Seconds after Emile Heskey had completed the afternoon's scoring to make it 4-nil, the scoreboard - first introduced at Anfield in November last year after 111 years without one - read 9-0 to the Reds.

To be fair, the scoreboard could be forgiven for malfunctioning. It's not often this Liverpool team score four goals without reply at Anfield. In fact, you have to go back two years to our last match of the 2001-02 season against Ipswich to recall a Premiership occasion at home when we won by such a margin.

Say what you want about how poor Blackburn Rovers were - and there's no disguising the fact that for a team who are hovering perilously close to the drop zone, their gutless performance would have embarrassed Wolves or Leicester - but Liverpool did everything expected of them.

Liverpool supporters are knowledgeable enough to realise that you can't win every match you play but all season they've only asked for two things; that the players give their all and a return to the one-touch attacking style that became our trademark during our glory years.

On Sunday, the fans got both. The players - none more so that Steven Gerrard, surprise, surprise - worked tirelessly to both protect their fourth Premiership clean sheet in a row and to keep going for the jugular even when the game was effectively over at 3-nil within 23 minutes.

In fact, there was a certain panache to Liverpool's play on Sunday that, whisper it, hinted at a brighter future for this Liverpool team. Heskey, perhaps buoyed by the double threat of losing his Liverpool place to the current LFC magazine cover star Djibril Cisse and his inclusion in England's Euro 2004 squad to Jermain Defoe, was absolutely outstanding. Michael Owen might have grabbed the newspaper headlines this morning for his comeback brace - and his second goal was as good as any he's scored this season - but Heskey was the man who did more than most to panic the Lancashire team. A brilliant first touch and pass helped create the opener and his unselfish work leading the line allowed both Owen and Diouf the freedom to run at goal. His goal, expertly carved out by the substitute Baros, was his just deserts for his best performance since our last away win in the Premiership back in January at Stamford Bridge.

"Emile did extremely well today," claimed Gerard Houllier after the match. "His performance was excellent, in creating goals and scoring goals. Because of the way Blackburn play we had to ask our strikers to drop back and stop Tugay throughout, and Emile did most of that all game. We demanded a lot from our strikers today and they delivered."

In fact, for a game neither manager wanted to talk about beforehand - Houllier refused to comment on our opponents in front of the media at Melwood on Friday and Graeme Souness even drafted in his assistant Tony Parkes to conduct his pre-match press conference in order not to stay anything that could further inflame the bad feelings carried over from the league meeting at Ewood Park in September - both were more than happy to discuss it afterwards.

Houllier was first in to face the media in what was once the legendary old bootroom and now acts as the pressroom on match days. The Liverpool manager was proud of his players, pleased with the result, amazed at the number of shots we created ("We had 29 shots in the game, not bad for a boring team!") and adamant that things were now starting to work out as he had always predicted once all his key men were back from injury. Houllier also took the opportunity to blast the local press for their unfair treatment of his team. Although it was not said, Houllier was probably referring to an article in the Football Echo on Saturday evening that seemed to refer to some of Liverpool's signings since the treble seasonas "garbage".

"We get so much stick in the local press that it has affected the players' confidence," Houllier announced passionately towards the end of his press conference. "So much stick about the 'garbage' that we are but this was a powerful performance and a strong performance. The stick has affected the confidence of the players, so I am happy that the team spirit is still good."

Next up was Souness himself. Looking immaculate in a navy suit and open-necked light blue shirt, the former Liverpool manager neither looked or behaved like a man in fear of the sack as his team hover just three points above the drop zone. The Blackburn manager has certainly grown up since he took charge of the Reds in 1991. Despite the 4-0 hammering his team had taken on the fourth day of the fourth month of the fourth year of this millennium, Souness was polite, humorous and honest with the press. He went out of his way to praise Liverpool, claimed the score line didn't flatter us and held his hands to the fact that he just didn't know what to do when his team went three down within the first half hour. "Plan A was to try and frustrate Liverpool and when they scored three, there was no Plan B!" he said with a wry smile. "But Liverpool were excellent. We've had them watched many times and frankly none of the reports we have had on them have indicated that they have played like that before."

Many of the home fans inside the ground would probably agree and until performances become the norm rather than the exception, Souness won't be the last manager to be fooled by his scout's report on this Liverpool team.