‘At a football club, there’s a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.’
- Bill Shankly
Another weekend of premier league fixtures awaits us and as us Liverpool fans glance upon the league table, we can’t help but think of what might have been. What did exactly go wrong this season? During the same time last Christmas we were deservedly joint top (with Chelsea) and looked forward to the new year with optimism never before seen at Merseyside since we last won the title in 1990. Indeed Senor Rafa guided us to best ever league campaign in 20 years. We were arguably playing the best football in the country and would have been worthy champions. And yet with almost half of the current season gone by, we’ve already lost 7 matches. Dumped out of the champions league and are out of the title race, we’re all sitting here staring at the league table and wondering what did exactly go wrong!!?
I must confess, too often have we been resting on our past accolades. The rich and glorious history of Liverpool as a football club and as a culturally enriched city is undeniable. But the fact that the league title hasn’t arrived for 2 decades now cannot be ignored. I for one would want Manchester United to win it this season and take that monkey off our back. Too often have we comforted ourselves in knowing that we’re still the most successful team in England despite our north-western counterparts racking up the league year after year. Maybe that’ll act as a kick up the backside of our boardroom staff who’d realize that in order for us to return to the summit of football in England we have to change our ways and embrace the 21st century.
I take proud in knowing that we are a very traditional club. We support our manager, his ideas, his philosophies and back him with all our heart. We are not a club, and never have been, with sudden managerial changes in quick successions such as the Real Madrids or Chelseas of this world. But we have been lagging behind in other areas for far too long. Our 42’000 seater stadium cannot compete with the matchday revenue that Old Trafford and now Emirates Stadium generate. The whole system of our youth and training facility was disjointed while a certain Frenchman in a north-london club was producing quality young talent year after year. And only now has Rafa been given a proper control over our youth academy while Wenger has been molding his players with the way he wants his team to play for well over 10 years now. Don’t even get me started on the bottomless pit of transfer money available to clubs like Chelsea or Manchester City.
The most important thing however is the support from the board room. No manager can succeed when his own senior staff has been undermining him all along. The American owners are a tumor at our club. Had they backed Rafa appropriately in the summer to build on the promising season gone by, maybe us fans wouldn’t be pondering over the league table right now and pulling the hair off our head in frustration. There is big misconception between some people when Rafa’s transfer money is mentioned. He always had to sell old players before buying new ones. The total purchases though amount to £228,976,000 in his 5 year tenure, the net spending is infact around £83,876,000. That’s an average of £16.6m a year. Here we are trying raise a few million dollars from here and there to chase potential targets but end up settling for a free-transfer in Voronin and a £2m kid in Ngog as our backup for Torres. Rafa has been working with his hands tied behind his back and expected to work miracles while on the other hand the likes of ManUtd go on and spend £30m on Berbatov without a care in the world. That is the size of the task that awaits him. I mean lets put it into perspective here. Even Arsenal had only managed to displace ManUtd from the top only 3 times in Wenger’s 13 years in charge. And that is before he had to compete with Abrahimovich’s Chelsea and the ever-increasing threat of Man City with the Arabs backing them.
It is worth noting that Arsenal were in the same mess last year. Out of the title race and fighting for 4th place. What do they do? They go on and sign Arshavin for reportedly £13-18m who turned their season upside down. Can we say the same for Liverpool right now? I don’t think so.
An even more depressing thing is that despite considering all the injuries, the once-in-a-lifetime goals (Birmingham anyone?), bad luck and beach balls this season, if we had won the last 3 matches that we dropped points in (i.e Birmingham City, Arsenal and bottom of the table Pompey), we’d be right up there in the mix (above Le Arsé) and competing for the title. That is despite us being in our worst form for ages and playing with virtually a new XI every week because the last one had been injured in the previous match. In two of those matches (esp. against the gunners) we attacked from the first whistle, controlled the game and resembled the side that pushed ManUtd all the way last season. The minute we took the lead we reverted to our same piss-poor tactics that had troubled us this season all along, and proceeded to drop unnecessary points again when we should’ve killed the game off. The hunger and the desire to win that was the hallmark of our last season is missing. Maybe some of our players think that last season was the best chance they had at winning the damn thing and they wont come closer to it again. The attitude needs to change.
I think Rafa Benitez has been victim of his own success. His side overachieved in his first two seasons in charge and that raised the expectations of our fans and the players alike. We cant demand instant success. Slowly but surely we are getting there. The thing this club needs the most is support for the manager and the team right from the very top to the backroom staff to the fans in the stadium. It’s a cliché that is being thrown around far too much these days but it is true that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.
If we are to to return the pinnacle of English football and build a "bastion of invincibility" as our great Shankly envisioned we need unconditional support and patience from the fans. I really dont care what our rival fans think, the saddest thing is that some of our own fans have given up and that to me is the greatest tragedy of all.
