When the final whistle blew after the merseyside derby on Sunday I got a feeling which said more about the way the season has gone so far, than I had realised up until that point. The feeling was not anger, nor was it despair, I think it can be best be summed up as a kind of reluctant acceptance.
It seems that somewhere subcontiously the turmoils of this season have lead me to re-align my expectations for the team. Gone are the days when I was filled with confidence before a battle against say Juventus, Barcelona, Real or Man Utd a new era is now in swing, an era in which it is not surprising to be beaten at home (and thoroughly outplayed) against a newly promoted Blackpool side. Its also not exactly shocking to see our side put in a totally abject performance lacking any heart, passion or tempo such as the one witnessed at Goodison Park this weekend. I thought our new english signings and manager were supposed to remind this club of our roots and bring back the passion (which was supposedly missing), well at least thats what the Andy Gray's and Jamie Redknapp's of this world told us. If this is part of the reason for the appointment of Hodgson or for signing the likes of Joe Cole or Paul Konchesky then I have yet to witness any improvement on the "foreigners" they were brought in to replace.
Lets not forget however that the game we are discussing here is no ordinary game. This is the Merseyside derby we are talking about here. The derby games are different to any other games we play in a season in that extra ordinary things happen, the result doesnt always go the way of current form. Its never taken for granted that you will get the right result, what is (usually) taken for granted is that your team will leave everything on the pitch and fight tooth and nail to get a win, even as poor as the season has been so far I think the result could have been acepted if the team had actually showed some passion or commitment. What hurts is that Everton played this derby exactly the way it should be played, putting pressure on Liverpool players all over the pitch and pushing forward with speed and in numbers. They played with similar tactics to those Rafa employed over the last few years leading us to a very rich run of results over our Blue neighbours.... home and away. Perhaps that also helps explain the way I felt at the full time whistle because after the first five minutes I never truly believed we would actually win this game
Something else which added extra pain to the result was the comments from Roy Hodgson after the game. You will find the quotes on other websites (lfc.tv for example) so I wont bother reprinting them here but basically the fact that he felt we played well and deserved any sort of result is quite worrying to me. Surely by now he has to acknowledge that things are not working out. I am reluctant to simply come out and say that I want rid of our manger, its not something I have done before as a Liverpool fan. I was never happy with his appointment in the first place and I feel the doubts that I had at that time have not yet been allayed in any way. Also, Roy is a good man, and of course he is doing his best to turn things around, this however cannot stop me from thinking that a clean break would suit everybody at this point. Roy could get out with his head still held high and a reputation still somewhat in tact, Liverpool could start building fresh too. I know that a lot of top managerial talent is not available right now but we could surely appoint King Kenny to hold the reigns in the short term. We could then take our time in appointing someone who can build for the future properly. Now that the finances are getting back in order we can build towards long term objectives as opposed to the short termism which seems to have become the norm at our club at the moment. Roy at 63 is hardly a Long Term appointment and his signings (Cole 28, Poulson 30 and Konchesky 29) are not going to be around very long either. I know it is very early to be talking about a change of manager, but I am talking now with my head rather than my heart. So far we have yet to have yet to see any evidence from Roy's reds that we are improving or that there is a clear picture in the players minds of how the manager wants them to play. We have removed a lot of the attacking mentality from the side, even as far as dropping our best ball-playing centre half in Daniel Agger, yet we continue to let goals in freely, surely defensive stability was the minimum requirement from Roy.
In an ideal world Roy wil turn things around, and who know's a couple of results could kick start us yet, thing is I have seen nothing to suggest that will happen. It is this kind of hope which comes from the heart rather than the head.
I will try to put up a more positive article later in the week...... hopefully there will be some positive news from the club to help me.
2 comments:
sorry barry lad but i couldnt disagree with you more.not sure if an evertonians opinion is welcome on here but here it is anyway.i really dont know how you or any other red fan can call for that mans head already after only 8 games.surely the players must shoulder the responsibilty.roy is a fantastic manager and i'm sure will come good given the time and backing by the board and fans.and i'm sorry if this upsets you or any pool fan but your reaction and every other red fan's reaction to your situation seems to be typical of what i've come to know as most reds fans to be and its simply this,you guys only seem to support your club when they're winning.its hard times now and despite the common banter between our 2 sets of fans,the league wouldn't be the same to either of us without the other in it. you touched on the real issue in your blog,rebuilding.you have the worst squad i've ever seen at liverpool at the minute.far too much dead weight.regardless of the man in charge there needs to be huge changes to your squad in order to go forward.something you guys all need to learn is patience.these things take time and sometimes you need to take a step back in order to go forward.i've seen my team stay up on the last day of the season twice,once by one solitary gaol and still we stood by our club proud to wear the shirt.i know you guys are used to winning and failure is not an option but the problems at liverpool run deep.and sacking the manager is not the solution.dont be one of them fans that turns on the club in the time they most need your support and remember to live in hope keep the faith.hopefully the next derby will be more of a contest and find us both in better league postions(and end with a toffee win of course).sorry for evertonian opinion but the fans reaction to whats goin on at the minute leaves a lot to be desired.i'm still yet to meet the pool fan who cheers even louder when they are losing.hopefully one day i will.all the best.sorry again.D.
All opinions are welcome mate, even an Evertonians :) The only thing that wouldnt be welcome is people slagging just for the sake of it but thats not what you've done here by any means so I’ll try explain further.
To be honest, I wasn’t trying to make the whole article about calling for Roy's head, I was more trying to describe my feelings following the game. I tried to explain that the reasons I feel like this, stem back to doubts I had at his initial appointment. The way we have played so far under Roy has shown no positive indications at all. One decent half against Arsenal is as good as we have been throughout the season so far.
You called Roy a fantastic manger, I really dont see anything in his record to back that up. Last season at Fulham he did a very good job no doubt but that record hardly makes him a fantastic manager. Fantastic manager's win the big trophies, or achieve their goals in a major league over a sustained period of time. Roy's record as manager consists of a few league titles in Sweden. A couple of Cups in Denmark and two runners up medals for the Uefa cup with Inter Milan and Fulham. To put this in context Gordon Strachan won 3 league titles and 3 cups in Scotland over a 3/4 year period, would you class him as a fantastic manager? Roy was also in charge of Blackburn Rovers at a time when they were spending as much money as Man Utd. In his first season he helped them stave off relegation, but in his second season after been given a lot of money to spend (and using the large portion of it to sign Kevin Davies) he was sacked after 14 games. Blackburn were relegated at the end of this season yet this Blackburn team were the 2nd most expensive team in the league that year. You said you were sure it would come good given time which is fair to say but there is no evidence which suggests he has done before or will do this time.
You talked a lot about me and other Liverpool fans not supporting our team through dark times, but in fairness that is not what is going on here. Our dark times have not been as dark recently (over maybe the last 20 years) as some of Evertons (although we have had a few) but that cant be held against every Liverpool fan. Every success brings sunny day supporters and i am sure Everton have had plenty over the years too but its unfair to put us all in a box together. I, and the vast majority of Liverpool fans felt that Roy was not the right manager when he was appointed so its not a case of me turning my back on him or the team its just (trying) to look at things as they are.
I know you mention you feel that our team needs rebuilding and that you feel it is the worst squad you have seen in years, well I agree it needs strengthening in areas but I don’t agree that it is the worst in years.
Thanks very much for the comment, I do hope you keep reading the articles and feel free to leave comments at any time mate. I’ll try to address them, even though you might not agree with me still you might better understand where I am coming from.
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