Roy Evans may not be the only Premiership manager unable to boast a clearly defined instinct for self-preservation but the feeling continues to grow that he could well be the one left standing when the music next stops.
Tradition decrees that Liverpool managers are never sacked or replaced - no, they either slip away with dignity or move gracefully upstairs at Anfield to become Head of Paperclips.
The perverse nature of modern football was magnificently illustrated at the weekend in the aftermath of the season's first Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.
Everton had performed so miserably against Coventry City three days earlier that at 3 p.m. on Saturday their manager Howard Kendall was the one being bundled towards the trap door.
By 4.40 p.m., the precise moment an irate supporter sporting a red scarf made his way across the pitch to gesticulate angrily in Evans's direction, Merseyside's terrace vigilantes had found themselves another condemned man in waiting.
Being a nice guy has never saved anyone from the sack in football management.
Before the season even opened Evans's inability, or maybe his unwillingness, to conceal the truth saw him publicly admit that another campaign of inconsistency would certainly be more than sufficient to put paid to his current job.
Leaves have only just begun to fall from the trees around Anfield and yet Evans is already grimly fighting for survival.
Saturday's defeat by Everton, a mauling by any other name, has moved Evans back to the lip of the abyss.
And the very last thing he would have wanted after such a debacle? Why, a two-leg European tie against moderate, highly beatable opposition and a treatment room full of the rich and the famous.
This morning, when he awoke in his Strasbourg hotel room, Evans had both.
Despite turfing Rangers out of the UEFA Cup in the previous round, Strasbourg are no great shakes, a rather nondescript team currently hovering just above the relegation zone.
But they believe they can succeed where Glasgow's other club, Celtic, failed earlier this month and remove Liverpool from the competition.
"We all appreciate that we will have a much harder job against Liverpool than we did against Rangers but, yes, we believe we can win this tie," said Strasbourg's general manager Bernard Gardon.
Evans quite probably intended to shuffle his pack after the weekend embarrassment, so the loss of Karlheinz Riedle to a groin strain and Patrick Berger to an Achilles problem may not be the shattering blow it might at first appear.
Having pursued an inflexible policy of safety first for so much of his managerial career, Evans seems destined to pack his midfield tonight and hope his goalkeeper David James does not perform as ineptly as he did the last time Liverpool visited France, in April when they were beaten 30 in the Cup Winners' Cup by Paris St-Germain.
"Our last trip to this country was not at all pleasant," said Evans. "In truth, it was dreadful; one of the lowest points of my entire career."
Jamie Redknapp seems likely to be a substitute in the Meinau Stadium tonight, marking a return to senior football for the first time since he fractured an ankle while playing for England against South Africa at Old Trafford in May.
"We must be positive because we cannot go into this game thinking about what happened in our last match and dragging our tails along behind us," said Evans.
Guardian Service
