After the Blackpool game’s highlights on TV last night, that legends programme came on with lo and behold, Kenny Dalglish as the legend in question. God he was unbelievable. That goal he creates where he pulls the ball out of the sky with one touch to get it out of his feet, away from the defender and facing the goal, and then with his second touch he releases Rush with a perfectly weighted through ball? Sheer class.
Can you imagine one of our boys trying that now? Kuyt for example? God love him but he could hardly trap a bag of cement 75% of the time let alone have the vision to pull off that move. I can honestly say the closest I’ve come to seeing that type of unplayable instinctive football between Liverpool players was Gerrard and Torres in their pomp. Younger fans only had that for one season, A lot of our 40+ supporters had it for years.
I was born in 77, so never really realised or understood just how good Liverpool were. I mean, how knowledgeable can you be at the ages of 10, 11 and 12 about the sheer quality of football you were witness to? From the age of about 15 onwards, I really started to grasp what football was about, by which time the domestic scene was being dominated by the team at OT and we were going through what can only be described as a barren spell. But growing up in that era made you appreciate what you had, it made you realise that success wasn’t a requirement, it was a blessing. You appreciated it all the more because of the failures that went before it. Souness unfortunately didn’t work out, with neither an attractive or highly successful team. Evans played wonderful football, but the team had no substance. Houllier’s team was hard to watch, but it won cups and put Liverpool back on the international scene. Throughout all this time I never actually truly believed that we would win the league. Whether it was the squad, the style of manager, the players or what I don’t know. I just didn’t feel we had the complete package. Then Rafa came in and ultimately committed the greatest success and biggest mistake of his managerial career in one night. He won the European Cup with Jerzy Dudek and Djimi Traore and made us all believe he was the man to with the league! That he nearly did it the season before he left still wasn’t enough for many, many Liverpool fans to give him more time, to have another go, to carry on building. And all this at a time when uncertainty and lack of investment crippled the club when it finally seemed we were on the cusp.
Expectation. 7th not good enough for a club like Liverpool? Well, face facts people, we’re probably going to end up worse off this season and that’s even if Kenny does a great job and gets the team playing again. What dismays me more than anything is the continuous knee jerk reactions by so many. In the last 24 hours I’ve seen posts that say FSG acted too slowly in getting rid of Roy, Kenny’s playing people out of position, last night’s result shows it’s not all Roy’s fault, and the best one – the squad needs 6 – 10 new players to make it competitive again. How people can say this is beyond me? We lose to a Blackpool team formed on teamwork, passion, togetherness and all for about one year of Steven Gerrard’s salary, yet people believe new players are the answer. I continually read how rubbish this Man Utd team is, yet it’s a team that’s sitting miles ahead in the league. And worst of all, this is a Liverpool team that contains over 60% of the players who so nearly won the league two years ago, yet is 6-10 players short of challenging again. Eh?
What has been clearly shown, Kenny himself has said it, is that confidence is a magic thing in football. A good player with confidence can take on the world, a great player lacking it can shrink at the slightest adversity. Right now, this team, this team full of international class players, international captains in some cases, is lacking confidence. Having played under a system where keeping possession of the ball was seen as a crime, amid a period of our history when the fan base has never been stronger and against a turbulent backdrop of ownership, our players have become rigid with fear. Anyone who seriously thinks last night proves that Roy wasn’t to blame is either deluded, or works for the media. My internet dropped out for the last 10 minutes of the game last night so I had the misfortune of having to listen to the radio commentary. Within 3 minutes I must have heard them state that it proved it wasn’t Roy’s fault twice. Let me tell you, 30 minutes of our football last night showed me the difference Kenny has already brought to the team in terms of passing, movement, pressurising and possession, more than Roy managed to do in his entire time at Liverpool. Regardless of the result, there are already signs of improvement, yet for many it’s still not enough. So despite the fact that our away record is shocking, we had 10 men for much of the previous game, Blackpool were fully rested AND we had a number of injuries, it was criminal that we lost this game and is indicative of the severe problems Liverpool have.
I’ll say it again. EH?
?? If we won this game it would have been fantastic, a real achievement for Kenny and the team given what’s gone before - I even said so myself. However I also sounded a note of caution that there was still a real possibility that we could still get only one or two points from the Blackpool and Bitters games regardless of the undoubted lift Kenny and Clarkey have given to the club. Maybe it’s the expectation thing again? Now that Kenny’s back, I don’t expect us to suddenly go on a 10 match winning streak, but what I do expect is a change in the style and play, and attitude of our players and fans.
I’ve already seen that change from the players, but unfortunately we as fans still seem to be in H + G mode, ready to stick the knife into anyone at the earliest opportunity, even ourselves. Our club is in a HEALTHY position again. Yes, that’s right, HEALTHY. We have little or no debt, which means with or without Champions League football we have a profit margin every year most clubs would kill for. We have a squad blessed with internationals who under the right guidance have shown they can play. We have a manager who believes in this club and knows how it should be run, and will be instrumental in our future whether it’s with him at the helm or someone else, and we have owners who have already gone some way in their six months of ownership to show willingness in not just re-engaging the supporters but running the club privately, quietly and professionally. Yet this still isn’t enough for many of you?
I love this club, and despite the fact I’m back where I was pre-Rafa – not expecting to win the league any time soon, I am still over the moon with how the last 2 weeks have gone. 2010 will go down as an annus horribilis as bad as any in Liverpool’s history, but out of it have come some positives. New owners, new direction and a new stable base from which we can once again build upon. The only thing left is for the supporters to get back to supporting the team, wholeheartedly, passionately and in victory and defeat. More than ever the media feed off the likes of RAWK, (the H + G internet terrorism has guaranteed that) and just cannot wait to see the types of posts we’ve seen in the last 24 hours, so every single supporter has a responsibility to swallow a reality pill, remember what supporting a football club is all about and realise that we are now back in good and safe hands, and that through those hands, things will progress once more. The Holy Trinity is nearly repaired; unfortunately it’s us, the supporters, who are holding it back.
