Liverpool legend David Fairclough has two big dates in his diary next week

The League Cup semi-final, however, is not the more important of the two.

First up is the club’s Capital One Cup semi-final second leg against Chelsea on Tuesday, described by Fairclough as “massive” for Brendan Rodgers’ team.

But even more important to the game’s original “Supersub” is his appointment at the Walton Centre for the treatment of brain injuries two days later.

Fairclough is a regular contributor to the club’s in-house TV channel and keeps the closest of eyes on his former team’s fortunes and, in particular, those of the strikers.

“They’re looking more like the Liverpool of last season,” he confirms. “They were dominant against Chelsea in the first leg and deserved more than the draw.

“This club needs trophies. We’ve always got to show we’re fighting for prizes. Perhaps the only downside is that the team lacks a regular scorer. Getting Daniel Sturridge back would be an enormous boost.

“Losing him after also losing Luis Suarez was a major blow. We would have had a lot more points had he been available.

“I thought Mario Balotelli would be an asset but it hasn’t worked. He seems like a boy in a man’s body. But I wouldn’t be tempted to bin him yet. I still think there might be something there.

“Rickie Lambert’s move was a real big deal for him, given his history with the club. But that’s worked more as a negative than a positive. He so badly wants to do well, it’s almost as if he has stage fright.

“I also think he’s been badly handled. At his age, with his build, he needs to play regularly. Just coming on as a sub late on is no good for him and he’s looked behind the rest fitness-wise.

“It’s all meant that too much as fallen on Raheem Sterling. You need your young players to perform without pressure, not with so much responsibility every week.”

Huge though a trip to Wembley would be for his club, Tuesday’s result takes a poor second place to the event at the Walton Centre.

For the last two years, David has had a very personal involvement with a charity dedicated to funding a residential wing of the hospital to accommodate relatives of those suffering neurological trauma.

That new building opens on Thursday and David, son Thomas and daughter Sophie will be guests of honour.

Back in April 2011, David’s wife Jan died aged 52 after suffering a brain aneurysm. She spent four days in a coma at Walton with David and their children constantly at her side, sleeping on hard plastic chairs as they kept their ultimately tragic vigil.

“After Jan died we wanted to do something positive for other families in our situation,” he explains. “In two years we raised around £500,000 mainly through three Jan Fairclough Balls to fund an eight-bed unit where relatives can stay during those awful hours when a loved one is admitted.

“I set up the charity with Paul May, the specialist who treated Jan and who was already a family friend. We’re all so proud of what we’ve done.

“I’ll never forget the morning it happened. We left each other at 8.45, Jan to go to work in our family salon business and me to play golf.

“Within half an hour I was getting a call to say she’d collapsed and had been rushed to hospital. She never regained consciousness.

“I remember the ward being like a refugee camp with us all hanging around as we waited. I just felt it was important to at least give other families a place to shower, nap or just be quiet.”