A Hurtful, Passionless Period of Pain

It wasn’t long ago when I rejoiced at the departure of Rafa Benitez, danced at the arrival of Roy Hodgson (I wrote a blog reflecting this!) and was pleased to see some sort of movement upstairs in the Liverpool boardroom. This, though, was before anyone had kicked a ball.

Every single day, you hear differing media sources spouting differing views on the ‘chaos,’ ‘turmoil’ and ‘crisis’ that is Liverpool FC. Many of them seem to take pleasure and excitement in the way that a big club has begun cowering under the shadows of their past, whilst being beaten with sticks by the likes of Blackpool and Northampton. I’m sure if Roman Abramovich suddenly left Chelsea and as a result they slid down the table to 18th, the same journalists would do the same thing, but there is something deeply hurtful about people, who must know something about football, taking the rise out of a club that has produced some of the best moments in British footballing history.

Of course, I am biased, but surely to goodness those that know football know that the excuse ‘yes, but this is Liverpool FC’ is a valid one when someone asks you the question ‘no-one has a right to be a good team.’

I’m not one for playing the blame game – but let’s play it anyway. Performances like this and a sheer drop in everyone’s confidence does not happen by accident. You don’t finish second in the 2008/9 season, playing some excellent football at times, only to be in the relegation zone just over a season later, without something alien happening. So what is it?

The manager – For RH, this was always going to be a difficult job. He had inherited a bunch of players who aren’t very good, and a team generally low in confidence thanks to factors that largely arose from the previous manager’s bizarre tactics and poor man-management. But surely a manager has a responsibility to ensure every player puts in 100% effort in every game. This should be the main tactic, and frankly, if effort, commitment and passion aren’t fully there, tactics may as well been thrown out the window. This mess is not Roy’s fault, he is merely a bus driver trying to save a sinking ship, but nevertheless, for some reason, many of the players are not responding to him. He needs to work out why. Moreover, Roy has yet to stamp his management style onto the team; there has been little difference between his style and the one Benitez used – and to be honest, it’s long been stagnant.

The last manager – It’s easy to slate Benitez (as this blog is proving) and blame him for the current problems. He signed most of the players, for a start, and yes, many of his buys were reckless. Glen Johnson is a decent player, but he can’t defend. Benitez spent £17.5 on him, which is too much even if he could defend. There are players (who I will come on to) that simply aren’t good enough, and his random management style is one of the main reasons the players had no confidence when RH inherited them.

The players – Along with Johnson’s defending (although he’s good going forward), Agger, Aurelio, Pacheco, Jovanovic, Maxi, Kuyt, Babel, Lucas, Ngog, Degen, Poulsen and El Zhar should all be sold. Some may be staggered at some of these names here, like Agger and Kuyt for example, but come on let’s face it – Agger is another one better at going forward than defending (I’m a big fan of proper defending, a la Carra) and Kuyt, bless him… The fact I feel inclined to put ‘bless him’ at the end of that proves my point I think. ‘Give Jova and Poulsen a chance’ I hear you cry. Maybe, I can’t argue against that really, but I’d rather see the likes of Kelly, Spearing, Darby and even Jack Robinson and Andre Wisdom get into the side before the players outlined above. Those players I believe should be sold don’t seem to know what playing for LFC really means, with the exception of Dirk, bless him. There are also scores (literally) of players in the background who you only hear of in the reserves who can be thinned out quite dramatically as well. It’s a massive squad full of mediocrity, in my opinion, most of whom couldn’t beat Northampton. I’d rather have 9 very good players and 9 young English passionate players than 70 players, 63 of whom are not good enough. This view, of course, is assuming anyone would want to buy any of these players, which given current form, is unlikely. And of course, we have no money to replace them with, because of…

The owners – I can’t pretend I understand business and finance. But what I do know is that the men at the helm have made a right cucumber sandwich of the running of LFC. Whilst we all know that Gillett and Hicks need to leave as soon as possible, I’m not keen on any foreign owner coming in to replace them. Granted, this current regime has lost all of my confidence in such ownership, and also, is there anyone suitably English, preferably a Liverpool fan, out there who could buy them out? What are Christian Purslow and Martin Broughton, exactly? Whatever is going on up there, it has caused alienation between them and the managers, which of course filters down to the players. Don’t listen to anyone who says it doesn’t, because it has to. If the organisation I was working for suddenly started going into masses of debt, I’d be concerned about it, and it may affect my performance (although it shouldn’t affect effort, of course). G&H have made a mockery of the football club, and whether intentional or not, are trying very hard to destroy the living soul out of LFC. It won’t work of course, thanks to the fans, but even so. Please just leave and get someone who cares to sort out the mess you have left behind.

These are tough times, but the conclusion of all this is that no one individual is to blame. The important thing is what needs to happen now. That is, RH needs to pull his lads together, tell them they are brilliant even if they are not, show them who they are playing for and for goodness sake show a bit of Reds passion. We’ll turn this around, of course, but it doesn’t mean that the collapsing walls of Anfield don’t hurt in the meantime. How on earth did we get here?