Liverpool  6  Derby County 0:The contest came after the mauling. Billy Davies emerged from the obligatory hour-long interrogation of the players that follows an embarrassment to predict sunshine ahead for Derby County. Rafael Benitez, by contrast, spoke of potential storms for Liverpool. It was a struggle to decide which manager had indulged in the greater fantasy.

For the first time in five years Liverpool topped the Premier League last night and they are beginning to believe the appearance will not be as fleeting or as false this season as it has been during the past 17 years. Indecent title predictions are nothing new at Anfield, of course, hence the appeal for calm and consideration from the manager after their heaviest home victory since a 7-1 win over Southampton in January 1999. But there is a formidable strength to Benitez's team and for perhaps the first time since the flowing yet flawed football of Roy Evans's side of the mid-1990s there is also an abundant supply of goals.

Three victories, three clean sheets and 12 goals scored are the headline statistics from Liverpool's last three outings but the sign of progress is that eight different names are on those scoresheets.

"I always prefer to have four, five or even nine different players scoring the goals rather than just one or two," said Benitez. "It's easier for defenders if they know they only have to control a couple of players who are going to score."

There is another truism to three impressive performances by Liverpool that needs consideration alongside talk of Premier League ambition, and it concerns the calibre of the opponents they have faced. Sunderland were poor at the Stadium of Light, Toulouse a discredit to Michel Platini's vision of a broader Champions League church, and Derby, to be blunt, were awful, producing one of the weakest Premier League performances witnessed at Anfield for years.

"It was easy for us," admitted Benitez. "But we can improve a lot. You analyse the positives but especially in these games it is best to analyse the problems you have had and say, 'Next time we must be careful because it could be 3-1, not 6-0.'"

Davies sought to add no gloss to a performance that would demoralise more fragile characters but his conviction that the Rams' campaign would rise after the trip to Anfield would test the belief of the converted.

"The showers and rain are here but they will go away," he said. "The sunshine will come."

For Liverpool maybe.