Okay I rarely post so forgive me. I usually prefer to voyeur on the rest of you, but I’m feeling inspired by some of the posting over the last few weeks both on here (E2K amazing OP) and Neil Atkinson’s post matchers on the Anfield Wrap (Which you should all read if you haven’t)….
Also this should come with spoiler tags. If you’ve never seen the movie, Tin Cup, and plan to - avert thine eyes.
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In an effort to make a case for considered pragmatism, I’d like to draw a comparison with the title race Liverpool Football Club are in right now and feel-good Golf movie “Tin Cup”.
For those of you who don’t know it, Tin Cup is a light hearted Golf based rom-com starring Kevin Costner as “obscure driving range pro”, Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy. McAvoy (Liverpool FC in this story) starts the movie as a semi alcoholic, near broke, golf instructor working on a driving range in south Texas surrounded by, right hand man, caddy and pragmatist, Romeo (played here by Cheech Marin – I’d like to think I’m the Cheech Marin in this one) and a rag tag group of friends who think he’s great and hilarious (played here by you dear reader and your Liverpool supporting peers). It turns out McAvoy is some sort of idealistic golfing poet, equally talented and flawed at the same time.
During the movie we see him play 18 holes under-par with only a 7-Iron having broken every other club in his bag, we see him play ridiculous shots off trees to save par, we even see him turn down a pay-day as a caddy at one point because he wanted to get one up on the guy he was caddying for – Don Johnson, the par getting machine, here playing Chelsea and Jose Mourinho. The fact is McAvoy is as entertaining as it gets. Interestingly at one point in the movie Don Johnson beats McAvoy in a bet by merely being more experienced and boxing slightly cleverer than him.
When Rene Russo (Representing some nebulous form of glory) walks into his life for a golf-lesson, McAvoy throws caution to the wind and decides he must have her. Somehow after at least 45 minutes of romantic hijinks and difficult to maintain metaphors, McAvoy decides that the only way to win Rene Russo’s heart is to win the US Open (here playing the Premier League Trophy).
McAvoy through his own brand of mad-cap, super talented golfing abilities, papers over the cracks in his psyche and finds himself in contention on the final day of the Open. (In a twist that completely nullifies this comparison, he has also actually won the heart of Rene Russo by this stage - by being himself - but stay with me!)
In the climactic scene of the movie on the par-5 18th at Augusta, McAvoy finds himself with an interesting dilemma. He has played a tee-shot that leaves him with 2 choices:
1 - He can drive for the green, over a water hazard, and have the chance of getting down in 3 guaranteeing the championship.
2 – He can lay up, chip for the green and definitely get down in 4, maybe giving him the championship but maybe not if other people’s scores don’t go his way.
There is a small caveat here that earlier in the championship, McAvoy was left with the same decision and went for the option 1. He drove into the water.
A conversation takes place here between Cheech and McAvoy, where Romeo implores McAvoy to lay up. Egged on by Rene Russo, McAvoy decides to drive. He drives into the water. McAvoy loses it. Instead of just laying up, he takes his drop where he took the original shot from and tries to drive the green again. And again. And again. And again. Until he runs out of balls and eventually makes a miracle shot with his last ball Hollywood style but by now he has dropped so far down the leaderboard the championship has gone.
“Don’t worry”, Rene Russo commiserates, “In years to come nobody will remember who won, just that shot”. Sorry Rene Russo, you're wrong.
To bring this back to reality and something PoP alluded to earlier. I’d really appreciate if only for the next 3 away games we were a bit more pragmatic and in control. Personally - if only for my, still palpitating since Sunday, heart - I think Joe Allen should come into the midfield and along with Gerard and Henderson for those games. I’d love 3 clean sheets and a measure of control in those games. 3 clean sheets would be 3 wins 65 points and then we can just go for it. I know that for those 3 games this will mean having to make a tough call about Coutinho and Sterling most likely - but having an option of either off the bench isn’t the worst thing in the world either.
We’d all take 11 4:3 scorelines in our favour between now and May but would you all take 1 and 2 nils and being slightly less open? I would …. I really, really would. It’s a cliché but I don’t think we can survive 11 games and having to keep going to the well like this.
This is not to disrespect the character shown on Sunday or the quality of our play over the last 6 months - I haven’t enjoyed or been this emotionally involved in football games in 5 years - but I’d give my left nut for this to all mean something at the end. And I wouldn’t swap that.
But to paraphrase Cheech Marin in Tin Cup.
“Sometimes it’s okay to lay-up and take your chances”
I’d like to win the championship AND Rene Russo. 11 games to go, it’s feeling very real now. Plus this is so much fun again. Thanks.
For some reason that's one of my favourite movies of all times. It's not a master piece of any means. It's just a funny little feel good movie.
Your right about the similarities. You're also right that it would be nice to get some safe low score wins (in LFC terms this season that would mean less than 3 goals per game
), however, I'm not sure that will happen. I don't think the centre backs are as much to blame as they're made out to be (elsewhere, not in this thread).
We play some high scoring football. Usually this means you're not as solid in defence. It's only natural when you're committing more resources going forward, you'll have less resources at the back. However, there's still a reason to feel we shouldn't concede as many as we do.
I don't have the stats to back it up, but there's a story going on that we're conceding mainly due to personal errors and set pieces because our centre backs are shit. Is that the full story? I really don't think it is.
Yes. Some of our marking at set pieces is horrendous.
Yes. Some of the mistakes we see experienced pros make are dreadful.
Why does this happen? Are they shit?
Do we expect 2 or sometimes 3 players to keep clean sheets on their own? Is that fair?
Brendan said the mistakes weren't something you could coach (or something to that effect). Is that really true?
I'm a big fan of Agger. I'm a Dane and besides Eriksen...and yes...Bendtner he is by far the shining light of the Danish side. His set piece marking has always been a bit of an issue. Is it just me or is that not something you can practice? The way I see it, it ought to be one of the easiest things to practice. If there's a conscious decision not to practice that area of the game aren't we then accepting we
will concede from set pieces.
Now, Daniel is far from the only one who's made mistakes at set pieces. I was just using the criticism levelled at him as an example. However, while we're talking about him (well, while I'm talking about him) there's the thing about physicality. Brendan openly said he pulled Agger from the game because he was afraid he couldn't handle Bony. Isn't there more than one way to skin a goat? By the same logic we'd absolutely need a powerhouse forward (Andy Carroll anyone?) to compete with opposition defenders. We seem to manage just fine without Andy.
In general, especially in the Central Defence thread, there seems to be a vocal minority insisting we need to sell pretty much every centre back who's available to us at any given point in time.
Which brings me back to my initial point, and the match. Could we be asking too much of our centre backs? Could our defence improve with better support from midfield, the fullbacks, and even the keeper? Could this be done without sacrificing our unquestionable attacking quality?
Maybe we see more personal errors from our centre backs because they are put in a position to make those errors more often than they need to be.