon as possible.

Returning to Liverpool, it's refreshing to be able to play as badly as we did and come away with 3 points. In an ideal world, a draw would have been the right result, but fortunately for Rafa we do not live in an ideal world and the flash of absolute brilliance that was bestow upon Fernando Torres was worthy of winning any game.

The game was changed at half-time, when Xabi Alonso was brought on for Damien Plessis. The Spaniard soon began pulling the strings in midfield.

With 10 minutes remaining, Alonso strode forward and passed the ball to Torres. Quick as a bullet, the No. 9 controlled the ball, nudged it forward and smashed it into the bottom corner, all from outside the box.

Torres went wild, Gerrard ran over and hugged him, the travelling Kop went nuts and bounced to Torres' theme.

Roy Keane was candid as ever in his interview, it's refreshing to see a man as modest as he is honest. Keane said Liverpool would be glad to see the back of his side, and he was right.

Few times have a side played so badly under Benitez, and the Spaniard will not have been impressed, just relieved to come away from a tricky game with a clean sheet—as Steve McClaren calls it, the most important thing in football.

The big test will come when Liverpool play the other Top 4 teams—whether the Reds can play better and regularly take points off them.

Similarly, Rafa's side cannot afford to draw so many games at home.

All in all it promises to be a cracking season ahead, one of many different twists, turns, shocks, and spills.

But aren't we lucky to have football back in our lives? The beautiful game, call it what you will, whoever you support it's an absolute joy to hear that familiar Match of the Day theme tune echo through the TV once again.