English FA Premiership/ Liverpool 4; Blackburn Rovers 0: No Koppite needs telling of Michael Owen's value to his club, yet two goals were as sharp a reminder as the blank drawn in his absence last week at Leicester.
This was a striker showing no ill-effects after yet more time on the sidelines with a troublesome hamstring and, with the season entering its critical phase, his return could not have been timelier.
Owen's presence will have cheered Sven-Goran Eriksson as much as it demoralised Blackburn's hapless defence. The England manager had to make do without him in last week's defeat to Sweden, but a fit number 10 is pivotal to his side's European Championship hopes.
Gerard Houllier, too, might have been expected to glow after such a performance, but chose instead to lambaste his detractors.
"We are the team with the most shots at goal, which for a boring team is not too bad," said Houllier. "We get so much stick in the local press that it has affected the players' confidence, so much stick about the 'garbage' that we are."
The sensitive Liverpool manager, quite rightly, pointed out that he is open and willing with the media, but his outburst - in response to a comment that Houllier's Liverpool are not the equals of their 1970s predecessors - suggests he is feeling the pressure.
With such a weight of history, a place in the Champions League is the least Anfield demands, and it is now that Houllier's mettle, after so difficult a season, will be put to the test. Throughout this injury-hit campaign the Frenchman has asked to be appraised on results gained by his full-strength XI, and this was a rare occasion that he could field it.
But yesterday was not Houllier's judgment day. Key tests will be the forthcoming trips to Old Trafford and Highbury and the arrival at Anfield of fourth-place rivals Newcastle on the season's final day.
If Liverpool can reproduce this performance, they will have no fears. Here they coruscated with confidence, self-assured even in the defensive third, where they were untroubled save for a free-kick from Brett Emerton that fizzed over the bar.
Jamie Carragher, Igor Biscan and Sami Hyypia could play like liberos, their one-touch football the catalyst for so many counterattacks after feeble opposition attacks had so often expired.
There was little left for Blackburn to contest in this match after 25 minutes. Owen had opened the scoring with just seven minutes gone, his low shot scuffing the gloves of Brad Friedel on its way to the net.
Liverpool did not have to wait long to extend their lead. El-Hadji Diouf sent a speculative cross into the six-yard box, from where it was turned into Friedel's net by his own centre-half Andy Todd.
Diouf was also the source of Owen's second, touching it across for the striker to lash into the net from 20 yards out.
Though it was Owen who snatched the limelight with a display that showed no sign of the hamstring trouble that had plagued him for much of the season, there was equal merit in the performance of Emile Heskey.
The substitute Milan Baros twisted Nils-Eric Johansson in his advance to the box before laying off to the unmarked Heskey, who despatched his shot under Friedel for Liverpool's fourth.
Guardian Service
