Breaking On Through

[Originally printed in Well Red magazine in Summer 2013]

You may not have noticed but Ray Manzarek, founder member and keyboard boffin of 60’s legends, The Doors, died recently.  For someone who fully bought into the whole Jim Morrison mythology, and once spent a particularly fraught afternoon trawling through a Paris cemetery to locate the grave of the erstwhile Lizard King, the passing of Manzarek was a sad occasion.  He always came across as an overly eccentric uncle, slightly frazzled by the excesses of an acid-drenched culture, stubbornly clinging to the last vestiges of hippy idealism.  But basically a decent sort, happy to trade on his memories and his musical legacy.

 

It was while thinking of Ray that a quote came to mind, often erroneously attributed to Morrison but more likely to have been conjured by the bespectacled organ lieutenant. It goes like this:

“There are things known and there are things unknown.  And in between are the doors.”

Now if I was some kind of lazy cleric, desperately trying to fabricate a tenuous connection between his faith and what he perceives to be the modern world, perhaps as a futile attempt to disguise his fear of women and gay people, this would be the point at which I’d say something like “…and, in a funny sort of way, that’s a bit like God.”

But I’m not.  I’m a militant atheist.  So all bets are off, really.

However, in an equally spurious manner I’m happy to take Ray Manzarek’s quote and, in an attempt to reawaken your no doubt flagging interest, apply it to an area that will hopefully resonate more strongly than long-gone psychedelic rock bands and hip priests craving appreciation.

Clearly, I’m talking about Liverpool’s defence.  Bear with me.

There are things known.  We know that there is a glaring need to address certain deficiencies in our back-line.  A vulnerability to set-pieces, an inclination to sit slightly deeper than was anticipated when Brendan Rodgers took over, a lack of concentration which has too often resulted in goals conceded.  The retirement of Jamie Carragher, arguably still our most potent defensive force last season, may have exacerbated such troubles, though the signing of Kolo Toure could well turn out to be a shrewd piece of business. 

True, the team had a creditable clean-sheet record, but this was offset by a disturbing tendency to crumble under pressure, encapsulated by the 17 league games in which our opponents scored two or more times.  Despite the growing influence of sports psychology, it seems that resilience and mental fortitude have not yet become fully embedded within the Anfield dressing room.

There are things unknown.  We don’t know which defenders will or won’t be at the club by the time the transfer window closes.  With Carragher gone, speculation has been rife that Skrtel is on his way out, while murmurs persist that any or all of Agger, Johnson and Enrique may follow. 

Simultaneously, we are linked to a host of potential replacements ranging from the effective yet limited (Williams) to the promising yet unproven (Ilori), via the cult figure cum borderline psychopath (Papadopoulos).  Although, as most of these links are circulated by on-line fantasists whose cravings for attention make Jessie J look like Syd Barrett, you might want to hang fire before dangling a Greek flag from your bedroom window.

And in between are the doors.  At the risk of stretching an analogy to a point previously only attempted in the Director’s Cut of ‘Fight Club’, the doors in this scenario could well be our route to defensive salvation.  For our purposes, flinging open the doors may reveal the future.  For, standing patiently, waiting for their cue to stride forward and kick the bloody things down, are Martin Kelly and Andre Wisdom.

There has been much talk of the need to bolster our defence, to cast our eyes far and wide in the search for the next Carragher, the next Hansen, perhaps even, given our desperation, the next Phil Babb.  Now there’s a prospect to chill the blood.

So, what if there are a couple of ready-made solutions already under our collective noses?  In the limited time Kelly and Wisdom have spent on the pitch they have displayed the kind of assurance, commitment and, most importantly in this context, defensive aptitude more commonly seen in considerably more senior players.  Sure, they have a rawness to their games that reflects their inexperience at the top level.  That’s inevitable. 

But if Brendan Rodgers is prepared to take a deep breath and, either separately or as a bold dual statement, offer them the opportunity to prove they are worthy of a regular first-team place, it could be a move to both define and validate his managerial credentials.

Kelly, in particular, has already shown himself capable of excelling on the biggest stages.  He has started games at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge, the Emirates and the Etihad.  He’s survived the Mersyside derby maelstrom and shone in European competition.  It’s easily forgotten but, thanks to the impeccable judgement of renowned football visionary, Roy Hodgson, he’s also an England international.

Typically deployed in the right back berth, Kelly has demonstrated the composure and solidity to indicate that he can be more than just a back-up player.  With Glen Johnson’s performances falling anywhere between ‘sublime’ and ‘Degen’ on the competence spectrum, it would be no surprise if Kelly, with his consistency, his physical presence and his hair like a less-punchable Vernon Kay, became a fixture on the teamsheet in the coming season.

 

Though, like many others, I am convinced that Kelly’s long-term future lies in the heart of defence.  He presents all the attributes required to excel in a central position, his pace and comfort in possession seemingly fundamental qualities for a defender in a Rodgers team.  If he can overcome his susceptibility to injury, something which has badly impeded his progress in the last couple of years, Kelly could establish himself as a latter-day Lawrenson, which, I must emphasise to those familiar only with his joyless mission to rescue the art of football analysis from the high-brow musings of Alan Shearer and Robbie Savage, is a very good thing.

Now 23, Kelly seems ideally placed to exert his claim. 

Wisdom, though less advanced in the pecking order, is just as intriguing a prospect.  Still a rookie in the wider scheme of things, it’s rare to find a young defender with such confidence, aggression and positional understanding.  Thrown into the first team in the early part of last season, he never looked out of place.  Like Kelly, he’s mainly been deployed as a right back; also like Kelly, he seems naturally suited to a more central role, where his decision making and leadership qualities can be given free rein.

Whereas other newcomers to the backline have struggled to adapt to the demands placed on them, consequently appearing easy prey to forwards quick to sniff out their vulnerability (*cough* - Coates - *cough*), Wisdom stood out as someone who thrived on the responsibility of the position.  That’s a rare quality and one which, if nurtured correctly, should see him become an integral part of tomorrow’s Liverpool.

In fact, I’ll go further and suggest that if, in 5 years’ time, Wisdom isn’t captaining both club and country, working on his second autobiography and progressing to the latter stages of Strictly Come Dancing, something will have gone very, very wrong.   That’s the kind of career development I think all of our most promising youngsters should aspire to. 

It seems that the club finally understands the benefits of building up and promoting our emerging home-grown talent.  It is the way of the football hipster to bemoan British players as essentially dog-muck; to opine that the only way to ensure real quality is to recruit from more exotic climes, be it Spain, South America or, er, Armenia.  Our recent experiences do little to contradict this.

But, as ever, the truth lies in the margins.  Why don’t we look at the standard of players we already possess, whatever their passport says, and give them the confidence to attain the levels we all want them to reach?   If that means cultivating lads who have grown up as part of the club, who are more likely to be fully in tune with its history, demands and culture, and who may be less inclined to jump ship a few years down the line, then that surely is a strategy we can all get behind?  We acknowledge the need to replace Carragher and Gerrard, players who have become part of the fabric of the club, but struggle to accept that their (eventual) loss will be felt as much for what they represent as anything they have achieved.

So let’s look to Martin Kelly.  Let’s look to Andre Wisdom.  Let’s smash the doors down and watch the new breed storm through.

It’s what Ray Manzarek would have wanted.

And, as his oppo, Jim Morrison, once said, “No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.”

I’m not sure precisely what that means but I’m sure you’d agree, in a funny sort of way, it’s a bit like God….

Losing My Perspective

[This piece was first published in the final printed edition of Well Red magazine, in December 2013.  Our title-winning form since the start of 2014 has, in my head at least, given it even greater relevance.]

Perspective. 

Something we’re always being told we must maintain a sense of, yet no-one can definitively state what it does or doesn’t entail.  An unflinching optimist’s perspective will differ wildly from that of a committed misery-guts and it seems pointless trying to establish any common ground between the outlooks and values they each hold.  Usually, they’ll just end up getting cross and calling each other bad names on the internet.

To confuse matters further, perspectives change as the years pass.  An example: in 1990, it would have been inconceivable to consider a time when Liverpool were not winning league titles.  Granted, we’d just secured our tenth championship trophy in fifteen seasons and had established a dominance not previously seen in the domestic game.  Perspective was a shiny silver trophy with red ribbons tied to it. 

By contrast, for your average Manchester United fan perspective was a series of continual disappointments.  It had been 23 years since the Best, Law, Charlton vintage had delivered their last title triumph, in 1967.  Busby had long gone, Atkinson had flopped and Ferguson had only escaped the chop due to a redemptive FA Cup win.  It would have taken a brave man, or a delusional one, to predict a reversal of the existing order anytime soon.

PANTS

23 years.   It’s now been more than that since the sunny April afternoon in 1990 when Liverpool were last crowned champions.  In the same period United have won thirteen titles, employing a subtle mix of subterfuge, hubris, voodoo and possibly human sacrifice.  And, to a much lesser extent, because they’ve been quite good at winning football matches.  Sticks in the craw, doesn’t it?

I remember what it was like in the ‘80s.  Year after year we knew that we’d be challenging for the league and, if we played to our potential, chances were we’d finish on top.  Villa, Ipswich, Everton, Arsenal – they’d all had their moments, all threatened to gate-crash our perennial end-of -season party.  But we’d always come back even stronger.  Meanwhile, Old Trafford’s drought was extended by another season, and another.  How we laughed at their misfortune, derided their underachievement and gloried in their disarray. 

No-one saw the end coming.  Not really.  True, we might have had some concerns about the manner of our victory in ‘89-90.  We had laboured uncharacteristically on occasion; for the first time Kenny’s judgement was being questioned in some quarters; an increasingly unsettled Anfield crowd had begun to vocalise its disquiet.  But, with the only real challenge coming from an over-performing Aston Villa team, Liverpool did what was needed without ever reaching the devastating heights of two seasons previous, when Barnes, Beardsley and Aldridge shredded defences throughout the division, in much the same way that Paul Merson shreds the English language every time he opens his pie-hole.

If, at that precise point, someone from the future had emerged from an electrical storm like Arnie in The Terminator, to warn us that we were about to be plunged into a bleak 23 year long wilderness, and that the forces of evil, which had lain dormant while we feasted, would soon establish a reign of terror that would blight the land, we’d have locked him in a secure unit and hidden the key under a vase or something.  I don’t know.  I haven’t really thought this through.  We’d definitely have told him to put some pants on though.  Of that I have no doubt.

Effectively, that’s what happened.  Not the stuff with the pants.  That would be hideous.  But the wilderness thing and the reign of terror propagated by Ferguson’s grunting orcs.  They became ugly reality.  And our sense of perspective has never recovered.

JELLY

Most people blame Graeme Souness.  And in truth, they’d have a strong case.   Though the obvious candidate to replace Dalglish when the pressures of Hillsborough finally took their toll, Souness oversaw a seismic overhaul of both the club’s culture and its personnel.  To a degree it may have been needed, as an ageing squad and new restrictions on numbers of non-English players, combined with a spreading complacency, meant that action was required.  But the decisions taken, the players brought in and the abrasive methods used to bend people to his will, meant that within two seasons Souness’s Liverpool had lost the air of invincibility that had sustained the club for so long.

When the dust settled, we were left with a Liverpool that found itself back amongst the mortals.  That this co-incided with a United finally getting its act together and quick to capitalise on the newly-created Premier League’s status as a Murdoch-funded cash-cow, was an accident of timing that could not have worked out much worse.

What was perhaps most painful was the knowledge that our expectations would have to be adjusted.  As much as we all still clung to notions of red supremacy, stark reality had a painful habit of intervening.  However much we fought against the need to keep a level of perspective that reflected our position, we knew that things had changed.  There was no turning back the clock; this was our future and it sucked, big time.

As the years went on, we grew accustomed to our role.  For a while, Roy Evans gave us hope that we could close the gap.  He instigated a style of bright, progressive football that appealed to our aesthetic sense, but which lacked the steely pragmatism of genuine contenders.  The winning mentality that had underscored our dominance had been replaced by a fragility of mind that, isolated instances aside, we have struggled to overcome.

Houllier, too, made us dream of resurrection.  He reminded us what winning trophies felt like, built a solid foundation and took us back to second in the table.  But we were unable to make the final leap, ultimately reverting to the now familiar story of squandered opportunity and entrenched disappointment.

With Benitez, it seemed different.  In bringing us European success, he showed that he was prepared to challenge the biggest and the best head on.  He convinced us that we had nothing to fear and, just to prove it, he took on Mourinho and Ferguson at their own game and left them shaken.  For probably the only time since 1990, we saw a genuine title push and, as Benayoun crashed home a last-gasp winner at Craven Cottage to take us top with seven games to play, we believed it was on.  This time it was really on.

We all know what happened.  Despite the cliché, it’s hard to see a failure as glorious.  But Christ, we came close.  Just four points separated us from the title.  For once we were entitled to let our sense of perspective run away with us.  We were back and our coronation as champions was merely postponed, not cancelled. 

But as we’ve discovered over the years, perspective can be a slippery bugger.  And, almost inevitably, ours was soon brought back into line, like a disobedient pooch that’s soiled a carpet.

What came next was a master-class in expectation management.  Hicks and Gillett, stetson-wearing Horsemen of the Apocalypse, brought the club to its knees. Hodgson, trumpeted as a safe pair of hands, instead resembled a man with grease smeared on his palms attempting to catch jelly as it was fired at him from a cannon made entirely of lard.  Kenny returned to steady the ship and restore our pride, but was then undone by a combination of poor results, badly-perceived transfer deals and executive haste.  Given the vitriol that some of our own supporters aimed at our greatest living legend, it was easy to conclude that he was better off out of it.

TROUSERS

It is now Brendan Rodgers’ turn to see if he can end the wait.  We all knew it was a huge ask.  As the season kicked off, we weren’t just up against the traditional powerhouses, the Uniteds and Arsenals, or the bankrolled behemoths of Chelsea and City.  There was also a newly vibrant Tottenham to contend with, not to mention our increasingly competitive neighbours.  Amid that sort of opposition, not many people seriously saw us as genuine title challengers.  Not really.

As we know, all that’s changed.  United have been Moyesed into oblivion; Tottenham have proved that cashing in on your biggest asset can unexpectedly backfire; Everton have struggled to maintain their early-season form and suffered from a quality shortfall.

We’ve forced our way into genuine contention, playing a brand of football both incisive and effective, and which chimes with the traditions of the club.  We’ve shown the consistency and creativity that has often been lacking in our recent past.  We look capable of winning any game by a landslide, no matter the opposition, and it doesn’t take a top pundit, or Andy Townsend, to point out that that’s a solid base for any team to have.  And we’ve got a manager of conviction and imagination, who has fully bought into the Liverpool ethos and who has the rare gift of coaxing the very best out of his players. 

Put all that together, stand back, and enjoy where this ridiculous ride takes us.

Yes, we’ve had false dawns before.  We’ve become experts at envisaging the oak tree while the acorn is barely in the soil.  But isn’t that what football should be about?  Hope?  Expectation?  Daring to dream? 

I’m done with lying in the gutter.  You just end up with a bad back and mucky trousers.  Let’s aim for the stars.  Let’s decide that this is the year and go all out to make it happen. Let’s win the sodding league.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Don’t answer that.

Me, I’m taking my sense of perspective for a long walk and pushing it in a lake.  After all these years, I’ve realised I don’t need it anymore.  This Liverpool team have given us a new set of ‘what ifs’ and there’s no point holding back now.  We’ve got big fish to fry.

Doesn’t it feel good?

 

 

After The Gold Rush

[Originally published in Well Red magazine, September 2010]

I remember the first time I saw Ian Rush in a Liverpool shirt.  1981.  The League Cup Final Replay.  West Ham in the role of plucky yet ultimately doomed opponents.  Kenny Dalglish provided a moment of sublime invention, latching on to a probing McDermott through ball to hook a subtly executed volley over a bemused, immaculately coiffed Phil Parkes.  Alan Hansen headed the winner, via the outstretched thigh of luckless Hammers skipper, Billy Bonds.  And a scrawny 19 year old from North Wales gave a tantalising glimpse of the future, a future that was to be defined by an almost supernatural capacity for scoring goals and a largely unprecedented accumulation of silverware.

 

Unusually, Rush didn’t score in that game. Indeed, it wouldn’t be until his ninth outing that he managed to open his account for the club, a typically instinctive strike against Finnish minnows, Oulun Palloseura.  Given that the match took place the day after Bill Shankly’s untimely death, the significance of Rush’s goal was not immediately apparent.  But for those who believe that football, on occasion, has the capacity to transcend its populist, media-fuelled status and attain a sense of the mythic, it seemed to represent the passing of the Anfield torch from one glorious generation to the next.  Shankly, more than anyone, would have appreciated the symbolism.

 

From that moment on, there was no stopping Ian Rush.  With a game based on an explosive turn of pace, unmatched anticipation and a calmness in front of goal not seen since the days of Jimmy Greaves, he quickly established himself as the most clinical striker in the country.  For the next six seasons it was a genuine privilege to witness Rush consistently terrorise opposition defences in tandem with the peerless Dalglish, a partnership which came to redefine the concept of a ‘telepathic relationship.’  Where Kenny crafted and probed, all guile and artistry, the consummate sorcerer, his apprentice applied the rapier thrust.  Time and again Rush was on hand to pierce even the most stubborn of rearguards, with a predictability that would have bordered on the monotonous if it hadn’t been so uniquely thrilling.

 

 

Five times in this spell he exceeded the elusive ‘30 goals in a season’ target; twice he reached the 40 mark.  Last minute winners, hat-tricks, crucial cup final strikes, all were included in his repertoire. You didn’t just hope that Ian Rush would score - you expected him to score, you knew that he would score.  More often than not, he didn’t disappoint.

 

Examples of Rush’s goalscoring proficiency spring readily to mind.  There was the historic four-goal haul against habitual victims Everton at Goodison in 1982, a performance later to be immortalised in enduring Kop anthem, ‘Poor Scouser Tommy’; a devastating triple strike on a frozen pitch at Villa Park, including a fiercely lashed volley and a delicate lob bordering on the facetious; a decisive pair in a bitterly fought European Cup semi-final in Bucharest; and, of course, the goals that twice denied Everton the FA Cup, each a masterpiece of composure, execution and timing.  

 

For many Liverpool followers though, even these towering achievements were eclipsed one murky afternoon in October, 1983.  With Luton Town playing to perfection the part of sacrificial lambs, Rush gave arguably the most complete exhibition of the striker’s art ever seen at Anfield.  It wasn’t just the fact that he found the net five times that day.  Nor was it simply the quality and diversity of the strikes, which encompassed instinctive close-range finishes, a flying header and a thunderous volley taken at full pace to despatch a 60 yard Rubble through-ball (one of the great ’forgotten’ Liverpool goals).  No, what was most profoundly memorable for me was that this was the first time I saw an entire defence consumed by fear.  Rush’s mere presence provoked the kind of outright panic seldom displayed on a football pitch, his every touch causing visible consternation and dispute in the Luton ranks.  It was like watching a skilled matador toying with a confused bull, patiently circling his forlorn prey before administering the fatal attack.  It was a brutally efficient, coldly clinical demonstration, showcasing a master craftsman at the peak of his powers.

 

It’s probably fair to say that Ian Rush’s second spell at Anfield, after a troubled though not entirely fruitless season with Juventus, never quite reached the same predatory heights. In fairness, he’d set a standard that was impossible to live up to.  Liverpool’s style of play had evolved in his absence, with the attacking emphasis now largely focused on the power and delivery of John Barnes from the left wing.  Rush, who was accustomed to feeding on the kind of defence-splitting, slide-rule passes perfected by the likes of Dalglish, Molby and McMahon, did not initially appear comfortable in this formation.  However, as with all truly great players he was able to adjust and develop his game and was, within two years of his return, once more the goalscoring fulcrum of a Championship winning team.

 

 

So, just how good was Ian Rush?  Was he as fearsome a finisher as his domestic contemporary, gurning crisp whore, Gary Lineker?  Did he match up to Geordie Messiah, Alan Shearer?  Could he really be classed ahead of Red icons like Hunt, Fowler, Owen (in the days when his integrity was still untarnished) and Torres, as our finest ever striker? 

 

For me there is no debate.  I have never seen a forward more incisive in front of goal, more selfless in support of the team aesthetic, or more reliably consistent when called on to prove his worth than Ian Rush.  It is a tribute to his quality that, in a team overflowing with genuinely world-class performers, he was the most sought after and the most feared talent, as highly regarded on the continent as he was on home shores.  He could be kicked, buffeted, barged or elbowed, marked man-to-man or targeted for intense provocation.  But, at his peak, he could not be stopped.  He just carried on doing what he did best. 

 

He scored goals.