Posts Tagged ‘Liverpool’

1FITG mid-season review: Liverpool

Posted: February 12, 2013 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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With less than a third of the season left to run, we’re reaching a key period for a number of clubs that still harbour some sort of ambition for the end of the season. In the first of a series of pieces where we’ve asked some of our writers for their thoughts on their team’s season so far, Trebor A gives us his reaction to Brendan Rodgers’s first season at Anfield.

1. So what are your thoughts on Liverpool’s season so far?

The season has been ok so far, in truth. An unconvincing tricky start in the league set off some alarm bells. The team looked unsure, of how to play under Rodgers. That has now changed, and the players are playing with greater fluidity, and composure. You can see that the team is evolving. The cup performances could have been better. I still can’t believe we lost to Oldham. However, doing well in cup competitions didn’t exactly help Kenny much last season.

2. How are you feeling about your chances in the Europa League this season – is it a cup Liverpool should be actively trying to win and will Rodgers prioritise it?

I’m feeling fairly optimistic about the Europa League. We have progressed well, whilst managing to give young players like Suso, Wisdom and Sterling some much-needed European experience. Liverpool have never won the Europa League – so I would like to see us make history this season. There are some big clubs still left in it i.e. Ajax, Tottenham, Napoli, Chelsea and Benfica. Which will certainly make winning it tough. Will Rodgers prioritise it? I don’t think he has much choice – put simply, this is the only competition Liverpool can now win this season.

3. Would you agree that Gerrard has been below par this season?

English: Steven Gerrard, Liverpool F.C. footballer

Steven Gerrard – still got it. Or, used to have it, but has replaced it in his aged state with something else also useful

No, I couldn’t disagree more. Gerrard, like the whole team, started the season slowly. He looked a bit lethargic. This was understandable, considering his involvement in last summer Euros. He has been excellent for a couple of months now though. What people do not seem to understand is that Gerrard is 32 years of age. He can’t run for 90 minutes from box to box anymore. Gerrard is a different player now – more reserved, but still able to produce moments of brilliance. 7 goals and 9 assists in the Premier League testifies to that. He’s the only premier league midfielder to have played every minute of every game this season as well. That is a remarkable feat, taking his age, and past injury record, into consideration.

4. Has Rodgers fundamentally changed the style of play at Liverpool. Do you feel you can progress into the top 4 in the future playing the brand of football that Rodgers is trying to play?

Rodgers and his love of buzz words, calls his football ideals a ‘philosophy’. When in truth it is fundamentally ‘passing football’. Not exactly re-inventing the wheel, is it? However, in fairness to Rodgers, there has been some change. A lot this has been off the pitch i.e. backroom staff, training methods, scouting network etc. Even the formation has changed from last season. Due to this, the teams results have somewhat fluctuated. The football hasn’t always been sparkling or scintillating, and I still can’t help but fret every time the ball is passed around in our own defence. Rodgers is militant about the constant need to keep possession and controlling the game. It can appear to be counter-productive at times. Yet I can sense the players are starting to become more and more comfortable with this. Overall, the style of play has been progressive. Will this brand of football get Liverpool back into the top 4? Hopefully the results will start to match the quality of football. Only then can progress be achieved. I know it might seem a bit cliché, but I can’t help thinking of this team as a ‘work in progress’.

5. Predicted finish in the Premier League this season?

Last summer, before the season started, I said finishing 5th in the Premier League and winning the Europa League should be Liverpool’s target. Nothing in that regard has changed. Obviously, I would love to see Liverpool finish 4th. While that is not improbable, it is possibly a tad unrealistic. So, 5th and winning a European competition – that’ll do for me.

Rafa Benitez: This week’s guest host on Have I Got Blues For You

Posted: November 26, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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There are legitimate reasons why you might be sacked within six months of achieving for your employer its greatest ever success. Stealing from the company, perhaps, or punching your boss in the face and calling him a knob. As far as we know, Roberto Di Matteo didn’t do any of these things, and he has every right to feel a little aggrieved. (You might also get sacked for using a racial slur at work, but of course that sort of thing would never happen at Chelsea.)

But when your boss is Roman Abramovich, it can’t come as a great surprise. This is a club owner who gets through managers at roughly the same rate as hoover bags. Like replacing hoover bags, it’s an annoyingly expensive habit: when you give an elite football manager the sack, the sack has to be filled with wads of cash. According to The Times, Abramovich has spent almost £60 million paying off dismissed bosses.

Rafael Benitez

Rafa Benitez – will he win the Odd-One-Out round of recent Chelsea managerial failures?

This isn’t too much of a worry for a man whose pockets are deep enough to drown in. Clearly he doesn’t believe managing a football club requires any kind of long-term planning. Given his acute fear of commitment, why not adopt the successful formula used by “Have I Got News For You” since Angus Deayton’s ignominious departure, and put someone different at the helm each week? They could even use some of the same personalities – I for one would love to see any of Miranda Hart, Alastair Campbell or John Torode and Gregg Wallace take charge of Chelsea.

For now, the title of Britain’s best-paid temp falls on our old friend, Rafa Benitez. As a Liverpool fan, my feelings towards him are, shall we say, mixed. I’m definitely not looking forward to his post-match interviews and the endlessly dull debates about zonal marking and squad rotation. “I am only theenkeen about the next game” is not a catchphrase anyone has missed.

But in the context of what has followed, it’s impossible not to judge his time in charge at Anfield favourably. He inherited a squad containing Djimi Traore, Igor Biscan and Vladimir Smicer, and guided them to a Champions League title. In the league, Liverpool averaged 1.90 points per game under Benitez, compared with 1.42 since he left.

Parting company with Benitez seemed like the right decision at the time: an abysmal performance in the league saw Liverpool finish seventh in 2010, having been second the year before. The reversal of fortunes owed no small part to Benitez’s disastrous decision to sell Xabi Alonso. It was a devastating loss, which the choices of Alberto Aquilani and Lucas Leiva as replacements did almost nothing to mitigate. Benitez might claim things would have been different had the owners backed his efforts to sign Gareth Barry, but even Gareth Barry’s mum would find the notion risible.

Critics say Benitez didn’t do enough to develop young talent, and it’s true he brought few players through from the youth team. The current crop of youngsters breaking into the first team suggest however that he left the Academy in reasonable health, and arguably the lack of opportunities for them under Benitez’s reign resulted from the club’s relative success.

The Champions League triumph, and a generous donation to the Hillsborough Family Support Group after his dismissal, might have earned him a measure of fondness from the Kop. He’s the uncle with the dodgy beard who used to take us on fun days out, but told us all kinds of rubbish in the car on the way there.

I suspect any warmth towards him will dissipate quickly once we see him scribbling notes and gesturing incomprehensibly in the Chelsea dugout. Still, I wish him the best – he’ll need it to stay in the job for more than a few months. I don’t like to make predictions, but since the editor has insisted, I think he’ll do alright. Chelsea’s form will improve – thanks more to regression to the mean than Benitez’s managerial skills. He’ll alienate one or two of his players as he did Alonso. He’ll wind up a few opposition managers, and probably his employer. Crucially, Chelsea won’t win anything this season – and consequently, Rafa will walk away with another sackful of cash from Roman’s attic.

Written by Sam Wong (@SamWong1)

Rodgers at Liverpool – club at the crossroads

Posted: June 10, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Liverpool, Premier League, Steven Gerrard
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Dynasty: A rich history of success or a soap opera that beggars belief?

Following his unveiling at Anfield, Brendan Rodgers described Liverpool Football Club as “a dynasty”. Which begs the question did he mean the club had with an established, rich history of class and success, or was he likening it to a preposterous soap opera with storylines that beggar belief.

Liverpool’s current predicament is the result of two decades of mismanagement, neglect and short sightedness, leaving the scale of Rodgers’ task much greater than the seventeen points that the team finished off the coveted fourth Champions League place.

On the footballing side, Rodgers has inherited a squad that, despite the truck load of cash thrown at it over the last eighteen months, will need a great deal of work before it can emulate the high tempo possession game that has already become his hallmark.

The midfield in particular, is staffed by players who either lack the technical ability (Spearing, Shelvey), favour the ‘Hollywood Ball’ (Gerrard, Adam) or have simply been non-descript in their Anfield careers so far (Downing, Henderson). The only players who seem ready-made for the ‘tiki taka’ keep-ball style are Lucas and Bellamy, the latter at the wrong end of his career.

There’s then the Andy Carroll conundrum. Given how he was used, or misused, last season, his critics have been overly harsh as he has shown the potential to be an intimidating force in attack. Yet you don’t need Andy Townsend’s tactic truck to tell you that Carroll is not a player suited to a short passing game. Rodgers will either need time to work with him to refine his game (he is still only 23), find a tactical style that suits him or employ him in some other creative option (scarecrow, coat stand, hired goon – answers on a postcard please).

Lastly, there’s the ‘Gerrard problem’. Those who criticise Gerrard are usually labelled as heretics and madmen. Yet, dare I say it, some Liverpool fans have been whispering for awhile that for all his heroics and swashbuckling drive, he has never developed the all round technique and tactical discipline required to dominate a midfield, and the tempo of a game. Whilst others would just come straight out and say that the team plays better, more incisive football without him.

These might seem harsh criticisms given the years when, at his peak, Gerrard seemingly dragged Liverpool to heights that seemed beyond them. That was in the past though – and a past that heavily relied on Xabi Alonso. One-man Roy Race midfields are not a viable long-term plan in the Premier League or Europe, and it is now undeniable, even for fanatics, that Gerrard is way past his best.

Trouble is, as the club captain, local hero, living legend, and crucially, the top-earner in the squad, he poses a big challenge for Rodgers. One possible option is to gradually deploy him as a centre-back, thus adding some technique and passing ability in defence.

All of the above, however, requires time and patience – two virtues that Liverpool are, with some justification, short of. On the cusp of a fourth season without Champions League football, conservative estimates of the revenue lost over this period fall somewhere around the £100m mark.

With the stadium saga ongoing, the club still playing catch-up with their commercial operations, and Financial Fair Play regulations preventing random cash injections, the longer Liverpool are outside the Champions League the more elusive ever returning there will become.

Rodgers and Fenway Sports Group face big challenges on every front. The club have made a brave and well suited appointment but another period of failure will likely mean that the LFC dynasty may go the same way as the TV programme which disappeared from our screen in 1989 – the same year as Liverpool’s last title triumph.

Cardiff City V Liverpool Carling Cup final Preview/rant…

Posted: February 24, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Cardiff City, Carling Cup, Liverpool
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Peter Whittingham of Cardiff City F.C. 05/12/0...

Image via Wikipedia

There’ll be more an edge to the League Cup final on Sunday than you’d initially think for two teams that have little link or rivalry. A lot of this may come as a surprise to Liverpool supporters.

One reason is that there are a lot of Liverpool fans that live in South Wales. And I mean a LOT. The jokes were that the two best supported teams in South Wales had got to the final and they weren’t far off the mark.

The high level of support owes more to Liverpool’s past glories than being any reflection on their current abilities, and the unbelievable crapness of Cardiff during the 80s and 90s contributed a lot to the attractiveness of supporting Liverpool. Many City fans will have grown up with the majority of their mates supporting Liverpool and giving them stick for going to the City.

Now the gap between the teams has narrowed and it’s heartening to see as many City shirts being worn by kids in South Wales as Liverpool or Manchester United ones. But for the older generation the chance to put one over on Liverpool is a huge motivation, even if it is simply so they can walk into work on Monday and brag to the Liverpool supporters.

Another thing that’ll be confusing for Liverpool fans is that the majority of the country will be behind Cardiff (a novelty for Cardiff fans too) and not simply in an ‘oh-the-British-love-an-underdog’ fashion.

Liverpool have always been the media darlings of football. Ex-players have gone to work in high-profile TV and radio jobs (just look at the regular MOTD sofa) and Liverpool have always had a smooth ride. Everyone cheered them on in Istanbul, the same can’t be said for Manchester United in Barcelona. Liverpool built up a reputation and a stack of goodwill from the football community in general, but their reputation is in tatters after the Suarez incident and the way the club handled it. Every football team has a ‘no-one likes us’ attitude among it’s support but at Liverpool it’s been slightly delusional and coupled with a bit of a victim complex. However now the ‘no-one likes us’ view may be justified. It’ll be interesting to see how Liverpool players and fans react to that on the day. Perhaps a spell as a genuine underdog would help soften attitudes towards to Liverpool.

It’ll also be an interesting game for Craig Bellamy, who was at Cardiff last season and is a Cardiff boy through and through (just listen to him talk, pure Cardiff from the accent to the mannerisms to the attitude). Like many South Walians he grew up a Liverpool fan, but if he does manage to score (and many Cardiff fans are resigned to the fact that it would be bloody typical if he did) then the chances that he’ll celebrate it are slim.

On the pitch, Liverpool shouldn’t underestimate Cardiff, who are a decent side pushing for promotion in a strong division. Though their form hasn’t been great lately they have genuine ambitions to be in the Premier League in the near future will be looking at the League Cup as a way to show that they’re serious about that. Of course on paper Liverpool are stronger than Cardiff, but Cardiff have a solid defence and an industrious midfield, sprinkled with the inspiration of Peter Whittingham, whose link up play for the ever alert Kenny Miller will cause problems for Liverpool if they’re caught napping. Most people will be expecting a Liverpool win and anything less would be a disaster for Kenny Dalglish.

Cardiff won’t be looking to merely ‘put up a decent fight’ and for their fans to have a jolly day out. They will be going there to win. And Liverpool fans would be minded to recall that Cardiff have played at the new Wembley more times than Liverpool have.

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Liverpool offer Carroll for Tevez – transcript of phone call – Exclusive!

Posted: January 28, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Liverpool, Transfer
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English: Andy Carroll during pre-season friend...

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With the news that Liverpool tried to swap £35million flop Andy Carroll for Carlos Tevez we at 1FITG Towers went on a search for the  conversation transcript. Here is what we found – disclaimer the following may or may not have *actually* happened:

Liverpool: <Ring> <Ring><Ring><Ring> “Hi, is Gary Cook there?”

Man City: “Er..he doesn’t work here anymore…who’s calling?”

L: “Shit..this is going to be a lot harder than we thought”.

MC: “Sorry…what did you say?”

L: “Er, nothing, never mind. I’m calling from Liverpool football club, you know; You’ll Never Walk Alone, the Kop and all that stuff from the 70s when we were good. And we understand that you are trying to sell Carlos Tevez? We’re really interested as we’re a little short up there with our star forward being found guilty of being racist and all”.

MC: “Erm, okay. Yes, that’s right, we want at least £25million but as you’re another club who are in our division we will want considerably more”.

L: “Cause we’re competitors for the league, right?”

MC: “Ha…er, no.”

L: “So we’ve got £35million, and that is what we’d like to offer you.”

MC: “That certainly is something we would be happy to talk about, would it be split over the season or in one sum?”

L: “Oh, it would be one big, huge, wasteful lump sum”.

MC: “Good, we’d much prefer to have the sum paid upfront.”

L: “Yeah, exactly, you want the big lump upfront, right?”

MC: “Exactly”.

L: “So when do you want to talk to Andy Carroll? I’m sure he’ll be easy to convince to join, there’s lots of strippers and bars in Manchester and it’s easier for him to get back to Newcastle”.

MC: “Sorry? Why the hell would we want to talk to Carroll, you’ll want to talk to Carlos no?”

L: “Yeah, we’ll need to talk to Carlos, but we’re offering £35million Andy Carroll for him?”

<Dinnnnngggggg>

L:“Hello? Is anyone there?”

<Line goes dead>

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6 bad and random Premier League signings 2011

Posted: January 1, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Premier League, Transfer
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English: Fernando Torres playing for Chelsea F.C.

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1 – Fernando Torres (to Chelsea)

Oh Fernando, what have you become? Lumbering, awkward, slow and unhappy. 3 goals in 28 games for Chelsea – a goal every 9 games says a lot. With the £50 million price tag saying the rest, that makes it £16.6 million a goal. If there has been a bigger transfer flop per pound I’d like to see him. Will he ever come good? I’m not sure, this summer will be 4 years since he scored in the 2008 European championships, arguably the last year he actually had any form. Long way back Fernando….

2 – Andy Carroll (to Liverpool)

First things first, 4 goals in 23 games for Liverpool – that’s a gaol every 5 and a bit games. Not ‘too’ bad until you realise that’s a £8.7+ million a goal and think wow. In many ways Carroll is unlucky, he never wanted to leave Newcastle by all accounts but at £35 million I’m sure Ashley thought he’d never get this chance again. Liverpool will argue that they have paid for potential and that English players carry a premium (also see Henderson and Downing) but that is a lot of money for potential. He may come good, but unless Liverpool change the way they play I think Andy will be shipped out back to Newcastle.

3 – Pascal Chimbonda (to QPR)

Pascal was in the team of the year at Wigan, which earned him a move to upwardly mobile Spurs the season after. In 2011 he played 3 games for QPR before being shipped out to Doncaster where his agent (Willie McKay) now acts director of football.

4 – Shefki Kuqi (to Newcastle)

Picture the scene, you’ve just lost your top goalscorer for £35 million and you need someone to fill the gap in your first season back in the Premier League. Who do you plump for? Well Kuqi was free so beggers can’t be choosers. Shefki signed after the transfer deadline on a free and played 6 games for Newcaslte with no goals. A year later he’s banging them in for Oldham.

5 – Steven Pienarr (to Spurs)

This might be a little unfair to Pienarr but he still makes the list. His contract was running down at Everton and Harry thought he’d snap himself a bargain, which he did at £3million. Injuries and fierce competition have meant that Pienarr has either been unavailable or on the bench and has only managed 8 games in a Spurs shirt. Rumours today suggest that he’s available for a transfer.

6 – Kieran Dyer (to QPR)

What a player Dyer was at Ipsiwch and Newcastle, I remember him demolishing Spurs twice in the early 00’s with lightening pace and a hell of a left foot. Unfortunately his body has packed in and it was only a matter of time before he got injured. Tough for him and for Warnock but the sad thing is that we all knew it would happen didn’t we?

Honourable mentions for flops of 2011 -

Henderson (to Liverpool) £20million

Poulson (to Liverpool) £4million

David Ngog (to Bolton) £undisclosed

We’ve missed countless others, so who do you think we should of added into the list? Let us know in the comments below and Happy New Year!

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The ‘racism’ keeps on coming..

Posted: December 22, 2011 by onefootinthegame in England, Racism
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English: John Terry in action for Chelsea FC

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Things move fast in the world of football and dodgy racial relations. By the time our post on Suarez was up yesterday on the Suarez affair, everyone was starting to move on to John Terry. And while many were contemplating the impact of the John Terry
case a whole load of people moved on to Alan Hansen’s comments on Match of the Day.

Whatever you think about individual cases (some of yesterday’s blog comments showed how important club loyalty can be to an issue) it seems that racism is still an issue in football. The punishment handed out by the FA to Suarez shows that it is willing to punish racist language with a severe penalty. The fact that the CPS is involved in the John Terry incident and it is going to court indicates that what happened was deemed of enough potential seriousness to warrant criminal proceedings. Alan Hansen was clumsy in handling a sensitive topic and used outdated language that showed his age, but was not in any way malicious. I’m pretty sure an apology
will suffice but as an experienced broadcaster you can’t help but think he should have been more considerate given the nature of the issue.

When a club with the standing and profile of Liverpool and a decent sized section of their fans essentially say that racism is ok, as long it’s not really serious racism, then that’s disturbing. When someone like Stan Collymore  is on the receiving end of some horrendous racial abuse on Twitter for ‘daring’ to speak out about racism in the game then you know something is wrong. When the CPS is getting involved in something that happened on the pitch and when the FA is handing out 8 match suspensions to players then things are getting out of hand.

All this adds up to a need for football to have a proper conversation about racism within football and how to deal with it. Organisations such as Kick It Out have done some fantastic work over many years. The change in attitudes over the last 30 years has been a credit to football and in the UK we are miles ahead of some other European countries in terms of that. But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels, there’s still a lot more to do. What that is I don’t know. It won’t be just the one thing that advances it, but a series of smaller things that add up. A softening of hardline ‘my club right or wrong’ attitudes can help people see the bigger picture in individual cases. Being able to speak out against racism and challenge it within grounds without fear will help as well. But football doesn’t exist in isolation and racism is a problem that society as a whole has to tackle. It’s not easy and it’s not simple, but then anything that’s worth doing because it will change things isn’t easy or simple.

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Well if you’re going to say something racist what do you expect…

Posted: December 21, 2011 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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The news that Luis Suarez has been banned for 8 games for being racist has generated, shall we say, mixed emotions among football fans and commentators. Levels of reaction vary, from defending the player to the hilt and denying any wrongdoing on any level, to feeling the ban is touch harsh, to feeling the ban isn’t anywhere near long enough.

Before anyone says anything else, I think it should be pointed out that the FA found him guilty of using racist language on a football pitch. If you disagree with this finding, the argument over his guilt is not going to be discussed here. As far as it’s possible to tell, the FA looked at the evidence, considered it and found that Suarez had been racist.

Surely an 8 game ban for being racist is appropriate? If the game is serious about racism and tackling it then it needs to hand out punishments such as this. It has to show to all players, regardless of where they’re from, that racism is not acceptable within British society and is not acceptable on the football pitch. An 8 game ban is severe but then a ban for being racist should be severe. It’s behaviour that requires severe consequences.

Over the last month or so many Liverpool fans have been defending Suarez. In the light of this finding by the FA it will be interesting to see if the tune changes, especially if the appeal that is likely to be forthcoming is unsuccessful. Mind you, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with my club appealing against a decision where one of the players was found guilty of being racist on a football pitch.

Put aside the club partisanship (hard, I know). Forget the feeling of victimisation that often accompanies being a fan of a ‘big club’. Ignore the crowing from fans of rival teams. Look at it like this: a player was found to be guilty of being racist on a football pitch. He’s been banned for a substantial period and fined. That seems appropriate, doesn’t it?

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New role for Raul from Liverpool to Chelsea…

Posted: September 4, 2011 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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RaulI suppose Raul Meireles’ last-gasp £12 million move from Liverpool to Chelsea was the stand-out, from a rather underwhelming transfer deadline day.

So, what have Chelsea now got in Raul Meireles? Is he a Modric clone that will link play and pirouette through the midfield? No, Meireles doesn’t have those attributes.He is far more likely to rampage through a midfield than dribble around it.

However at 28 years of age, Chelsea have purchased an experienced International footballer who will give their midfield much needed exuberance and mobility. Meireles is an energetic player who provides versatility, assists and goals.
Some will ask where Raul Meireles will fit in at Chelsea? Cynics suggest he was a panic buy by Villas-Boas, after being thwarted in his efforts to sign Luka Modric. Others think that Meireles and Lampard will struggle to co-exist in an attacking midfield. Both like to readily vacate central positions and get in the box. Both like to hang around the edge of the area and shoot at distance. Surely they’ll make the same runs and get into each others way?
These suggestions couldn’t be further from the truth. What I believe Chelsea have actually done, is finally fill the void left by Michael Ballack last summer. With Lampard and Meireles, Chelsea now have much more of a goal threat from central midfield. There will be less pressure on Didier Drogba to be the clubs principle source of goals. Chelsea do not look the same team when Drogba is unavailable or off-form (as we saw last season). Heck, the additional goal threat might even take the spotlight off the misfiring Fernando Torres.
As a Liverpool fan, I know first-hand how good Meireles can really be. Especially, in a free-flowing team that play with fluidity and pace. He’ll exploit gaps and make a ridiculous amount of runs for the team. One of the reasons he settled so well into life in the Premier League is because he’s an extremely intelligent player. Let’s not forget he won the 2011 PFA Fans’ Player of the Year award in his debut season.
Trust me when I say that the deadline day deal for Raul Meireles, was a clever coup by Andrea Villas-Boas. He now has a player who was one of the few success stories from Liverpool’s dismal 2010/2011 season. Meireles has also played regularly in the Champions League. Something that will come in handy as Abramovich’s Chelsea plot another pursuit of club football’s richest prize.
I would go as far as saying that this transfer may have swung a title challenge back in Chelsea’s favour. With Meireles, Mata and Lukaku added to Chelsea’s already strong but slightly ageing spine, they now have a squad capable of keeping pace with both of Manchester’s early pacesetters. Man City and Man Utd have been playing sparkling football thus far, but weren’t we saying the same thing about Chelsea this time last season? You don’t win anything in September, as the pundits love to say.
It is unfair to make direct comparisons with the man Abramovich eyed (Luka Modric) and the man he ended-up with (Raul Meireles). Modric is a creator who can win you a game single-handedly. Meireles is perpetual motion and makes others around him tick. They are very different players but equally excellent, just in varying ways. This is despite the fact both players created exactly, 66 goal-scoring chances for their respective clubs last season.
This is an interesting tidbit to finish off with. Only two players scored for Liverpool against Chelsea during the whole of last season (Torres and Meireles). Now both ply their trade with the club from Kings Road. The two clubs will clash again this season on November 20th 2011 and 5th May 2012. I wonder what will happen if Steven Gerrard or Luis Suarez score in any of those games? Just a thought.
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Liverpool United?

Posted: January 4, 2011 by onefootinthegame in Liverpool, Premier League
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Am I the only person who is starting to think that Liverpool are slowly becoming a poor imitation of Newcastle United?

Hear me out:

  • A club overly-romantic about past glory.
  • Fanatical supporters who believe they’re entitled to success.
  • A succession of beleaguered managers that have failed to win the title.
  • Fandom overriding rational logic.
  • Disgruntled players who see their future elsewhere.
  • A belief that a messiah in the form of an ex-player/manager will come and save the day.

You see, not such a far-fetched comparison is it? Some similarities are uncanny. The only thing missing is a fat, meddling, buffoon from London! Hold on, isn’t Roy Hodgson from Croydon? (ok, that was a little harsh).

As a Liverpool fan I’ve been perturbed and a little surprised about all the column inches Liverpool FC have been consuming over the last few days. There seems to be genuine hysteria emanating from the club.

It was embarrassing to hear cries of “Hodgson for England” and “Dalglish” from the fans during the recent home defeat to Wolves. Alright yes, Roy Hodgson hasn’t done a good job as Liverpool manager. Actually in truth, he hasn’t even done an average one but the level of hostility towards the man is becoming unacceptable.

Every interview he has conducted has been brutally assassinated and taken out of context. Even something as banal as Hodgson rubbing his face is now up for discussion on the LFC internet forums. Ex-players who in the summer were praising his appointment have now trickled out of the woodwork to publicly damn him.

Hodgson isn’t the only one to have fallen foul of the Liverpool fans of late. Paul Konchesky, a limited but willing player has become a target of the boo boys in the last few weeks. It would appear that a few disparaging remarks made by Konchesky’s mum about the city of Liverpool and its fans on Facebook (I know…. Facebook???) has done a lot of damage. Didn’t she have anything better to do, like change her profile picture or send a friend request???

Liverpool fans are supposed to be the most knowledge football fans around (truly a self-proclaimed notion). Therefore, can they not see that the club as a whole is going through a rebuilding process and need some patience? A magic wand will not be waved and everything will be rosy again. No plaster or band-aid can cover over the mistakes made in the last 18 months.

The new owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG or formerly known as NESV) will need time to evaluate the structure and long-term planning of the club. Changes will be made, I’m certain. These changes however, need to be the correct ones for the club. No quick-fixes here please! Whilst I admire and greatly respect Kenny Dalglish (affectionately known as ‘the King’ by many). He is a man who has not managed a football club for 11 years!

I watch with baited breath to see how Liverpool football club conducts itself over the next two transfer windows. Most importantly the current one, which is already four days old. New players are a priority and prudence as well as conscientiousness will have to be exhausted. The question is, will the board back Hodgson and give him the money he desperately needs?

It will seem inevitable that there will a parting of the ways between the club and manager at some point in the near future. My only wish is that it’s done at the end of the season in an amicable way. That will allow Hodgson to leave with some dignity instead of with his tail tucked between his legs.

The words “You’ll Never Walk Alone” are paramount to the club. Enough of the witch-hunts and agenda’s.  It’s time to be united.