I understand that people click into the ‘Round Table’ thread for posts which take a more measured, analytical approach to the game that’s just gone but, if I’m being honest, that’s not me tonight ladies and gents (maybe it never is, to be fair). So scroll down if you want any of that. Let’s face it, the performance today could have been better both individually and as a team, and anyone who says as much is entitled to do so. Me, I’ve got no interest in it. I don’t have the stomach for any of that right now, picking over the bones of a victory that brings us three games away from something I still can’t even imagine like we’re at a fucking funeral or something. All the best to anyone who wants to do that, like, but no, not me. Not tonight. No, tonight I just feel like being belligerent in my love, respect and admiration for this team because they deserve it, and I simply can’t be arsed with anything other than singing its praises as loudly as I can.
All I really cared about at roughly 1.50 p.m. today was that Liverpool Football Club had picked up another three points in this relentless march towards history, that’s it. Today’s game didn’t mean anything to me beyond that, beyond another ‘W’ to add to this jaw-dropping, perhaps era-defining collection, its significance nothing more than a snapshot in time, one piece of something far greater in magnitude than a 3-2 win at Norwich City could ever be in and of itself. In the moment, of course, it meant everything. The last 15/20 today were pure, malevolent torture and as the minutes ticked slowly by, second by excruciating second, it felt like time was going backwards. This was as important as any other game on this beautiful ride and then some, be it Arsenal, Fulham, Swansea, Southampton, Manchester United, Cardiff, Sunderland, Tottenham, West Ham or Manchester City, some of which saw much better football played and far more impressive scorelines amassed. But then the moment passed and the result was absorbed once again, beamed up into the mothership just like the other 10 or 34, a part of something infinitely more important than fleeting issues surrounding the performances of Lucas, Johnson or Mignolet, the shape of the team or how much we missed Henderson. All footnotes, friends, footnotes to history.
One team faced another today, with different prizes at stake of monumental importance, and they crashed into one other at full pelt. Liverpool shipped a few blows, no doubt about it. Norwich drew blood, then they drew it again. Were any of us expecting an easy day at the office? Truly? Were any of us expecting a stroll, maybe another 5-0 to match the Spurs game back in December in which 10 of that starting 11 took the field? Well we shouldn’t have, especially after what Sunderland (statistically still the division’s worst team) have done to ourselves and our title rivals in recent weeks. This was a battle. I said it before the game and I’ll say it again, pure desire straight from the gut, straight from the soul, straight from somewhere they don’t tell you about on Sky Super Sunday or on Match of the Day is what teams like Norwich City used to wield over Liverpool for so long, for virtually my entire lifetime supporting this wonderful club. It was the only weapon they had to level the playing field against the Fowlers and Owens, the Gerrards and Torres’, the Bergers and McManamans. We had the ability, they had the balls. Too often games were played out like nothing more than fistfights for survival in the dirt and Liverpool fucking hated that, always, for as long as I’ve known Liverpool teams, they hated it, couldn’t respond. And let’s not be arrogant here, the process of scraping out results in games like that is not beneath champions, it's the mark of champions. How many times did Liverpool teams of yesteryear win games like that? How often did Ferguson’s Manchester United? How many times was the mantra proven by championship-winning teams that if you want to play football we’ll play football, and if you want to scrap we’ll knock you out?
That’s the most important thing to take away from today. Norwich wanted to fight, not in the literal sense obviously but in the metaphorical one. Their approach was to run and tackle and hit us with every last ounce of physical effort they had in their bodies and make it so that if they lost, it wouldn’t have been for want of desire. They did that, and they did it superbly. They went down swinging with everything they had, but they went down all the same. Norwich don’t have the ability but they’ve got the fight and it would have been enough against plenty of Liverpool teams over the past 24 years. Not today. Pure ability gave Liverpool three goals via the burgeoning, potentially world-class talent that is Raheem Sterling (his shot for the first, his cross for the second, his run for the third), but it was pure effort and animal hunger on our part which saw us over the line. Don’t underestimate it, don’t undervalue it, cherish it. It means everything because this game, at its core, is still about the human confrontation, 11 vs. 11. Liverpool earned that result today, and now it’s done, in the history books, part of something greater.
Those worried that a similar performance will spell doom next week or against the suddenly (supposedly) titanic Crystal Palace the week after are underestimating the sheer will-to-win of this team and the effect that has on opponents. They're also forgetting that the Rodgers era has been defined thus far by the minor detail, the adjustment, the fine margin, the manager able to squeeze every last iota of effort, ability, performance and, ultimately, end result out of what he’s got at his disposal. A performance like we saw today, where Norwich were able to exert a degree of control over key areas of the game, may happen again and it may not. Maybe Chelsea next week will be completely different, maybe it won’t, but honestly, has Brendan Rodgers given any of us reason to doubt him yet? Has he given us any indication that he won’t know how to approach these last three games, that he won’t know how to mitigate the loss of Henderson to a sufficient extent, that he won’t have his team ready? Has he fuck. WWWWWWWWWWW…
Here we are, a team in its infancy which has moved through its evolution at the speed of light and, sometimes, isn’t fully comfortable in its own skin. Some of these players will move on, others will come in and the evolution will continue. But that’s for next year and beyond, and I genuinely have no idea why anyone would want to think about that now. Three games to history, to something we’ve awaited for so long, just three. Why look too far into the future when the present is so fucking beautiful?
