People can talk about rebuilding. Even if the point of last summer's transfer strategy was to avoid long settling-in periods that would lead to 2011-12 becoming a rebuilding season. Even if it now appears that next season will end up something of a rebuilding season, too, with few entertaining realistic hopes of a return to Champions League action twelve months hence.

Sometimes luck can be a too easy excuse. Sometimes bad bounces can be used as cover for deeper failings. And sometimes, rather like with the boy who cried wolf, an over-reliance on using luck as a convenient crutch can make it so that when the breaks really do fall entirely in the wrong direction nobody is especially interested in hearing about how with a bounce here and an inch there and a different referee on a different day everything would have worked out.

With Jamie Carragher's poor showing against Everton in the FA Cup—not to mention the frankly puzzling decision by Kenny Dalglish and the coaching staff to play him when all four of the men who have made up Liverpool's most successful defensive unit this season were fit—we thought it might be interesting to look at how Liverpool's centre backs have performed this year.

With Jamie Carragher's poor showing against Everton in the FA Cup—not to mention the frankly puzzling decision by Kenny Dalglish and the coaching staff to play him when all four of the men who have made up Liverpool's most successful defensive unit this season were fit—we thought it might be interesting to look at how Liverpool's centre backs have performed this year.

With a return to Wembley to face rivals Everton coming up in a few days, it was probably inevitable that most of the Liverpool news floating around the interwebs would be more worried about the near future than the immediate past. That's not entirely a bad thing, though. Because, you know, Liverpool are facing Everton on Saturday.

At the start of the month, we talked about how Liverpool's form in the second half of the season had the club on pace for its worst finish in the top division since they were demoted in 1954. As Nate of Oh You Beauty more recently pointed out, since January began the club has managed only 0.73 points per game.

When Joe Mason slotted Cardiff's first goal of the night through Pepe Reina's legs, putting the underdog Championship side up 1-0, it may have in fact been the worst goal conceded by Liverpool this season. Past contenders for worst of the year have come when a series of individual mistakes over a fairly short period of time have conspired to hand an opponent a goal, and as bad as the markers given up against the likes of Stoke and Norwich may have seemed at the time, as with most any side will concede they came from a series of minor mistakes that slowly added up to the ball hitting the back of the net.

With every club having played twenty-five games in the 2011-12 season, February's midway point sees six of them having conceded less than thirty goals: Manchester City with 19, Liverpool with 23, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur with 25, Sunderland with 26, and Everton with 27. And on those sides, seven centre backs have played twenty or more games so far: City's Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott, Liverpool's Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger, Sunderland's Wes Brown and John O'Shea, and Tottenham's Younes Kaboul.

To put it as simply as possible, Liverpool need 2.2 points per game over the remainder of the season to finish fourth. They have 39 points and stand in seventh place, while over the past ten seasons it has taken 68 points to qualify for the Champions League. That leaves thirteen games to make up the 29 point gap between where the club is now and where the club felt it needed to be by the end of the season.

Leading up to the match against Manchester United on Saturday, we looked at Liverpool's league games against them over the past four seasons. Given the recent history of the match, a few things seemed clear: One, the home side was going to out-shoot the visitor. Two, the home side would probably take the edge in possession.

In the past four seasons, Liverpool have played seven games under three managers against Manchester United in the league. Four have been Liverpool victories, two have been won by United, and one has been a draw. And with match number eight coming up on the weekend, it seemed like a good time to look back at some of the statistics beyond the final score from the seven previous games to see if any kind of pattern or omen for Saturday's match appears.

Against Wolves, Jordan Henderson only misplaced four of his passes from open play for a completion rate topping 90%. He may not have connected on any of his seven attempted crosses, which does rather drag down his overall numbers, but it is nonetheless an impressive statistic. As for how he achieved such a high completion rate, the answer is a fairly simple one: He kept it simple.

Say, if I followed you home, would you keep me? Or at least not mace me? And would it make any difference if I could give you Tuesday's news and notes? You don't have to answer now. Just, you know, think about it. And at least give me a bit of warning on the mace front, if that's not too much to ask.

There has been some talk of late about Jose Enrique, and in particular there have been questions asked as to whether his form has dipped after a flying start to the season that saw him make a strong case for being the league's best left back—and possibly even its best fullback. Previously we looked at his numbers for the club after the first eight games and felt that as he was the only player to be clearly amongst the top three in both attack and defense, the numbers appeared to fully support the idea that he was the best in the league.

The past three league matches have seen Charlie Adam paired with three different midfield partners, with each new pairing leading to a slight shift in the focus of Adam's game. From a largely offensive effort when paired with Lucas against Manchester City through to a job as the deepest midfielder against Queens Park Rangers, it's meant an interesting—and surprisingly successful—progression.

On Saturday against Queens Park Rangers, Liverpool dominated nearly every conceivable statistical category, at times more than doubling their opponent's tallies as they racked up the numbers from possession to passing to shots on target. At least this time around they won. Still, that they only barely did win, once again doing their best to keep an overmatched opponent in the game, is a continuing source of frustration for this year's squad.

With a quarter of the Premier League season wrapped up, the unavoidable reality is that Liverpool hasn't performed up to the level that many fans had hoped they would. They haven't seemed especially poor perhaps, but clearly they haven't hit the sorts of highs they did in the second half of 2010-11 that had fans talking about the squad being a few tweaks away from legitimate contenders after finishing out the season with the third best record—and very nearly the second best up until stumbling through their final two matches—in the league under Kenny Dalglish.

It's only Monday, but already it's almost time for another match. And for a moment it's almost as though Liverpool were back in Europe once again, the games coming thick and furious and with hardly a moment to decompress in between them. Then you remember that Liverpool's last bit of midweek football was a will-sapping friendly at Rangers, and that this week's sees a trip to Stoke to face a side renowned for its ability to sap the will of opponents and their fans alike.

Stewart Downing got off to a flying start for Liverpool, coming out against Sunderland, Arsenal, and Bolton as not just one of the club's better players of the early going but potentially the long sought answer for the left side of midfield. Then, as quickly as he'd seemed to establish himself, in the eyes of many he became a question mark.

In a season that has seen more than its share of less than stellar performances while discussion about his future has pushed to the fore, the reaction to Jamie Carragher's composed performance at Goodison on Saturday was swift and unanimous. The club's official website, never ones to shy away from hyperbole, gauged the prevailing mood and turned things up to eleven when they skipped obvious choices Lucas Leiva and Jose Enrique in favour of promoting a Carragher every-touch compilation.

If nothing against Brighton or Wolves was going to convincingly answer the questions left behind by the Tottenham debacle, at the least fans could hope nothing that happened would make the players involved seem any worse. And if Andy Carroll's first positive performance of the season at least set out a convincing blueprint for the player moving forward, Charlie Adam's performance only left more questions despite forcing a Wolverhampton own goal.

Afterwards, opinions ranged from Andy Carroll having finally shown something of his worth as more than a target for long clearances to him having done nothing in particular to rewrite the gargantuan failure narrative he's been saddled with since arriving at Liverpool for £35M in January. Sometimes those wildly divergent opinions even came from the same pundit.

Charts and graphs are undeniably awesome, but I'm sure you all remember that from last time. So do you know what's even more undeniably awesome than charts and graphs? That's right: Transfer season.

And also problem drinking, but for now let's stick to transfer season. And charts and graphs.

Charts and graphs are undeniably awesome, but I'm sure you all remember that from last time. So do you know what's even more undeniably awesome than charts and graphs? That's right: Transfer season.

And also problem drinking, but for now let's stick to transfer season. And charts and graphs.

One year ago today, Christian Purslow sacked Rafa Benitez and the club began its nosedive into the abyss, descending from a stumbled-to seventh place finish towards Roy Hodgson, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, and Paul Koncheskey, while backroom battles brewed and potential suitors fell by the wayside.

One year ago today, Christian Purslow sacked Rafa Benitez and the club began its nosedive into the abyss, descending from a stumbled-to seventh place finish towards Roy Hodgson, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, and Paul Koncheskey, while backroom battles brewed and potential suitors fell by the wayside.

In a heady stretch of six matches between January 16th and February 12th, Raul Meireles scored all five of his Liverpool goals. When the goals started to dry up, some began to wonder just how important he was to the team's continued success—especially given the way everybody else in the side seemed to be clicking as Liverpool flourished with an up-tempo pass and move game and the goals poured in against everyone from City to Fulham to Birmingham to Newcastle.

This transfer window, and trying to sort out posts while half expecting breaking news to come barreling along at any minute, has officially got me all turned around. Yesterday's morning offering was originally going to be yesterday's morning and mid-day offerings, but fearing breaking news it all got welded into one big entry with a tacked on and vaguely, tangentially relevant video even if it really wasn't a news and notes link sharing type post that would normally get that sort of treatment as a matter of course.

Does a "Goodbye, Blue Monday" joke work following a draw like yesterday's? Not really? Drat. Oh well, on with the show.

There was absolutely nothing, not even nothing. And then there was this great big bang. And that's where all this crap came from...

* It's charts and chalkboards over at OYB, as with the continuing lack of tangible results Liverpool bloggers everywhere are left to pick at any positive signs and hope it all comes together damn soon.