He had the grace in the end to fall on his own sword, and, as he clears out his desk and heads for the door marked exit, many Liverpool supporters may well be left feeling that?s the best that can be said for him. But as Noel White ponders the quiet life following his leaving of Liverpool, you can?t help but wonder whether the man may actually have done everyone concerned a huge favour. This season?s ambitions had been in danger of slipping beyond reach, but Saturday?s showing suggested that the necessary voltage for resuscitation might just have been delivered. Even if Benitez had a quick pep-talk planned for ten to three, it?s easy to picture the Reds shoving him aside in their haste to get out of the dressing room and onto the pitch, so great seemed their determination to prove all doubters wrong by quarter to four.

Indeed, it was difficult not to sympathise with those fans who later wondered openly where such missionary zeal had been the week before. Let?s hope they pack it for the next road trip. Liverpool seem to have convinced themselves that staying in is the new going out, saving all the party pieces for the home crowd and then turning up hungover for the day trips. If the humbling of the Villa can be seen by the end of the season as a turning point, rather than a continuation of another Jekyll and Hyde routine, then there will be little cause to regret White?s words ? or his departure. Given the perspective of a just a few short days, it?s evident that his ill-advised mutterings have served only to unite all concerned at Anfield.

As for our friends from Fleet Street, the conspiracy theorists among us will have had another week of field days. Two successive home wins were not enough to slow down the rumour mill that had cranked up a notch in the fallout from Old Trafford, and the ?Gerrard?s leaving? monster came lurching back from the grave just in time for Halloween? we all know the kind of thing by now: ?Gerrard in quit threat?. ?Gerrard and Benitez in training-ground bust-up?. ?Madrid in for Gerrard?. ?Blah blah blah?, ?etc, etc, etc. You may well wonder just how you?d find the time or the inclination to fall out with your boss, never mind sound out a new employer when your six-month old daughter is in and out of hospital with a meningitis scare, but let?s not let the facts inconvenience us.

You can only hope that the player?s own subsequent comment on the speculation, ? I?ve never heard so much bollocks?, proves to be the nail in the coffin. And if there has been a scowl on his face of late, then it?s surely in no small part down to his own disappointments with his current form. By Tuesday night, after a handful of uncharacteristic miscues, it was all smiles again as the captain remembered just exactly where the net was before reminding the waiting media just exactly where his future lay.

One recent diagnosis of Liverpool?s ills suggested that the club remains ?psychologically scarred by its inability to reclaim the championship it last won in 1990?. If this is true, then the most frequent and visible symptom of the disease is panic. And with every passing annual slump in form, the greater the fear that the bloody thing may never be won again. Annual slumps in form are, of course, all the more intolerable and inexcusable in this day and age; when the last three season?s championship-winning sides have lost so few games between them. Benitez? first two seasons at the helm have both been interrupted by panic attacks ? with Burnley and Crystal Palace providing the shocks to the system.

Indeed the away form of ?04-?05 engendered a kind of constant, low-level panic that never quite subsided, causing some to comment that they were witnessing the ?worst Liverpool side in forty years?. Always hard to think straight when you?re panicked, isn?t it? Rafa?s third season has proved no different, and if anything the panic button has been pressed even earlier by a football press ever more intolerant of failure when it comes in red. Mercifully, at Anfield the latest outbreak seems to have been confined to one isolated case. Poor Mr. White seems to have been gripped by a bad case of the fears, but at least it wasn?t catching.

White?s last act was an honourable one and it would be churlish to let his 21 years of distinguished service go without thanks, all the more so given that he holds the distinction of being the former chairman of what he himself terms ?a great institution?. The pity for him is that he will be forgotten as fast as the club will move on. But if he was present in the director?s box at Anfield on Saturday, you can only surmise that he would have enjoyed what he saw before leaving for the last time as an employee of Liverpool Football Club. And we can all hope that in the twilight of his career, he may well have witnessed a new red sunrise.

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