The Way We Were….

April 28th, 2012 14:46 UK ▪ 202 Comments Tweet

By Aitch Memories, like the corners of my mind Misty, water colored memories, of the way we were. Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind, Smiles we gave to one another, for the way we were. Can it be that it was all so simple then, or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me would we… could we…? I have no idea what made me think of those lyrics. I don’t own a copy of the song. It’s not on my iPod. I recognize it’s only marginally less gay, (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay if that’s your thing, its just not my bag) in a football forum, than quoting lyrics to say, a Judy Garland song. Its could be a slippery slope that leads to me comparing Kenny to “the very model of a modern major general” But I think there’s an odd aspect to being a Liverpool fan, that is inescapably tied to memories… …and maybe that’s been even heightened due to the fact that Kenny Dalglish being Liverpool manager, is a constant reminder of something none of us really need reminding of… … just how very, very good the 80s Liverpool F.C. was… … and the inevitable comparisons that brings. It was always going to happen… … unfair comparisons of today’s LFC to 1980’s LFC … unfair comparisons of today’s LFC players to 1980’s players … unfair comparisons of today’s LFC ownership/board to 1980’s ownership/board … unfair comparisons of today’s Kenny to 1980’s Kenny …and it is unfair… simply because 2012 is NOT 1980. The league is different… not just structurally and financially, but from 3 points for a win, to the no back pass rule. Our prominence in the league is different. The media coverage of it all is different. Some suggest that we must win the Premier League because we haven’t won it for 20 years. Some suggest we must win the Premier League to regain our “perch”. I get the arguments… and to some extent I even agree with them… but I want to win the Premier league, simply to win the Premier League. Not because I’ve seen us lift a title, and want to see it again…. …. not because I haven’t seen us lift it for 20 years… … not because it wasn’t called the Premier League the last time we won it… …but simply coz it’s the top prize, and I want LFC to be winning prizes. So I get it… I do. But I don’t get how people can let that desire for the title cloud their judgment of winning cups, any cups… an egg cup with an LFC logo on it… if its there to be won… win it and get it in the cabinet. We won an FA Cup semi-Final … we beat Everton to do it… … and the muted response to that victory form certain sections of our fan base really shocked me. Let’s be clear about something here. The title is what we ALL want… …it is a bold statement to suggest I speak for every LFC fan … but in this singular, particular instance, I can…. … there isn’t a single Liverpool fan out there… from Anfield to Anaheim, Bootle to Bombay, Crosby to Cape Town, etc. you get the idea, that does not want the title, does not treat the title as the #1 goal/target. … but Liverpool Football club is among the most successful clubs in the world, not just because of its title haul, but because of all those shiny trophies that sit alongside the titles in what was a Trophy Room, but is now a Museum. Think about that for a moment… …we don’t have a trophy cabinet… …we don’t have a trophy room… …we have a Museum! … a fuckin stocked full of silverware Museum! … and its not a Museum of past successes as some would suggest. Spurs have past successes. Everton have past successes. Aston Villa just dropped out of some sort of Euro “top 20” clubs listing… that’s a club living on its past. Liverpool’s successes are recent… the Treble in 2001, The Champions League in 2005, a few Carling and FA Cups sprinkled in there…. And appearances in at least a half-dozen other finals. That is not the recent form of an unsuccessful club… of a mediocre mid-table club. This is not about me being a better fan than anyone, but honestly… when it comes to LFC’s reputation… Sky distributed the cool-aid and a lot of our fans willingly drank of it. We finished 7th last season and will finish somewhere between 7th and 10th this season…. And that simply isn’t good enough. It isn’t. Period. All in agreement. End of discussion. But how you allow that to pour clouds in your coffee (seriously? …a Carly Simon reference? WTF?) when looking at a Carling Cup already won, and an FA Cup final achieved at the expense of Everton, is something I simply do not understand. If its simply that you’re a miserable git and want to be left alone in yer misery, so be it… but I’d much rather “look on the bright side of life” (Life of Brian, now that’s more like it.) There are 20 teams in the Premier League… … only LFC already has silverware in the bag, AND the possibility to bag a 2nd. 1 of 2 teams WILL win the title, the other will end the season with nothing. Only 1 other team has two remaining chances to win something, if they fail on both counts they finish with nothing, and LFC stand in their way of one of those chances. We may well finish the league campaign in a very poor position, but we have hardly become some sort of insignificant mid-table team. 7th isn’t good enough… you’ll get no argument from me. But I usually find the implication in that statement being that Kenny or anyone at LFC somehow thinks it is. I don’t know Kenny, I’ve never met him… but I’m fairly confident in suggesting he probably thinks 7th isn’t good enough for LFC… and that he’ll be working behind the scenes to rectify things next season. The expression on Henderson’s face at the end of the disappointing/infuriating West Brom result suggested that even a young lad from Sunderland (a real midtable team) thinks it isn’t good enough. I know people don’t want to hear about us hitting the post 42 times this season. I know 42 times we’ve missed scoring. But that crossbar hit from Henderson, came back off the bar, hit the goalkeeper in the arse and actually bounced 90 degrees from the goal… it was almost physically impossible for it to do so, and yet it did. Compare that to the shot that hit the post, then bounced in off the back of Pepe’s head. The best team in the world can hit the post 3 times, and a proven goalscorer can miss a penalty and get knocked out of the Champions League… sometimes luck fucks you in one game… sometimes it fucks you over a season. There’s a lot that’s wrong with Liverpool Football Club. I can’t escape the impression that a lot of people thought that the minute the gavel dropped on G&H, and FSG stepped in, that everything was gonna be hunky dory. Well it wasn’t, and it isn’t, and it probably isn’t going to be for a while yet. FSG for all their supposed good intentions are not football men. They have sought (by their own admission) information and opinion on how to proceed with LFC, and they’ve sought that information from a wide array of sources, with a varying opinion on what’s best for LFC. They’re gonna need to filter all that and decide on the right course of action… but again, remember that these are men with no history or knowledge of the sport, let alone the club… … last summer’s investment was 40 million not 100… player sales accounted for the other 60… sell to buy… same as it ever was (eh? Talking Heads… eh?) … since FSG took over they sold Torres and added 10 million to it. And provided 40 million to a grab-bag of player sales. What Kenny’s (or a replacement’s) budget will be this summer is anyone’s guess, with or without Comolli. No … this is not 1980’s Liverpool run by Peter Robinson, with a direct descendent line of Shanks to Paisley to Fagan to Kenny… all pulling in the same direction with the same goals… …this is the LFC2K of Hicks and Gillete, of Parry and Purslow… of every man for himself, of whispers in players ears… of undermining self interests on ever shifting sands… and of Hodg, oh dear god… of Hodg… … 2 years… well 18 months really, was never gonna be enough time to correct all that damage… … so “good owners” and Kenny aside, mistakes have been made and mistakes are gonna be made… … our job in all this is to remember “the way we were”… … the highs of our climb to the top in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s… … but how we stumbled in the 90s, regained our feet and then got tripped up in the late 00s… …. and yes, we’ve run down some dead end roads in those recent times… … but we did so on the bumpy dirt trails, the potholed roads, the washed out bridges, and in a vehicle that self inflicted a leaking radiator, a broken water pump, punctured tires, a cracked windscreen, a malfunctioning heater, the loss of power steering and a ground out gear boxes… We have had to endure all that in recent years… … yet all while still winning 7 trophies, competing in 4 more finals, with one left to play, which could yet take the trophy count to 8 (and can we count semi’s, coz if we can… after all, 4th is supposed to be some great achievement, so how is a CL semi-final… the last 4 in the competition, not? Then you’re adding 4 more items to the list of achievements.) …all since 2000 …all while our competitors ran their businesses on sound financial footing. (and only 2 of those competitors can point to more than 7 trophies in 12 years.) Rose-tinted revisionist history… or a bit of perspective for “spoiled rich kids”? We want the title, we need the title sooner rather than any later. You’ll get no argument from me on that. How we go about “demanding it” is where I seem to be opting for a different route. We’ve been close a few times, and so it can seem some seasons, like we get further from it… but we’re still a top club, with a LOT to be proud of… and we will get there. “America isn’t easy. America, is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center-stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” …that’s from the movie The American President… … and you know what… …since George Gillette and Tom Hicks rode into Liverpool… Liverpool hasn’t been easy. Liverpool has been advanced citizenship. We’ve had to want it bad, ’cause it has put up a fight. It has far too often been about saying, You want to support Rafa (or now Kenny)? Let’s see you acknowledge fans whose words make your blood boil, who stand center-stage and advocate their dismissal at the top of their lungs. Even when that voice grew ever increasingly extreme, those of us who would spend a lifetime opposing such opinions were still expected to even-handedly discuss and debate it, rather than oppose it at the top of our lungs…. coz when we did, somehow that made us Superfans, or Uberfans. … but honestly… Liverpool HAS been easy… … take a deep breath and think about Everton fans for a moment… … okay, now when you’ve stopped laughing… … think about being an Aston Villa fan… … a Bolton fan… …god forbid a Wolves fan, the poor fuckers… …even an Arsenal fan… how many trophies have they won in the last 12 years, with their regular champions league appearances, in their shiny new stadium, with their silky skills and admirable French youngsters? When Spurs broke into the top 4 they spent a shedload to do it… at least Newcy did it on a budget, they’ll have achieved something if they finish 4th. I look at Newcastle this season and I think, (since we’re out of it) go on then, take it, take 4th place and best of luck to you… coz that achievement is not indicative of some new Newcy dynasty… I doubt they’ll be as strong next season in both the Prem and the Champions League. Spurs haven’t kicked on from last season… and with speculation hanging over the heads of their manager and senior players like Modric, Bale Van Der Vaart and Adebayor… next season could hold a bigger question mark for them than it holds for us… and what have they won lately? Anything? …Beuhler… Beuler? (have I made up for the Streisand yet?) Yes its gnawing to the bone that the Mancs have won so much, and that the Chavs continue to buy things… … but those two groups of cunts… errr, I meant fans… are the only ones in the Prem that have more to dance and sing about than us… and they don’t! Not one song for Slur Alex, or Scholes or Giggs.. Nah… sorry lads… but Manc co-workers aside… being a Reds fan is fuckin easy. We’re spoiled rotten to the core… spoiled as fuck and we need to take the silver spoon out of our mouths long enough to recognize it. That’s not a suggestion that we get complacent about our title dreams. It all too often gets twisted that way…. Its just a suggestion that we inject a bit of perspective into the discussion. … later in that same American President monolgue it says this… “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it.“ We do have serious problems to solve… still… just as we did 3 or 4 years ago… when far too loud a voice among our fanbase suggested Rafa Benitez was the problem and getting rid of him and bringing in good old Roy Hodgson was the solution. I appeal to every Liverpool football fan to not make the same mistake in giving FSG (men who don’t know footy yet) ANY excuse to even think for one fleeting second, that getting rid of Kenny Dalglish (who does know football) is the way to solve our current problems. We’ve had a bad league campaign… no doubt… no one argues that. But it has been offset by a very decent double cup campaign. And we ARE better off than we were under Hodgson. We DO have a better squad under Kenny than under Hodgson. And the last thing we need is for someone else to come in and start all over. Hold Fast. Keep the Faith. Support. … and maybe, just maybe… the way we were… you know… … standing in front of St George’s Hall watching Shanks talk about winning the FA Cup… …will be where we ARE…. …Not just watching Kenny and his team hoist One, and possibly still two, Cups in that same location… …but at the beginning of something great… …like when Shanks and his successors went on to parade a nearly unprecedented series of them… Time has rewritten every line… … but Kenny only just got handed the sheet music and new lyrics… give him time… Hold Fast. Keep the Faith. Support.

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We’re on Our Way To Wembley…

April 13th, 2012 20:18 UK ▪ 79 Comments Tweet

… But You Wouldn’t Know It By The Headlines…. By Aitch So here we are…. With roughly 24 hours as I type this, before the biggest game of the season so far, instead of being able to prepare quietly under the radar while the press sharks wrestle over the chum that is United losing to Wigan (coz you know, top sides don’t lose to Wigan) and City winning to “open up the title race”… … we jumped feet first into the already blood soaked water like a hemophiliac with a self inflicted knife wound and started thrashing about like a drowning and bleeding hemophiliac. There has been a lot that has impressed me about Henry and Werner and the way they took over. There has been much that has unimpressed me. The termination of Damien Comolli… and certainly the timing of it… …for me… falls into the latter. We should be talking about the FA Cup Semi-Final… instead, as John Lennon put it, “now there’s all this.” Some people have already made up their minds about “his” transfers, so I’m not entirely sure a reasonable discussion is even possible. I’d hoped to wait until the end of the season to have that debate… which is why I haven’t yet answered the pointed questions, put to me in that regard. I had hoped to have Kopblog reel back a little and keep its powder dry on such opinions, coz I think there is an element to the timing of Comolli’s firing that could be driven by groundswell of opinion on blogs and forums. It shouldn’t be that way… but our owners are not footy experts… and have openly admitted to widely casting their nets for knowledge and opinion on the subject… …and while I applaud them in this attempted knowledge gathering (our former Yank owners made no such attempt)… there is a real danger in that there is a wide array of truly outrageous opinion out there, that they are gonna need to filter in forming their own. It is for that reason I have called on people to stop openly questioning Kenny (and certain players) in such harsh terms… not coz the man is somehow untouchable or beyond reproach, or “bigger than the club”… … but because his bosses that make the decision on his future (and more importantly ours) know less about football than many people who feel the urge to pontificate on it in forums and blogs. (said in pontificate fashion in a blog.) (apparently necessary disclaimer stating: that is not directed pointedly, veildley, or in any other way underhanded, disguised or perceived, at anyone specific in Kopblog by name or loose inference… for fucks sake!) The headlines this week should have been all about questioning United and Fungus, and posing the idea that they might just stumble and hand the title to City, should they find the wherewithal to grab it. … but it wasn’t. I suppose we have no choice but to discuss Comolli now… but with an FA Cup semi-final against Everton at Wembley on our doorstep, I’ll leave that discussion for the comments section after the game. Is this be a make or break moment for the Club? … for certain players? … for Kenny? I think Yes, very possibly, and very probably in that order. Does or Will our League form have any bearing on the 90 minutes (or more) that will be played at Wembley? My opinion is no… just as it didn’t when we faced United and City. Cup games are one-offs… and Cup games against Everton even more so. There is so much coming into play here, from the history of these match-ups and their results, to Moyes unhidden hard-on for us, to the far less friendly “all-merseyside derby atmosphere” that these things used to get played in back in the 80s… …and that’s before you get into 3rd string goalkeepers, poor form, Bellamy’s knees, Andy Carrol, where to best play Stevie G., Howard “the Manc” Webb, and the enigma that has become Stewart fuckin Downing! So my prediction, barring likely interference from Webb, is that while Everton have been on a good run lately, that’ll go out the window the minute they step out on the Wembley turf and their inferiority complex will once again scupper their ability to play footy, allowing Liverpool to run out traditional 3-1 winners! Come On You Reds!

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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…

April 5th, 2012 11:39 UK ▪ 133 Comments Tweet

By Aitch What kind of Liverpool fan are you? Take offense at my audacity if you please… but that’s what I honestly need to ask of you. Before I get into it… let me reiterate something I’ve stated in the past… my flag, nailed clearly to the mast on said issue… These guys get paid a lot of money to play football. They get to do it for the “Greatest Team the World Has Ever Seen” and with that comes the adulation, the supermodels, the Ferraris… so for fucks sake… play football will youz? All that is required of them is to show up for practice 4 hours per day and play 90 minutes of footy twice a week… and for that they get paid the equivalent of a very good yearly salary… weekly! If you don’t have two feet… practice it. If you don’t have a corner or a free kick in your arsenal… practice it. If you can’t read the game… get a fuckin tutor and see if you can’t get up to at least rudimentary “cat in the hat” game reading level. It is your chosen trade… one we’d all love to be able to ply… so don’t take your good fortune for granted, and better whatever natural ability you came into this world with, for the love of God, Mike or Whoever! The players have a responsibility to the shirt, to the club, but mostly, to the fans. I’m not going to go any further into the players’ individual and collective abilities, performances, mentality, whatever…. … suffice to say, they need to do some looking into the same mirror… and ask of themselves… some very serious questions. Now having said that… let’s get to OUR part in “this great fiasco” that has become following LFC. I’ve been traveling a lot this last month, and was armed only with a poxy 10inch netbook, which in a nailed on imitation of a Chelsea player under Villas Boas, decided it simply was not going to work with Kopblog. Just as well really… the responses I would likely have typed to some of the comments, had I been able to log in, would surely have seen me stripped of my temporary blogger status faster than Andy Carrol can beat two players, round the keeper, then fall over for no apparent reason. I would most certainly have alienated a few people had I been able to type the responses I wanted when occasionally checking in to read Kopblog these past weeks. I guess it was a good thing I was unable to login… things get put into stark perspective when suddenly LB with whom I’ve largely agreed in the past, is ranting and railing against the machine, and Digger with whom I’ve so often disagreed, is the one calling for a calm even handed approach? I’ve titled this blog “Mirror Mirror” coz I’ve been dismayed at some of the opinions and attitudes of a large section of our fanbase… … not just in Kopblog, but in other forums, and even in Liverpool itself… …it reminds me too much of the final year under Rafa Benitez, when to some, everything was his fault… …despite people like FatScouser consistently warning that there was more to the situation than met the eye… … despite many providing the context for the situation… …then he was gone… and the truth began to emerge… and the sudden realization of what had really been going on, became public. …and now those same people are pointing their bony fingers Kenny’s way. Madness. We were relieved beyond description when NESN stepped in and finally wrenched the club from the cold dead hands of a pair of Cowboys. Our nightmare was over, and we stared into the sunrise of a brave new dawn. …Except the nightmare wasn’t over. Freddie had been ripping and slashing his way through our Dream for too many years, for it all to be over in a flash. I simply cannot help myself from laughin at the idea… the very notion … that some of our fanbase actually want to compare Kenny Dalglish to Roy Hodgson. Staggering doesn’t even begin to describe it. And such opinions lead me to only one conclusion….I can’t help but subscribe to the feeling that we simply aren’t investing enough money into special needs education. Let’s clear that little nugget up right now. If G&H hadn’t completely destroyed the club… if their CEO wasn’t a bonafide Championship Manager addict… Roy Hodgson’s name would never have been even remotely associated with a club like LFC… PERIOD. For any meaningful discussion to take place about where we currently are as a football club to be taken seriously… it must start from the knowledge that we were a sinking ship. It had been suggested that we were listing under Rafa, and that Roy had been brought in to right the ship. But that’s just it… It wasn’t Rafa who was causing the list… Rafa didn’t drive us into the Iceberg… G&H and Purslow did. Rafa… as it turned out… was the only bloke with a bucket, keeping the fuckin thing from sinking. It had been put to me at the time that Rafa needed to fall on his sword for the good of the club. The fanbase was so split, went the logic that his removal was necessary for us to move forward. He had lost the dressing room, it was suggested. Well in hindsight (and not that I’m always right, but I made this suggestion at the time) maybe it was the fuckin dressing room that should have been shitcanned? (after all, most of it has been anyway now.) If… and it is now an even bigger IF… Rafa did have to go…. then Roy Hodgson should never have even been considered as his replacement… it was like hiring someone who had once sat in seat 12C on a Ryan Air flight from Liverpool to Dublin, to pilot a 747 from Manchester to New York. And that’s not hindsight… I had that argument when he was simply an ill-advised rumor. I bring this up because there is criticism being leveled at those of us who continue to vehemently support Kenny Dalglish… that we did not afford the same support to Roy. What I will say to that, is this… while there were those misguided souls who did allow themselves to be convinced Roy was a good choice in the summer of 2010… …those of us not in special needs programs… who knew better, didn’t want him in the fuckin first place… … the 2 situations do not compare… … in any way, shape, or form. So now to where we are… Languishing in a very unacceptable 8th place, with Everton 1 point above us. …and what I’d like to say about that comes straight from that which is supposed to be our anthem, our blood oath in a way… “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark…” Well we in a storm of biblical proportions my fellow reds… and frankly… …well, some of you are holding your heads low and cowering in the dark. I’m sorry if that offends some of the delicate sensibilities out there, if it is somehow an affront to the opinions you all claim such right to. …but there it is. The words speak for themselves… they speak for us as a fanbase, always have… ….and so do our actions. “…hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark…” maybe the players aren’t doing that… but too many of our fanbase sure as steaming shite aren’t doing it either. There has been much discussion about what is good enough and not good enough for a club like Liverpool. …discussion about the quality, or lack thereof, of its players, its manager, its coaching staff. … discussion about roles of its manager, director of football, owners. There was an interesting comment on the last edition of The Anfield Wrap, that went something along the lines of … “I’d rather have one player on 100k per week, than 2 players on 60k per week” …which sort of ignores the players we did have on 100k per week last season… … you know… like Joe Cole, or Jovanovic. … no matter how bad Downing, Henderson and Adam have been this season, we’ve gotten far more out of them than we ever got out of Cole and Jovanovic… … and that’s before you get into Konchesky and Poulsen. Too many seem to want to completely ignore the almost total rebuild that took place in the summer. As I mentioned above… the perspective we must judge this season on is that Kenny Dalglish did not take over the reins of a “stable club”. Sure it looked stable… with its silver-haired fox of an owner and his foxy raven-haired companion. Such glamour gave us back a gloss that the runtish troll and his Texan ork had long since rubbed off. The club had been systematically stripping itself of its best assets for a number of years, and replacing them with journeymen who sounded good on paper, but who in practice were anything but. Out went Alonso, in came Poulsen… Out went Rafa, in came Hodgson. …(and some of you wonder where the stormy clouds and darkness come from?) FSG did the right thing when they fired Hodgson… even if it was 4 months too late. He should never have been given the job in the first place. And they did the right thing when they hired Kenny to take his place… well, not really his place, but Rafa’s… Hodgson had been nothing other than a placeholder really …only keeping the seat warm. Barring a Rafa return (largely judged as populistly impossible) there were few names that could realistically have been considered. You have to remember the names seriously associated to us… Hodgson, O’Neill, Jol… Christ even Curbishley at one point??? You think we’re seeing mid-table mediocrity at LFC now? Nah… Kenny Dalglish was in some ways… the only choice. What Kenny then had to do was completely rebuild the first team and its subsequent squad. 18 players left the club last summer. EIGHTEEN! And only 1 could really be judged as a mistake. Its pretty easy to judge this season as a failure… 8th place should never be accepted as good enough for LFC. But where most people go wrong, is assuming that it IS being accepted as good enough by anyone… in the fanbase, or at the club. But… It is no longer August. Where we are right now, as Carling Cup Winners, is in 8th place… a place you win nothing for. 4th place has been out of reach for a while, and there is no real tangible benefit from finishing 7th… except to usurp Everton… … or even finishing 6th… since Europa League Football is assured. The financial difference between finishing 7th and 12th is negligible. So while I would prefer to not see us finish below Everton, or any lower than our current 8th, I really don’t give a fuck where we finish this season… it is what it is and essentially, its done already. What is important now, is not our league position… we’ve avoided relegation… so concentrate on the FA Cup. Its all or nothing in that competition now. (even more so given our semi-final opponents.) Does that indicate an acceptance of mediocrity? No of course not… just an acceptance of our current reality. Where we finish (caveat being above Everton) shouldn’t matter now… what should is beating Everton in the semi and then winning the final… to use a poker term… ALL IN. In that regards… it has been suggested that LFC is now a mid-table team. Technically, we are in 8th place, so…. … but I simply can’t subscribe to that. If we were, we’d be happy as pigs in shite at the one piece of silverware we do have, and not really arsed about anything else… that’s what mid-table clubs are. (I can hear some people already typing that I’ve just argued against myself… I haven’t. I’m not arsed about finishing 6th or 7th or 8th, coz it will do nothing to enhance our reputation… but in order to win the FA Cup, we’d have to beat Chelsea or Spurs in the final and that will enhance our reputation… we might not be in the CL, but beating CL teams gives the impression that we are “ON THE UP” and therefore makes us attractive to better players… who at the end of the day care about 2 things, and 2 things only, enhancing their bank balance, and enhancing their medal collection.) While we currently sit 8th, we have finished 5th once and 6th once in the past 8 years… all other seasons saw us finish in the top 4… …and in that time, we have won 1 Champions League, 1 FA Cup, 1 Carling Cup, appeared in 1 other CL Final, and Carling Final, and 2 CL Semi-Finals… … is that really the definition of a mid-table club? “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately,” I hear the Janet Jackson’s of the fanbase hollering from the rooftops. There is no doubt that a 6th place finish and a potential “8th place” finish are an indication of going in the wrong direction…. And if we had been a stable club, I’d be willing to entertain such an idea… … but we haven’t been a stable club for a very long time. “The ‘Buy British’ policy isn’t working” is another vociferous complaint… as though this is going to be a long-term strategy, rather than simply the first step in what was a large-scale rebuilding plan, one that we’ve only seen the first stages of, and that will continue to take place over the coming transfer windows. You think the price of English players is stupid now? Just wait for UEFA’s minimum home grown quotas to kick in this summer… City, Arsenal, Chelsea and even Spurs are all gonna have to go out and buy English players to meet quota… … while our summer buys haven’t pulled up any stumps this season… they may very well look like bargains and good business soon… especially if one or two of them recover from first season syndrome… like soooo many players do… and deliver even just a few of the goods next season… albeit from the bench after being replaced in the first team by the quality Euro players I now expect our policy to concentrate on.. They haven’t pulled up stumps, but we’ve seen glimpses of talent there… remember Lucas and resist the urge to rush to judgment. I have nailed my colours to the mast on this before… 4th place is nowhere. 4th place is important solely for the financial consideration of Champions League qualification (well the chance to qualify for qualifiers.) Rather than being seen as success, I’ve always viewed a 4th place finish as the least acceptable failure. …But 4th is beyond us now, and I’ll save my recriminations for the summer. Where my opinion lies at that time, regarding our final Premier League place, will largely depend on the result of the semi-final, and should we prevail, the result of the subsequent final. So I’m amazed that given the choice, some would take a poxy nothing of a 4th place finish, for which you win fuck all but a tentative entry ticket, over hardcast, shiny, paraded on open topped busses, Silverware. I don’t care if it’s the Carling Cup, the FA Cup, or a fuckin autographed Tea Cup… …Liverpool Football Club is in the business of winning trophies. In the past, you had to be the best and beat the best to win things…. … with today’s structure of qualifiers and league positions… that is no longer the case. There are now DEGREES of Success and Failure… … did anyone else notice how the Europa League suddenly became a “big trophy” that Man United took seriously… for about 2.5 seconds until they got shafted out of that one too. Interestingly, the only team that didn’t embarrass itself in Europe this year is Chelsea. Spurs may be able to offer CL footy, but do they offer a realistic chance to win the bitch? Europe is not, contrary to popular belief, everything. Yes its important, but it drives too much. We’ve won 1 Trophy already… …and to do so, we had to beat the teams currently in 1st place and 2nd place… ….A 2nd Trophy beckons… … and to win that, we will have to beat the current 7th place team, and then either the current 4th or 5th place team… all teams above us. And if we can do so… and that open-top bus parades the cups around the city… I’ll bet you money, right here, right now, that more people would turn out to see it… than do so to see the Scum parade another Title. (the only thing that bothers me about that is that many of them would be the same knife wielding fuckers who’ve been bitching and moaning about wanting Kenny out… surely they should be staying home, no?) It was suggested that if things keep going the way they are, that there will only be 30,000 people watching games at Anfield. Well to the other 14,000 I say this… The exits are clearly marked, feel free to put yer LFC Merch on eBay and fuck right off! You’re low-held head won’t be missed. … and when you get home, take a long look in the mirror, and ask yourself what kind of Chelsea/City/BarcaTeam-du-jour fan you want to be. But don’t bother letting us know the answer to that puzzler… coz frankly the rest of us won’t give a fuck… … you’ll be walking alone, the 30,000 will “NEVER WALK ALONE” So for all those suggesting that this season has been a failure, I suggest you calm the fuck down and take a deep breath… at least until we’ve seen just exactly how things pan out. Then maybe we can have a reasonable discussion (though I doubt it )

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