For those of you watching Monday Night Football last night, you were in for a treat. 

No, it wasn't yet another punditry masterclass from the two northern angels sitting either side of Ed Chamberlin in the studio, gloriously doling out banter and tactical-analysis like it's the most natural thing in the world (watch Match of the Day: it's not).

It wasn't even the game itself, a thrilling end-to-end contest that produced four goals and ended as a Desmond, allowing Liverpool to reclaim the top spot going into the fifth game-week.

It was actually the sight of one glistening, sweaty, and shell-shocked head at the end of the game. Jonjo Shelvey had just completed what was possibly the most bizarre performance we will see all season, maybe even for the rest of our lives. 

We all know players can have shockers. Stoke's Jonathan Walters was an absolute shambles in January after scoring two own-goals and missing a penalty against Chelsea in a 4-0 home-loss.

Ronny Rosenthal will be forever remembered for THAT miss against Aston Villa.

But Shelvey's performance was, in its totality, completely paradoxical. He opened the scoring within two minutes after bundling his way through two lines of the Liverpool defence. Within the next two minutes he had badly underhit a backpass which allowed Daniel Sturridge to equalise. Another mistake allowed Victor Moses to pounce and score to give Liverpool the lead on 36 minutes. And when the clock hit 64, Shelvey had deftly headed a knock-down into the path of Michu who scored the equaliser. From hero to villain to hero again.

It was such a Jekyll and Hyde performance from Shelvey that the commentators were having a field-day. You wait for a player to have a stormer or a nightmare, and then a single player has both at once. It's the commentating version of the Holy Grail. 

Witnessing such an event was akin to stumbling upon a rambling homeless man wanking off in the park whilst punching himself in the face after each triumphant finish. Pain and pleasure in equal measure. 

To be fair to Shelvey, the way he bounced back after his two mistakes was inspiring. Standing on the centre-circle for the beginning of the second-half, he looked like a man who'd been told his dog had been ran over and put out of its misery by a passing steamroller. But he plugged away, and achieved a redemption of sorts with his assist for Michu.

Equally encouraging was his manager's refusal to take him off after half-time. Such a brutal act would be enough to damage anyone's self-confidence, let alone a player struggling to shake off the expectation which burdened him at one of the nation's biggest clubs. A club that he was playing against on the night.

Whether Rodgers saw anything that has made him regret the sale of the young midfielder is doubtful. For Shelvey's sake, he must be hoping that his new manager, Michael Laudrup, saw more Jekyll than Hyde on show last night.

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