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ENGLAND'S absence from Euro 2008 may have caused considerable consternation in households up and down the country, but it's doubtful whether those in Merseyside were among them.

Instead of being caught up in the usual national debate as to why our players don't reproduce their club form in an England shirt, whether Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard can play in the same side (as if we're bothered) and whatever happened to our left wingers, we've been able instead to bask in the reflected glory of a successful campaign featuring four of our number picking up winner's medals in a red shirt.

Not for us the hair shirt of another disappointing performance crowned by a failed penalty shoot-out; we're out on the streets of Madrid, hailing another trophy win courtesy of a Fernando Torres super-strike

THE phoney war is nearly over, and the real business is about to start.

The vast majority of the transfer rumours which are the staple diet of the press and gossip websites can be dismissed as just that: rumours.

My mate saw Kaka in Lewis's; Ronaldinho is looking for a dentist in Manchester; Arshavin's dog is learning English.

WHEN I was a young lad, one of my favourite comic strips was The Numbskulls. It was in the Beezer I think, though I've a sneaking feeling they staged a comeback, a la Take That, in the Beano some years later.

Anyway, the basic idea was that there was this bloke who, instead of being full of organs, intestines and blood like the rest of us, was full of little people called the numbskulls, who fulfilled all his bodily functions.

So there were numbskulls shovelling food through his stomach; numbskulls pumping blood round his body; and more of the little blighters operating his brain and running messages up and down his body so that he could move around without falling over.

SO how much did that hat-trick against the Russkis add on to David Villa's transfer value?

Forget for a moment that LFC at this time can probably barely afford 55-year-old Ricky Villa and dare to dream about the 26-year-old Valencia linking up with 'Our Nando' in the scarlet red of Liverpool.

Real touch of class from the hat-trick hero when he sought the subbed Torres out on the bench after bagging his third and he even 'dedicated' his treble to his strike partner after the game.

I REMEMBER the days when following a football team was so simple. Before the days of wall-to-wall television coverage; before that interweb thingy was invented; before Radio 5 Live interrupted Sports Report to broadcast live commentary on Portsmouth versus Wigan.

All you had to do was pick up your morning paper, turn to the back page and devour the latest news and reports, reading the paper from back to front (if you got that far).

Nowadays I have to order the Financial Times and the Economist to keep abreast of takeovers, accounts, ownership structures, credit crunches and leveraged buy-outs.