to be honest one of the things that's surprised me about their fanbase since the decline took hold is how little they know about the game.
It's as though they never questioned anything the club did during their winning reign as everything was easy to overlook if it didn't work out.
They don't understand tactics, training methods, stats, science or analytics and team building is based on throwing more and more money at it.
They're playing catch up in so many areas, they have no real concept of how much the tramp damaged them by hanging on so long.
It's amazing, really. The football world has moved on in a relatively short time and has left them trailing behind. Their denial of this fact will guarantee that they fall even further behind until they finally acknowledge the reality of the situation. Their fans seem to be in deep denial still, as do plenty of their old players who are now pundits.
I think our older fans can recognise it because it happened to us too. Through the 70s and 80s it was almost unthinkable that we could decline the way we did. We had been ahead of the curve for so long, but suddenly we lagged behind it come the Sky era. I think a lot of us thought it was a blip and things would be ok again fairly soon, but the 'blip' gathered momentum and reached a point where a major rebuild and change of strategy was needed, as were the right people to put that into place and see it through. United and their fans seem to still be in denial, and that is good for us and bad for them. I hope it continues.
Not only are they in denial, they have fallen into the trap of believing that the sentimental route (Oleh) is the way out of the 'blip'. They are doing what we tried to do. Instead of creating something fresh and new, they are looking to recreate old glories. Thing is, you cannot replicate things like that. Klopp has not achieved what he has done here by trying to be Shankly, or Paisley, or Kenny, Joe, Rafa or anyone else. This is a new Liverpool built in Klopp's own image whilst paying a healthy respect to the past but not living in it. This is a ruthless Liverpool once more, not a sentimental Liverpool. It's actually great to see that United and their fans have learned nothing from their obsessional focus on our club, because they have fallen headlong into the very same trap we fell into when our own empire started to crumble.
You are right regarding Ferguson. He hung on too long. It was ok for him personally because he went out a winner, but he wrung every last drop out of that squad before he left. From the start of the following season, a rebuild was clearly needed. He put them onto the bum steer that was Moyes. I still can't decide if he did that to boost his own ego or if his judgement had deserted him by then. Unless they got the appointment spot on, decline was certain. He knew this, but put Moyes forward. He knew if Moyes did well then his judgement would be lauded. But he also knew if Moyes messed up, people would just blame Moyes and say that no one could replace a managerial god like Ferguson. The contrast between the two was stark. Ferguson, the man who won everything, and Moyes, the 'winner' who has never won anything at all. I really wonder if Ferguson threw Moyes under the bus to further enhance his own legacy and legend?
But anyway, the bottom line is that they are in a mess but they either can't see it or refuse to see it. That's pretty good for the rest of us.
