It's still the topic everyone's trying to unravel: why are Liverpool so bad this season? The owners? Xabi Alonso's sale? Injuries? Ian Herbert in the Independent is the latest to try to uncover the mysteries of Liverpool's woeful season.

"If football were a neat and tidy business, it would be tempting to say that the beginning of the end for Rafael Benitez occurred on this self-same Friday last year. It was 9 January; the afternoon before his side visited Stoke City – as they do once again tomorrow – when the Liverpool manager took a piece of A4 paper from his jacket pocket and began a calm character assassination of Sir Alex Ferguson. Liverpool managed only a 0-0 draw at the Britannia Stadium the next day, Manchester United beat Chelsea 3-0 that weekend, and the Stretford End suddenly had a memorable new chant on its hands.

Except Rafa was not cracking up, as Old Trafford so memorably claimed in the days to follow. Liverpool's league record in the 18 games which followed "Rafa's rant" was: played 18, won 12, drew 5, lost 1.

Not much has changed in terms of personnel since then. Consider the side Benitez fielded last March for the imperious 5-0 home win over Aston Villa – a team who so nearly beat Manchester United in their next league match – that made them appear to be champions-elect: Reina, Arbeloa, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio, Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard, Kuyt, Riera, Torres. Only Alvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso have since gone and Alonso, though lamented, was not as indispensable last season as some claim in hindsight.

But one of the bywords for success in sport is momentum. Liverpool, with one significant player fewer, have lost it and vanished from the place they occupied. The downfall has been shockingly abrupt and the seeds of it are actually to be found back at the stadium where Liverpool travel tomorrow. The goalless draw at the Britannia last January, when Steven Gerrard came a lick of paint's width from scoring a winner, belonged to the pattern of draws against the Premier League's poor relations which persuaded Benitez that things must change things if Liverpool were to take the final step and seize United's crown. It was his typical statistician's logic: had Gerrard scored at Stoke and Everton's Tim Cahill not netted three minutes from time at Anfield in the next game, Liverpool would have matched Manchester United's points tally and lifted the title on goal difference.

So out went the caution which had led Benitez's side to conquer the continent and in came two of the most promising attacking full-backs: £17m Glen Johnson, of whom there were great expectations, and Emiliano Insua, an academy player in whom there were fewer. Both can surge forward but neither can defend to great effect – to the extent that you now wonder whether both would be better off deployed as orthodox wingers. As Hull crumbled to a 6-1 defeat at Anfield in September, Liverpool attacked incessantly, scenting a kill and the new strategy seemed to be working. In Florence three days later, they looked ill-equipped to revert to their more patient, European style and lost 2-0. Fabio Aurelio said that night that he had never seen Benitez so angry. The manager's response was borne of an alien experience."

On an altogether different topic, David Anderson on the Mirror Football website now appears to be trying his hand at comedy. After suggesting last week that Roberto Mancini was appointed "because his name is spelt almost the same as Man City", he's now turning his satirical prose on the issue of fans.

"I believe I have the answer to Manchester United and Liverpool's huge debt problems.

Between them, United and Liverpool have millions of fans around the world so why not sell a few thousand off?

Clubs have sold their players, their grounds and even their training grounds, so why not their supporters?

Like the Antarctic, fans are the last great untapped resource yet to be exploited and they could be worth a fortune.

Look at the North West... Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan and even Manchester City could do with some more fans to fill their grounds.

United and Liverpool could flog them a few - or in Wigan's case more than just a few - and everyone would be a winner."