Substance, the book by ex-New Order bassist Peter Hook, details how the rap section in ‘World In Motion’ was finessed on the day of recording by Craig Johnston, the former Liverpool player.

John Barnes delivered the final version of course, but one of the England players to attempt it (along with Gazza and, somehow, Peter Beardsley) was Chris Waddle, which would have ensured a very different record and would have been the wrong choice for a number of reasons. Johnston was of course a right footed player who stuck religiously to the right flank, while Barnes did similar work on the left. Waddle, though, was a left-footer who often operated on the right wing, cutting in and shooting from distance.

That clearly goes against the message of the song, namely “you can be slow or fast but you must get to the line” and “there's only one way to beat them, get round the back”. Not for Waddle, and not for football in 2020.

Liverpool’s game with Arsenal on Monday night reunites the three players who shared the Premier League Golden Boot in 2018-19, namely Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Salah is left-footed and plays on the right, while the opposite is true for Mane and Aubameyang. The central striker is still a valid position, as evidenced by Jamie Vardy’s Golden Boot last season, but his game is about stretching the pitch, often with runs into wide areas.

Who was the last classically traditional central striker to end as top scorer? Answer: Harry Kane in 2016-17 but even he has shifted (part-time at least) into a deep lying false nine assist machine. Sergio Aguero is resolutely classical but had to fight hard to fit into a Pep Guardiola team and has often seen the bulk of his team’s goalscoring chances fall to Raheem Sterling, usually stationed on the left, like a Mane or an Aubameyang. 

Since the start of 2017-18, 4.1% of all Premier League goals have been scored by Salah or Aubameyang (5.7% if you add in Mané) and the defence that deals best with their respective opponent on Monday night will have the greater chance of ending the game with the three points.

This time last season that would have been a no-brainer of a question, as Arsenal struggled to defend and/or attack with any plan or rhythm under Unai Emery and (briefly) Freddie Ljungberg. 

A club that had almost perfected football in the freestyle 2000s was floundering in the playbook academia of the 2010s and 2020s, but Mikel Arteta has slowly managed to drill his squad with a set of routines that have dragged Arsenal into football’s current milieu.

The new signature move of springing an opponent’s press to feed the ball to Aubameyang on the left was seen in the latter stages of the FA Cup in July and August, in the Community Shield against Liverpool and in the club’s first away game of the new season at Fulham.

The latter goal is mapped out below and is the perfect example of what Arteta is trying to do, why Aubameyang is the perfect weapon to utilise when doing so and why your dad’s anger at teams playing out from the back is misplaced. Like juggling with knives, yes it has the potential to go massively wrong but when it works it looks amazing.

Doing so in the heart of Liverpool’s 60-game unbeaten lair is risky of course, and the Reds under both Brendan Rodgers and Jurgen Klopp have torn Arsenal to pieces more than once in the past decade.

Arsenal have only ever lost nine Premier League games by a margin of four or more goals but five of those have come at Anfield, three of them in the last six years, but in a sense that is exactly the point; recent Arsenal have drifted through seasons, hoping for success rather than planning for it.

In this fixture in 2018-19 Aubameyang only had 13 touches, and six of those came from kick-offs. Liverpool are by no means defensively infallible, but this is finally an Arsenal team with the potential to exploit that.

It’s possible the Arsenal captain’s direct involvement on Monday will see him have around 13 touches again but now there’s a much greater chance they’ll result in something positive.

If not, don’t be surprised to see Salah extend his chillingly good record at Anfield of P58, W48, D10, L0, Goals scored: 50. 57 of those matches have been for Liverpool, one was for Chelsea. You come at the king, you best not miss.