SOCCER:DOWN THE steps, under the sign, up the steps, turn right and face the Kop. It is the journey Kenny Dalglish has played over in his mind since returning from a family holiday to Orlando 20 years ago, one that cleared the head of a man dealing with the Hillsborough disaster but who looked on from afar as Graeme Souness, Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafael Benitez and Roy Hodgson walked on instead. The rehearsals and the doubts end tomorrow.

“It will be emotional,” admitted Dalglish, never one to give much away. “It means I’ve got a seat closer to the pitch.”

Someone to lighten the mood is not one of Damien Comolli’s criteria for the ideal candidate to succeed Hodgson on a permanent basis. Dalglish would be a shoo-in if it were. The 59-year-old’s first two matches back at the club he quit in February 1991 have resulted in an FA Cup exit at Manchester United and another demoralising loss for Liverpool at the hands of Ian Holloway and Blackpool, proving, as Hodgson had stated all along, that there is no magic wand for Anfield’s ills.

Nothing, however, could dampen the sense of expectation at the ground at about 2pm tomorrow, or the euphoria when Dalglish finally steps out of the tunnel as manager once again.

That Everton provide the opposition for his homecoming, just as they did for his unforeseen farewell in 1991, lends to the sense of preordained occasion. “Anfield always has been and always will be special to me,” he said. “Whether I was in this position or I was just coming to watch, it has always been a special place. It will be emotive coming back down the steps. If the supporters are pleased to see me sitting there, they will not be as pleased as I am.

“It’s all very well being romantic but the truth of the matter is we have got to start winning games. Me, the players, the staff, we are all responsible for trying to achieve that. It would cap off a fantastic day if we got a positive result. But Everton want a positive result, too, because they haven’t exactly set the world alight this year either.”

As with every emotive moment in football, and as Liverpool’s recent results have emphasised, there is a danger Dalglish’s return could distract a team low on form and confidence and who are without their local heartbeat, the suspended Steven Gerrard and the injured Jamie Carragher, for the first time in a derby since February 2002. Dalglish says otherwise.

“It might have been detrimental if I was going to play,” he said. “But I think it can only help them that the punters are coming in and if they think that me coming back is a positive thing then that will reflect well for the players. I can’t see how in any way, shape or form that us having fantastic support behind us is in any way unhelpful to the players. It might shift the focus in terms of newspaper print but it doesn’t shift the focus in reality.

“They know what they’ve got to do, they know how they’ve got to play and they know they’d love to win the game, so I can’t see how it could be unhelpful for anybody. It should be a great advantage to us to start with the support we’ve got – which would be the case in the derby anyway, irrespective of who is in charge.”

In contrast to Hodgson, whether deliberate or otherwise, Dalglish has talked up Liverpool’s players at every opportunity since he took the call to return from John W Henry, the club’s principal owner, who will be present. “If you look at the team there’s nothing that’s really weak so that’s a positive,” he claimed of a side languishing 13th in the Premier League and four points above the relegation zone.

The absence of Gerrard and Carragher and the performance at Blackpool invite the question of who among Liverpool’s collection of highly paid, underachieving players will shoulder responsibility against David Moyes’s Everton. Dalglish, who lost only three of his 22 Merseyside derbies as manager first time round, is again accentuating the positive.

He explained: “There is no team in the Premier League that wouldn’t appreciate having Stevie and Carra in their team and we’re not any different. They’re two big players who won’t be available to us on Sunday but they’re not important players for us this weekend.

“The important ones for us are the ones who are available and from within that we’ve got to get leadership. It’s not any one person who will be designated as being a leader, they are all leaders, they all have got their own responsibilities and they can’t shy away from them. I don’t think that they will and I don’t think they have done.”