RARELY can the wearing of a half-and-half scarf be justified.
Particularly on the occasion of a passionate Merseyside derby with so much at stake for Everton and Liverpool.
Yet if Arne Slot wrapped his neck in red and blue, while squirrelled away in his Rotterdam living room this week, it would be just about acceptable, if not advisable.
Replacing outgoing Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp at the end of this season must be exhilarating — but slightly more terrifying for anyone being seriously considered for the job.
Feyenoord chief Slot, 45, has emerged as the No 1 candidate and while it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, it is also one of the toughest gigs going.
Klopp has won seven big trophies in eight years but, moreover, restored a sense of entitlement at Anfield.
The feeling that the club is back where it belongs among football’s top feeders.
Even if the imposing German was only half his 6ft 3in, those would be big shoes to fill.
Wednesday’s 2-0 defeat at Everton has torpedoed the Reds’ title hopes.
And, with them, romantic Scouse visions of Klopp, 56, being carried shoulder high through the Shankly Gates with a second Premier League winner’s medal hanging off him.
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Overnight, the team looks weary and in need of a makeover similar to the manager’s cosmetic tooth job and laser eye surgery.
But doom for Klopp is delight for Slot.
It is now odds-on that the man who has come to symbolise the renaissance on red Merseyside will head off into the sunset with only the Carabao Cup to go with his carriage clock.
And how much easier that makes it for Slot — or whoever takes over — to pick up the baton.
Who wants the job of trying to lead the Kop giants into an entirely new era when the trophy cabinet is bulging with bright, shiny new trinkets?
Nobody wants to follow on from a legend.
Whichever massively underpaid no mark eventually takes on my job will find it a breeze — because the only way is up. See what I mean?
David Moyes found out to his cost what it’s like attempting to remould Manchester United in his own image as the successor to Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013.
Every aspect of life at Old Trafford, from the boardroom to boot room, was soaked in the angry old Scot’s DNA.
Even Fergie’s Glaswegian blood brother Moyes felt alien at United.
Just to make it even harder, Britain’s most successful manager signed off in style by winning the Premier League title by a whopping 11 points from Manchester City to assert United’s local dominance.
That’s the stuff of dreams for the bloke being put out to pasture with a trumpet fanfare.
But a nightmare for the man coming in needing to get a new tune out of the same instrument.
Man United still haven’t solved the problem 11 years on.
The next Liverpool gaffer will have to replace Mo Salah, even if the 31-year-old Egyptian goal machine does not bunk off to Saudi Arabia this summer.
He must turn Darwin Nunez, 24, into a consistent threat who doesn’t shrink on big occasions.
Virgil van Dijk is 32 and not the force of nature he once was. The defence needs work with one new centre-back, maybe two.
That’s some to-do list, but far better to come in when the team is at a low ebb to make picking it up that much simpler.
The fact Liverpool are contriving to turn what was a genuine shot at a goodbye quadruple for Klopp into a slow death march should at least make one man happy, at least on the QT.
