Some unmentionables are occupying the thoughts of Giles Smith in this week's column, and he doesn't just mean title rivals from the north-west.

I gave the Liverpool game about 10 minutes. They were mid-way through the first half when I switched on, on Monday night, and in the short time that I watched, Liverpool had about nine clear-cut chances, four semi-clear-cut chances and approximately 13 corners. West Ham's defence, meanwhile, was showing the fortitude and likely endurance of a paper bag that has been left to soak overnight in a puddle.

I had no need to see this. Clearly the miserable cycle of the weekend was about to be completed, with gloomy inevitability. My prediction (carefully adjusted downwards to allow for the absence through injury, yet again, of Fernando Torres, the man with the Kleenex hamstrings) was 4-0.

Pausing only to enjoy a lingering shot of the legend that is Gianfranco Zola, standing on the touchline (and looking, it must be said, terrified, but with exceptionally tidy hair), I switched over to I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!, ITV's jungle-based celebrity smackdown.

For the truth is, I would rather watch David Van Day of Dollar eat a kangaroo's unmentionables than see Liverpool storm all over confused, mid-table opposition and go three points clear at the top. In fact, I would rather eat the kangaroo's unmentionables myself. Indeed, to judge by the bitter taste still in my mouth from the Arsenal game, I already had.

And so the evening wore on and I never looked back. Didn't bother flicking across to check on the score, or anything. Why would I? Foregone conclusion. Round about the time Liverpool would have been tucking in their third, I was safely watching Simon Webbe of Blue win seven meals for the camp by swimming through crocodiles, despite the fact that the croonsome singer is a) unable to swim and b) afraid of crocodiles.

Talk about a completely implausible outcome. It was Istanbul, all over again.

And just at the point where Steven Gerrard would have been saluting the home crowd, and while the commentator was almost certainly hymning 'another glorious night at Anfield', I was the seeing the surprisingly fussy Brian Paddick, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, get voted out of the jungle, having spent 17 days in isolation revealing himself to be that most unlikely thing - a policeman who doesn't like confrontation.

Not until Tuesday morning, then, and the arrival of the newspapers - in particular, the back page of the Mirror, seen on the doormat through bleary eyes, and announcing, 'Top of the league, you're having a laugh' - did I learn that Liverpool had somehow contrived to blow it yet again, drawing 0-0 at home for the third time this season, leaving the pitch to a chorus of boos, and muffing a glorious chance to open a not insurmountable but nevertheless proper gap at the top of the table (instead of a one-point gap which is so negligible in the first week of December that it almost doesn't count).

Once again, spirits that were lower than the belly of some of the I'm A Celebrity lizard population, were lifted by news from Anfield, just as they were a week and a half ago, when we were filing out after the Newcastle game. And once again, Rafa Benitez contrived to offer us redemption out of nowhere, snatching it boldly on our behalf from the jaws of glory, just as Simon Webbe snatched those gold stars from the jaws of a croc.

Of course, the fact is that no team has ever drawn 0-0 at home three times and then gone on to win the league. Actually, I just made that up. Maybe I'll check it one day - perhaps when I'm A Celebrity finishes and I have more time on my hands. But it sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it?

Still, I don't suppose it's controversial to say that this is not, back in the warm and eager days of August, what we hoped the season would come to at any point - relying on the results of Liverpool to cheer us up. Because you can't rely on that forever, can you?

Well, actually, the way Liverpool are, you probably can. But it would be much better (and far safer) not to.

The most worrying elements of Sunday's defeat to Arsenal were the fact that an hour of dominance produced only one (own) goal and one other attempt on target (the header from Frank Lampard) and that, after Arsenal went ahead, we managed no attempts on target at all, for the remainder of the match.

No amount of muttering (and I've done plenty) about the fact that Arsenal's equaliser was about 18 yards, two feet and seven and a half inches offside should allow any of us to skate over the obvious deficiency here.

As for the detail that we have taken only one point from our home games against the three main rivals, well, that's a bit of a worry, too - though it would only be properly anxiety-making if Chelsea weren't, bizarrely, a far hotter proposition, at the moment, away from home than at home.

There's an opportunity to restore order, firm things up and demonstrate that anomaly again this weekend, when the team take the league's only 100 percent away record to Bolton Wanderers. Liverpool, you may care to note, are at Blackburn, though let's hope that's of merely casual interest to us this time.

In the event that Chelsea (with that possibly season-defining match against Cluj just around the corner) slip up again, and that Liverpool do nothing to makes us feel any better about it… well, I don't like to think too hard about that. But suffice it to say that the kangaroo's unmentionables are on me.

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