In the past 10 years, Liverpool have not come within seven points of the championship. If they can finish any closer this season, or claim the runners-up spot, they will have made tangible progress.According to Alan Hansen on Thursday night, Houllier's side "are getting there", yet for every positive there seems to be a negative. Liverpool have won their last seven matches at Anfield but have won just once away from home in the Premiership this season. They have kept clean sheets in their last three games yet in the 2-0 win against Olympiakos there were moments of Keystone Cop defending in front of the Kop.

They also continue to display a central flaw, a lack of assurance and orchestration in the centre of midfield where, against high-calibre opposition, the pedestrian Dietmar Hamann is liable to be exposed as the weakest link.Whether Igor Biscan can make a difference only time will tell. The Croatian international signed from Dynamo Zagreb for £5.5m on Friday and Houllier will be a happy man if Biscan makes half as big an impact as Emile Heskey, who cost twice as much from Leicester eight months ago.Heskey has scored 12 goals in his last 12 matches and showed against Olympiakos he can lead the line with minimal support. Not that he eclipsed the sparkling Nick Barmby, who supplied the opening goal for the big centre-forward and then sublimely fashioned and finished the second. Tord Grip's report on the little schemer must have glowed all the way to Rome.In contrast, the bulletins on Owen and Fowler were conspicuously blank. The pair are sure to be back in the firing line in the next 14 days, though, the former following injury, the latter following injury and a loss of form. Heskey and Owen must be Houllier's preferred striking partnership but Fowler, despite a series of unimpressive displays in the Premiership, has not been deemed surplus to his manager's requirements.Indeed, in the wake of an inquiry from Chelsea, Houllier made a point of insisting last week that Fowler is not for sale. "Robbie is part of my plans and very much part of the future," he said.

"It will take him time to come back, maybe six months, but I have always been behind him and I will remain behind him."The trouble for Liverpool, and for the rest of the Premiership, is that the assets Manchester United have in reserve always seem to be primed and ready to strike.. Crisis? What crisis? Manchester City's Premiership stock has been falling faster than a dot com company specialising in riverside property but they righted themselves in emphatic and spectacular fashion yesterday. There is nothing like a biggest win of the season to soothe frazzled nerves. Crisis? What crisis? Manchester City's Premiership stock has been falling faster than a dot com company specialising in riverside property but they righted themselves in emphatic and spectacular fashion yesterday. There is nothing like a biggest win of the season to soothe frazzled nerves. Had his former charges at Everton prevailed, Joe Royle would have been wallowing in his worst league run as a manager with seven successive defeats, but you might as well ponder the impossible because from the moment Paulo Wanchope put City ahead after 13 minutes the prospect of the visitors winning was not so much distant as negligible.Everton were dreadful, City surprisingly good, and in the end they could have plumped up the four-point cushion that has suddenly opened between themselves and the relegation places with even more goals. As it was, Steve Howey, Shaun Goater and Paul Dickov helped themselves to the toffee jar that was the opposition defence before Gary Naysmith completed the humiliation with an own goal."It's like a valve has been released," Royle said. "The way we've been playing someone was going to get it one day and today it happened." A mournful Everton manager Walter Smith added: "We never really started."In the programme Royle had urged calm, but one set of individuals refused to listen, and, fortunately for him, it was Everton, surrendering three goals in the first 41 minutes.On the face of it Everton's 4-5-1 formation, with only Kevin Campbell to provide an outlet for a haphazard midfield, was an invitation for the home team to go forward and that proved to be the case.