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?
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