Since The Guardian can’t find someone to write a decent season preview for LFC. Here’s an alternative one, using their template:
The club
Still the most successful club in the country. End of sentence.
Bonus culture or EU bailout?
The money that Chelsea overpaid on Fernando Torres has been augmented from FSG’s own coffers and sensibly reinvested at market rates. Every player signed so far can make an impact this season and for at least the next five.
They’d bite your hand off if you offered them …
Second place. The title is unlikely so early in a rebuild, but a Champions League place is easily possible and top three isn’t out of the question.
Reality check
Fourth. Arsenal will struggle, gravity will take care of Spurs, so fourth, assuming United and Chelsea’s ageing squads or Manchester City’s overpaid, undermotivated All-Stars don’t embarrass themselves.
What the fans sing
You’ll Never Walk Alone. Anyone who mocks it or downplays it is worthy of pity.
What the fans should sing
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
This is England
Carroll, Downing, Gerrard and Johnson are regulars. Flanagan, Henderson, Kelly and Robinson soon will be.
Most fans would prefer they didn’t bother.
Overseas aid
Like every other successful club, Liverpool have a number of key players from overseas. Unlike most, they have an English core and a group of up-and-coming English star youngsters.
Heart and soul or captain caveman?
Gerrard and Carragher continue to be the Scouse heart of the team. Flanagan, Robinson and Kelly will continue the tradition.
Teenage kicks
As well as the youngsters Dalglish has blooded, Coady, Suso, Morgan and Sterling – among others – will soon be ready. They are all potential superstars. This is scary to the many who prefer Manchester United and the London clubs to dominate the game, but that’s the way it is.
Mad, bad and dangerous to know
Andy Carroll has been in trouble before, but not since, he joined. There has been no scandal under Dalglish, nor is there likely to be. Those in search of it can find plenty at the other end of the M62.
The manager
Paid the cost to be the boss
Kenny Dalglish is one of the greatest players and managers in the club’s history, has the faith and trust of the support, but like every manager before and since will be judged on the results he gets over the course of his contract. By the fans, anyway.
Clogger or tiki-taka?
Neither. Pass and move, pressuring high up the field and mix of intricate and direct football are on the cards, as anyone who saw Dalglish’s team last season will know. Tough to take for the London elite who succeeded in getting their boy Hodgson in to bring the club down, but a real football manager is at the helm now.
On his to-do list
Dalglish still has to deal with the limited, lazy, overpaid underperformers still on the wage bill – a legacy of the restraints placed on Rafael Benitez and the ignorance of Hodgson and Purslow.
Rule change
Force Manchester United to play with 11 men, like everyone else.
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