Unlike Richard who has an excuse for his absence, I don’t really have one. It’s been a season where I’ve fallen back in love with football, only for us to fall out and reconcile and after a honeymoon engagement period, to find myself moping around like a broken hearted adolescent after being dumped at the altar. I’ve just read the above analogy again, it makes me sound like a glory seeker, but what I am trying to say is that I’ve been through the whole spectrum of emotions, with jubilation, ecstasy, frustration, sadness, annoyance and pride all prevailing throughout the season. It’s weird, because although I am ‘heartbroken’ I do have an electric feeling of pride running through my veins.
So where do I start.....
It’s got to be with Liverpool and what I am hoping will be a second placed finish in the premiership this season. It’s been a real roller coaster this season, emotionally, mentally and physically. As I stated a few months ago, this is the first time in a number of years that I’ve not followed Liverpool to the majority of their home and away’s both in the league and in Europe and it has really wrecked my head. Getting used to being an “arm chair supporter” has been a lot more difficult than I thought. Having to put up with dozens of super-fans and whoppers in pubs like the Famous Three Kings that show most of Liverpool’s matches thanks to the miracles of satellite technology has frustrated the hell out of me and towards the end of the season, if the match was on Sky or Setanta, I stayed in and invited the lads around to mine rather than go out and if it wasn’t then 9 times out of 10, I’d listen to it on the radio instead.
I’d by lying if I said I was happy with second place. I genuninely believe that we should have won the league this year. I’m not sure that we will have as good a chance as we did have this season, next season. United started the season slowly and were poor for much of the early part of the season, as I am sure their fans will agree, but throughout the important periods and through the winter, they turned up the heat and they dismissed the lower league sides that we struggled to finish off.
It’s quite clear where Liverpool lost the league this year; it was the number of drawn matches against lower opposition such as Stoke, Hull, Wigan and Everton that killed us. Trying to breakdown these matches and to look at why we couldn’t win these matches is difficult. The easy answer is that we didn’t have ‘Nando fit, or that Steven Gerrard was injured, but the more honest appraisal is that we didn’t have the depth in the right places to kill these games off.
It's made all the more gutting by the results we had against the top 4 sides which were fantastic. The double over both Manchester United and Chelsea, a win and a draw against Villa and two draws against the Gooners are good results. The double over the Manc's was brilliant and being home for that match at Old Trafford was immense! The atmosphere was electric and just goes to show the ups and downs of football, when you are high you are unstoppable, 4 past Real Madrid, 4 past United, 5 past Villa....Robbie Keane was a complete and utter disaster, who, as a £25million striker should have been imposing himself on matches against these poorer sides from the first minute and not getting arsey when he was being substituted in the 60 or 70th minutes after contributing f**k all throughout the match. Given the decision to sell him or not again, I stand by my original comment that we should not have sold him though. Although he didn’t score much for us (ironically, I was actually at the match he did score for us against West Brom), he did get the odd goal, which is more than N’Gog or Babel (his ‘replacements’) have done in his absence. We all knew that he could score goals and that he could win you games, it’s just a shame he didn’t do it for us. What is more concerning though, is given Rafa’s policy of playing with one up-front and with Stevie G playing just off him, I think he is going to struggle to get a world-class striker who wants to play what will be a bit part role depending on when Nando is fit or not.
However, it’s not only the strikers who need to take responsibility for not being able to kill a game off; the midfield needs to take their proportion of this responsibility. For all Dirk Kuyt’s work and for all his running and effort, he isn’t a winger and he never will be. He needs to be replaced with someone who can create goals and who can offer that speed down the flanks that we have craved for so long. Yossi Benayoun did a cracking job in the final third of the season playing out wide, scoring some important goals and chipping in with several assists, which is more than can be said about Ryan Babel who after two seasons with the Anfield outfit, has failed to justify the £11m price tag and whom has failed to make a position his own, often playing down the left, instead of in his natural up front position.
But, with that all said, and I think it’s clear how gutted I am about us not winning the league this year, I want to say how immensely proud I am this season. How proud I am to be Scouse, how proud I am to be associated with Liverpool FC and how proud I am to have Liverpool in my blood. We’ve come a long way this season; we’ve challenged for the title all year, we’ve been top of the league and we’ve produced some hugely spirited performances; I think we have scored more goals in the last 10 minutes than any other team this season which is testimony to the heart of the team.
It’s been 20 years since we lost 96 of our own who went to watch a footie match and who never came back and I think that the club, the fans and the city did them proud this year. Stunning performances against Real Madrid and Chelsea (on the eve of the anniversary) will have had the 96 smiling down at the team and fans refusing to surrender. Standing on the kop red and blue side by side, they’ve reminded us that we’re one city and that although football is important, it’s not everything and that there are more important things in life.
Justice for the 96
http://www.hfsg.co.uk/
The Hillsborough Justice Campaign
http://www.contrast.org/hillsborough/
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