Liverpool FC Forum

[Reg]

Liverpool's latest disappointment at home to Wigan highlights Anfield's blindness to modern failings

Aside from those institutions that adjoin Stanley Park, one of Liverpool’s most famous clubs is called The Grafton. A once grand ballroom that fell into disrepair, it was a location where ladies of a certain vintage relived their golden days, throwing on the lipstick for one more shot at rapture alongside a fresh generation. Every now and again they would strike lucky too, as visitors in awe of the sheer novelty value of the 'grab a granny nights’ succumbed to its particular charms.

In so many ways, Liverpool Football Club have something in common with the ladies of The Grafton.

They are like an old lush, sat in the corner telling the world how attractive and marvellous they are, utterly affronted when anyone blind to their natural beauty suggests otherwise. Friends, lovers and acquaintances nod enthusiastically each time the club attest to their own greatness, but neutrals and rivals think their better days have long since passed.

Every so often the reminders are more potent. A magical one-night stand in Europe, or (as this season’s Carling Cup final demonstrated) an occasional trophy, but the most serious threat to Liverpool’s enduring significance is not the criticism or pity of onlookers, it is their own lack of self-awareness.

Defeat at home to a bottom-three side such as Wigan Athletic is still looked upon at Anfield as a shock, a performance hich belies form or tradition. Why?

Wigan have not lost to Liverpool for three years. They are one of 10 teams to have left Anfield this season enthused by their opponents’ inability to win at home. Shaun Maloney’s penalty and Gary Caldwell’s 64th-minute winner condemned Liverpool to their worst Anfield run since relegation in 1953.

In applauding his own side’s “historic” win, Wigan manager Roberto Martinez generously suggested Anfield remains a special, iconic football venue. That view is based increasingly on the place’s sense of the past. Liverpool might as well be playing in their museum.

Walk around Old Trafford, the Etihad Arena or the Emirates on matchday. Pause, soak in the scale of the view and keep convincing yourself Anfield does not look like the remnant of another era. One day you will wake up and those Malaysian fans you keep fluttering your eyelids at will be wearing City scarves.

Look at the league table for the last 22 years and ask how many genuine title challenges there have been. Two? Three perhaps?

Thoroughly examine why the club have fallen from their lofty perch. It is not because they have been pushed off by others, been victims of some bizarre FA or Sir Alex Ferguson-led conspiracy, been sidelined by high finance or have suffered two decades of bad luck.

It is because successive managers have wasted millions on inadequate players. Those still inaccurately perceived as their closest rivals (a 28-point gap to United is a loose definition of 'close’) have used their resources infinitely better. When a £35 million striker and a £20 million midfielder turn out to be appalling, the simplistic demand is for another cheque to be signed. Supporters work out the profits from sales, subtract the fees from purchases and use this an excuse for buying pap. It is desperately feeble.

The other option is another managerial change and the recycling of mitigating factors for 12 more months of rebuilding. That has not worked much, either.

Kenny Dalglish is destined to get one more chance next season regardless of the debate about whether he should.

Not because it has been a fantastic season (it clearly has not), not because the league table tells fibs (it does not) and not because his signings are good enough (they certainly are not).

He will get another season because there is no appetite to write him off after one trophy winning campaign, which could still end with the FA Cup.

When Rafael Benitez came seventh and Roy Hodgson flirted with a relegation scrap, you could call anyone at Liverpool and aside from a handful of sycophants, 90 per cent of employees from the board down to the secretaries did not just crave change, they lobbied for it.

The fundamental difference between then and now is the same enquiries provoke the opposite view. Dalglish is not just liked, or respected. He is adored and trusted. Liverpool were booed off on Saturday, but Dalglish’s name was still sung (although not as much as it was when he still a club ambassador).

For the club’s American owners, the challenge is brutal. Chief among them is convincing their fan base to share in a communal period of self-revelation.

“Slow and steady progress,” is their mantra. The emphasis is on slow.

They may also have to add the word 'agonising’. Expecting them to repair two decades of fierce cultural resistance to any view suggesting the Liverpool way is no longer the correct one will take courage and a willingness to flirt with unpopularity to do what they believe is essential and right.

“There’s a word we have been using for the last 12 months,” managing director Ian Ayre said last week.

“Unity.”

That is all well and good, but here is another one the club better get used to if they do not accept, confront and deal more urgently with the problem of their current place in English football. Irrelevance

[Kenny Kan]

Stop reading s.hit sensationalist articles Reg - it plays havoc with your opinions. 

[Reg]

Kenneth, a wise man is always aware of how others view his situation so in that respect the article raises some unavoidable and valid (on the surface at least) comments.

Looking at Fenway's methodology of buying undervalued talent (end of career but short term influential or under performing players who need a break to flourish) then Kenny is caught with his knackers between a rock and a hard place.

Adam - relatively cheap and playing above his weight at Blackpool - seems to have struggled to step up to become a Gerrard replacement.
Henderson - expensive youngster, long term buy. Lacks confidence, drive or simply not good enough. But fitted the Fenway profile.
Downing - was expected to flourish and step up a gear. Hasn't done as yet and went 1/2 the season without a goal or assist.
Bellamy - great example of how the Fenway system can work.
Soto - again historically a good example how the system can produce diamonds.
Carroll - its difficult to say he's working out or moving forward to where we want him. As he hasn't scored 10+ goals, appears not.

So Kenny has changed his style, got a squad that maybe doesn't look right and is trying to mould them into a workable unit.

Trouble is there doesn't appear to be a common will to win and I don't know how the Fenway system solves that.

[Kenny Kan]

Kenneth, a wise man is always aware of how others view his situation so in that respect the article raises some unavoidable and valid (on the surface at least) comments.

Reginald, a wise man doesn't have low self esteem issues about himself, he doesn't worry what 'others' may think - he is control of his destiny, not them.

So, worrying about what Bascombe writes about my club, doesn't resonate with me, at all. I don't have a complex about my club.

[Reg]

Yes, many a fallen General was convinced he was correct right to the point of defeat. Napoleon at Moscow, Hitler at Stalingrad, the British in Singapore and Balaclava, the yanks in 'Nam, and you know what, in all those examples the consequences of the defeat was far greater than the single act of losing a battle.  A wise man Kenneth establishes his strategy to achieve his aim but constantly reassesses to ensure the criteria remain constant and the tools at this disposal remain capable of achieving the objective. Any man who simply charges on into the guns is likely doomed to failure. Remember, the future is simply the past repeating itself in a different guise.

[andy_g]

while his tone might be excessively barbed, and sound too much like he's actually enjoying our current problems, the article isn't too far wide of the mark.

[andy_g]

sorry to butt into your private argument thread, by the way.

[Thommo's perm]

What a great thread!
Generals, Napoleon, guns. Its got the lot!
I think Bascombe is right. We are stuck between what we have achieved and our own denial that we have slipped down the pecking order.
I still refuse to accept that Chelsea, City and even the skanks are bigger or better than us. Dont even go there with Arsenal, spurs or newcastle. The truth though is we have fallen behind, basically starting with when KK left. It has been a long, slow process begining with Souness and ending up back with KK. There have been high points but if were honest we are a pale shadow of what we were when we ruled the world.
That is part of why we find people booing at Anfield. I am as frustrated as anyone and that performance on saturday was one of the worst Ive ever seen. But there is no way on earth that it justified booing. We need to accept that we are not as good as we should be and focus on support instead of being deluded and having people laugh at us. The last thing we need to do is turn on the players, the manager and ourselves, because that will make matters even worse and we could really be in trouble.

[andy_g]

the thing we have to remember is that we don't have any kind of automatic right to 'rule the world' again just because we did in the 70s and 80s. other clubs have been up there and have faded into obscurity - leeds united, nottingham forest and even everton. its evident that even the greatest can become also rans or worse if the proper care isn't taken. our history - despite a champions league and carling cup in the last 7 years - won't rescue us.

[metalhead]

There is truth in Bascombe's views, it hurts to know but I won't deny it. However, he exagerrates a wee bit about where we are heading. Reg, we have a strategy and we have a plan to build for the future, we cannot state that the FSG policy is not working because it needs time and needs years.

[Thommo's perm]

There is truth in Bascombe's views, it hurts to know but I won't deny it. However, he exagerrates a wee bit about where we are heading. Reg, we have a strategy and we have a plan to build for the future, we cannot state that the FSG policy is not working because it needs time and needs years.

To be fair mate a strategy and a plan means fu'ck all when youve just been turned over by two of the worst teams in the league. It was more the manner of the defeats rather than just the results which were gutting.
We are at the crossroads here of a decent season or a bad one. It wont be disasterous if we come 7th and win two cups. But it will make life harder for KK and the players because they have only got themselves to blame in the end. We are consistantly inconsistant and with 8 league and possibly 2 cup games left we really should be going hell for leather to win them all. What have we got to lose?

[Reg]

There is truth in Bascombe's views, it hurts to know but I won't deny it. However, he exagerrates a wee bit about where we are heading. Reg, we have a strategy and we have a plan to build for the future, we cannot state that the FSG policy is not working because it needs time and needs years.

I'm older than you mate, I don't have years to spare !   

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

who gives a ***** what the press thinks, in the last decade or so we have won the european cup, the uefa cup, the f.a cup twice, the league cup 3 times and the european super cup twice, 99% of other clubs would be proud of that haul over their entire 100 plus year existence but thats what this club wins when we have a decade of `failure`.
it could have been even more as well,in recent years we have lost another european cup final, a league cup final, a world club championship final, a european cup semi final and a uefa cup semi final.
between them abramovitch and the sheiks have thrown 2 billion quid (yes, billion) at their respective clubs over the past few years and they havent won one single european trophy, chelsea`s cup winners cup win was before abramovitch arrived at the club.
the league form hasnt been good enough over the past 20 years but bascombe is just talking *****. 
oh and whilst he standing there marvelling at the greatness of the emirates and the etihad those 2 cathedrals of football have witnessed the grand total of 1 f.a cup and 1 charity shield win in their entire existance.

[Boocity]

who gives a ***** what the press thinks, in the last decade or so we have won the european cup, the uefa cup, the f.a cup twice, the league cup 3 times and the european super cup twice, 99% of other clubs would be proud of that haul over their entire 100 plus year existence but thats what this club wins when we have a decade of `failure`.
it could have been even more as well,in recent years we have lost another european cup final, a league cup final, a world club championship final, a european cup semi final and a uefa cup semi final.
between them abramovitch and the sheiks have thrown 2 billion quid (yes, billion) at their respective clubs over the past few years and they havent won one single european trophy, chelsea`s cup winners cup win was before abramovitch arrived at the club.
the league form hasnt been good enough over the past 20 years but bascombe is just talking *****. 
oh and whilst he standing there marvelling at the greatness of the emirates and the etihad those 2 cathedrals of football have witnessed the grand total of 1 f.a cup and 1 charity shield win in their entire existance.

 

[stmichael]

couldn't give a monkey's what that idiot has to say, the sunday sun soul selling tw@t.