Even as Liverpool fans wave sadly at the disappearing rear of the Champions League Express (and the gravy train it signifies), here's a quick round up of the impact of missing the train as we head towards Derby Sunday which includes a potentially bruising encounter with our blue neighbours.
 
Financially, the club has reassured everybody that missing out on qualification for the knockout stages of the Champs League does not amount to much of a loss. But that's really only stating half the truth, because the reality is that the club has only not budgeted for progress in the UCL, which means any money earned in the UCL knock-out stages would have been a bonus. So, while the club may not sink, it is also unlikely to afford any significant expenditure on transfers, leave alone other worrying issues such as servicing the debt and moving towards a new stadium. If you're wondering whether a good run in the Europa would compensate, well, sadly no. Winning the Europa cup will get just about the same amount of money as losing in the first round of UCL knock out ? that's how badly skewed towards the big boys the tournaments are!

On the other hand, given last week's implosion of Dubai's real-estate driven economy, Liverpool fans can probably heave an ironic sigh of relief that they are owned by the much hated Tom Hicks and George Gillett combination rather than the Dubai International Company who nearly took over the club before Tom and George rode in to town. So, bad times these are but worse they could be.

What about the prospects of playing in the Europa League? As said earlier, the money isn't all that great, but the opposition ? particularly if Liverpool progress through the early rounds ? could be pretty decent, what with the possibility of teams like Ajax, Valencia, Villareal, Werder Bremen, Roma, Benfica, PSV Eindhoven, one of Bayern Munich and Juventus, probably one of Real Madrid and AC Milan, and maybe even Inter Milan being in the mix. So, good football against quality opposition is still a likely possibility. The problem for a team in Liverpool's delicate frame of mind is instead likely to be the weekly catch-up game required by playing the Thursday ? Sunday routine, when they would mostly be playing a day after their chief rivals for the fourth place and therefore under pressure to perform as well or better.

Normally, that may not have been an issue as Liverpool have proved themselves one of the more resilient teams around, but this has not been a normal season and all kinds of questions and self-doubts seem to have arisen in the players' minds. Even the win against Debrecen was anything but routine, particularly as the game wore on with only a single goal lead to show for it. But at least, they managed a clean sheet (currently more important than a win in my opinion) by hook or crook, and like the proverbial batsman scratching his way to a good score and thereby finding form, let's hope Liverpool also can build on that and go on from here.

The fact that the injury crisis is also slowly but surely receding can only bode well. By the time we face Arsenal in a couple of weeks, hopefully the entire team will be fit and raring to go ? that is of course assuming 2 players don't limp off in the first 20 minutes of today's game at Goodison!

The team obviously has the quality to be up there in the top 4 and it still can do it, and possibly do it at a canter, if only it can find its running shoes, aka the belief that it can. As I said in my last column, confidence seems to be a scarce commodity currently in the Liverpool dressing room and that is the primary problem to be addressed. The only two players who seem to be running counter to this trend are the two players at opposite ends of the pitch ? a steadily improving Ngog at the front and a rock solid Reina at the back but for whom we would probably have conceded many more than we already have! The good fortune, if it may be called so, is that Liverpool's opponents of the day are going through an equally bad patch of form and confidence and injuries ? so, let the less unconfident team win!

But what is the mystery with Aquilani? Why is he still being mollycoddled in cotton-wool when he was supposed to have been fit about a month ago? Surely, it's time to give him much more game time and relegate Lucas to the effective back-up role he is good at, though it is of course questionable whether a hectic and hostile away derby is the right time to introduce a languid Italian to the rigours of the Premier League.

The most dangerous piece of news I have heard about Liverpool is not their bad form or missing out on the Champions League or the injury crisis but of potential dressing room discord. That, I believe, can be the fastest route to a disaster than any of the above. But the hope is that the 'news' is nothing but a malicious rumour as I suspect it is. And the minor irritant of the interview given by Babel can be sorted out between manager and player, particularly now that he's injured and anyway not up for selection.