Messi seen in The Albert? Sneijder spotted at John Lennon airport with his pet unicorn or Jermaine Beckford asking the club to match his ambition. From 86 points to this.
So much of Sunday’s stagnancy stemmed from the moment Johnson was caught out by Reyes, allowing Sally Gunnell to lose our grip on the thinnest of reeds. A team already battered with low self confidence and inertia took to the field with nothing to play for save for the begrudging pleasure of denying the other lot taking a one League lead against us. It wasn’t really enough, was it? On Friday Ferguson gave us the kind of team talk that we should have had back in August when he talked of our pride and professionalism but those concepts are just words now. A perfect through ball from the skipper and an injured Carragher later and it was all over. Chelsea have beaten the other ‘big three’ teams home and away. We took three points out of eighteen in the same fixtures. Quite. Let’s hope there’s no time added on in Hull so we can lick our wounds and put this nine month sickening, soul destroying, forehead smacking, debacle behind us.
Previous seasons have told us where the managers’ problems lie. In the early 1990’s Uncle Roy desperately needed centre backs so rushed out and bought Babb, Ruddick and Scales. Later when we had the combined central might of marmalade he brought in Ince. However, this season you can point at the weak spots all over the pitch. Providing Torres stays (and I think he’s a good enough man to do so) I’d say that only Reina and Mascherano have played like Liverpool this season. Carragher started badly and only just got back to form in April, Agger is barely in the team and the Greek is a mere stop gap, albeit a magnificent one. There isn’t a midfielder at the club who can head to South Africa or the beach this summer with anything like pride and the strikers are…well, we’ve only got one.
So, how do you overhaul a squad with no money to spend? Do you sell? How much money are they worth at the moment, Torres aside? We’re not alone at the inflated payment for poor return table (Berbatov, Shevchenko, Lescott) but we’ve settled in nicely and are on first name term with the waiter. We buy high and sell low. That’s the Liverpool business way. Babel bought for £12m, Luis sold for £4m. Johnson for £17m, Arbeloa sold for 83p. Can we really trust the board to sell some of our assets and come back with money? I wouldn’t trust them with a kettle and a tea bag.
The flirtation with Juventus still continues but if Rafa’s using his non-denial as a bargaining chip he’s on thin ice. He’s popular with the (match going) fans as the evidence can clearly be heard from the terraces but are there really more pro-Rafa men on the board than the opposite? They’ve had grounds to discipline him on numerous occasions but nothing is done. If his buyout clause is really as little as £5m Bill and Ted would have hurtled him towards the door months ago, particularly if failure on the pitch affects the club’s value. One question remains then: What exactly is in his contract? He has the power over contracts and signings, yes, but what about his own exit? Is he untouchable?
If Rafa stays and the season starts poorly then we could have Hodgson or whoever the flavour of the nanosecond is then in by Christmas, disrupting another season. That’s the only outcome I can see at present as a lightning start looks as likely as a John Terry humanitarian award. The most frustrating element of the team is that they’re genuinely good enough to fly out of the box. This is still the team that was a Xabi Alonso dry head away from putting us two up at Spurs last season thus winning us the League. Yes, Xabi’s gone but you can’t blame the loss of 21 points on that. Would things have been different had Sami and Arbeloa been persuaded to stay on another year? Maybe, but not to that extent.
What has disappeared is our mental strength. Houllier was criticised for his torpid 0-0 European away encounters but how I miss the rigidity of a team who play till the end, that shout in each others’ faces to stay focussed. Despite the body blow we still had time to see off Atletico but the team just stopped playing and accepted the fate of failure. I remember The Kop and Gerrard getting on Pongo’s back because he gave up on a ball in a United match a few years ago. We don’t do that here, son. Contrast that with Thursday as Pepe played triangles with his centre backs while the clock ran down. The one shot on target yesterday. If we go behind, we lose.
Would a new broom be able to instil the pride that the players should feel? It depends on the quality of the broom.
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