1976 was the epicentre of success for the ‘The Real Thing’. Liverpool’s very own soul, come brit funk, come disco, come R&B phenomenon that are credited by the founding father of ‘Mojo’ magazine, Paul Du Noyer, as the band that restored Liverpool’s musical reputation in the 1970’s.
“You to Me Are Everything” spent three weeks at number one in the UK during July 1976, basically coming from nowhere after the band had spent three years struggling to get a succession of singles off the ground, and previously never making it as far as even the lower reaches of the ‘Top 40’ before “You To Me Are Everything” went stratospheric for them. They’d never make it to the top of the charts ever again. “Can’t Get By Without You” soon followed and it peaked at number five.
Those soul/funk ballads are all well and good, but 1978’s indelible disco classic “Can You Feel the Force?” has always been where it’s at for me when it comes to ‘The Real Thing’.
On Wednesday night Liverpool Football Club felt the force.
A Flock Of Seagulls.
1982 was the epicentre of success for ‘A Flock of Seagulls’. Liverpool’s very own new-wave, come synthpop beat combo and purveyors of a sartorial style that even in the early 1980’s looked a parody of its era.
“Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)” reached number ten in the UK Top 40. It was A Flock of Seagulls biggest domestic hit.
On Wednesday night Liverpool failed themselves in shot-snap, photograph images.
Real Madrid are a very good football team. Real Madrid are the reigning champions of Europe. Real Madrid deal in perpetual motion, they don’t stop moving, they don’t pause for breath, they are incessant in a way that makes even the smallest error or misjudgment a potentially fatal one.
You can’t blink when you stare them in the eyes and you can’t be marginally careless. We weren’t always as slip-shod as the third goal suggests we were. On occasions it was a simple pause we made at a crucial split-second, or a hesitation you just can’t commit against them.
While Real Madrid continued to move, move and move once more, Liverpool tried to shadow and at times did shadow effectively, yet on occasions it was almost as if the white light of a flashbulb went ‘POP’ and the players in red became a still photograph, superimposed upon the backdrop of a Real Madrid side that continued to move, move and move once more. It was only a blink of an eye kind of thing, but it was there to see. It happened again and again and again.
We were arguably the alpha male for the first 23 minutes last night, a toothless alpha male, but the alpha male all the same. For the remaining 22 minutes of the first half we displayed our numerous deficiencies and had them capitalized upon. Philippe Coutinho still managed to thud the post from distance and prior to that Joe Allen had an effort that arced away from the very same post. Had we not gifted the third goal so horrendously and Coutinho’s shot gone an inch or so to the right it could have made for an interesting second half. Neither of those scenarios unfolded however.
Nothing can be taken from the second half of this game in reality. We hustled a bit and tried to remain positive, and at times we bounced around in a manner that suggests we can shake off the leadenness that has weighed us down so far this season. Real Madrid dropped down a couple of gears during the second half, but threw out the occasional ‘shape’ on our Anfield dance-floor in a bid to widen the margin of score-line.
They took it easy on us in a bid to conserve energy for their upcoming La Liga spat with Barcelona on Saturday, yet continued to display a generally slower paced perpetual motion. We continued to pose for photographs from time to time.
There were sideshows aplenty. Cristiano Ronaldo as the pantomime villain is one of the greatest players I’ve seen strut his stuff beneath the floodlights on a European night in L4. I didn’t see what he did in celebration of his goal that managed to upset some.
He’s an extremely talented but narcissistic person, and was always going to respond in a manner that would annoy the crowd if he scored. I applauded him off the pitch because he’s one of the, if not currently the best player in the world at this very moment.
It’s ok to be a ‘bigger person’ and take the moral high ground in applauding a twat from the pitch that also happens to be rather brilliant with a ball at his feet. That was some finish for his goal.
Mario Balotelli was the other ’ball of wool’ to bat around with while ignoring the core issues. Brendan Rodgers appears to be handling him very poorly. As people shake fists in the air at him swapping shirts while heading off the pitch at half time (something other players have done before to no rancor at all) the key problems are glossed over.
Balotelli doesn’t sit comfortably within the template of Rodgers side, and he’s somewhat ‘laconic’ much of the time. Either we play and persevere with him for longer in games so he assimilates sooner, or we take him out of the firing line and use him as a substitute in cameo appearances.
At the minute no one benefits in him playing for 45 to 60 minutes and then being withdrawn. Essentially it looks like Rodgers didn’t want or ask for him. As things stand the Balotelli experiment will fail.
Hull City are next up for us tomorrow at Anfield. I quite liked it last season when their manager put his hood up when being serenaded with “Steve Bruce, he’s gorra big fat head”. Football can let you down, but music can be the great healer.
I also applauded him off. All I want from being a football fan is to be nothing like Chelsea fans. The day we become like them I’ll give up. If he’s playing for Utd then I probably wouldn’t. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. I think dignity is important.
So he’s a twat then? Know him personally do you?
Brendan Rodgers is throwing Balotelli under the bus after crashing it , food for thought.BR has bought all three strikers ,two are familiar with the EPL (prem) from last season , two are familair with preseason tactical drills, last season we played 4-4-2 all season, here we have a Balotelli(NEW)
* Sole Striker upfront
* Unfit- being played into form and system
* Familarising into a new tactical set up.
Wouldnt it be wise for him to play a 4-4-2 formation with MB, the one we used all season ,when we didnt use it, we had Saurez upfront alone ..lol,wouldnt it be wise to give the other two a starting role along MB ,to shine , gain confidence and match fitness ?
3 strikers he bought , says alot about BR tactical acumen, what is it 200million and his verdict is its going to get uglier more painful, do we have the right coach, Blaming MB is a side show , when he leaves, whats going to change ?
Get a grip, are you for real?
If anything Balotelli is throwing himself under that bus (which is still bouncing down the road minus a few scrapes here and there) by pissing off the fans switching his shirt at half time. Just don’t do it Mario, you owe the club and yourself some more self-respect.
Maybe Rodgers isn’t able to manage him very well, time will tell, but he wouldn’t be alone in not being able to manage Balotelli well. I just watched the press conference Rodgers gave and I don’t see him throwing him under a bus. All he said was that he switched to Sterling up top so we could press better and bring Lallana on. I get that pressing isn’t really Mario’s thing, but it is Liverpool’s thing, so if he can’t or won’t do it he can’t really play for us, 4-4-2, 4-3-3 doesn’t matter.
Statements like he had 3 strikers that he bought, and to try to link that with his total gross spend over three years (which is probably less than the rest of the top 4 of last year + Man U have spent net over the same period) are just stupid hyperbole that I don’t expect to find on this site. One of those strikers was bought for loose change to offer something for the last 20 min of PL games, the other was the first buy that Rodgers made when we had very little currency in the transfer market. This is what you are hanging him with? It seemed to me that Rodgers was keen to buy some big names in the summer but for whatever reason, either the transfer committee didn’t sanction the ridiculous salaries that Di Maria and Falcao are getting or they just didn’t fancy moving to a club that has only just been promoted back to the big time and has lost its big name player.
We took two gambles in not getting another striker (Remy would have been perfect), one that Sturridge would stay reasonably fit until Origi joined next year, and two that Mario would learn to work hard and fit reasonably into our system. Both haven’t come off for the start of the season but as the season wears on they can only get better and in spite of everything we are still handily placed for the top 4 and getting out of our CL group.
Maybe we know different fans? We must do, because I haven’t met a single one who could give a rat’s ass about half-time shirt-swapping. It’s a contrived media storm. Don’t fall for it, I say.
Probably a fair call. Personally, like most people it seems, I have a big soft spot for Mario and really hope he does well. But it is hard to get behind him if it doesn’t seem like he cares. Maybe he just doesn’t think changing shirts is a big deal but it just seems to add to the half arsed pressing, ridiculous shots and keeping his head down when he should be finding a team mate. As I said I really hope he turns these around and tonight I have a good feeling for some explicable reason, so here’s hoping!
Some excellent points Tom C. There wasn’t a lot out there in the transfer window and BR had little choice than to gamble. Interesting to note Remy got injured innocuously this week as well!
Steve Bruce is a shithouse. I remember Digger Barns approaching him before the ‘icecream man’ suit FA cup final. And Fat head looked a bit frosty towards our man there. And was no doubt slagging him off behind his back as Barnsey walked away! The big fecker!
I’m throwing a pizza at him on Saturday. A microwave one obviously.
I’ve never seen Liverpool 3-0 down at halftime at Anfield to a big European club. It was the worst I’ve seen us play against a top side and the reason is our novice manager.
Where is Rodgers leading us is what I want to know? Regular top 4 like Wenger but no chance of big trophies? That’s how it looks to me. His moves in the transfer market have mostly been awful limited in their success.
Three Southampton players this summer for nearly £50m ffs.
Same team beat bayern 6-1 last season. It’s no point of critical mass to be beaten by this Madrid team 0-3, sorry mate take a deep breath. Our novice manager took us to 2nd place in the league last season and playing beautiful football.
The “support” of some so called Liverpool fans is disgusting.
Another “superfan” ignoring the issues and telling everyone else how to be supporter. No one is calling for his head. Questions about how in the last 3 Premier League seasons as manager his teams have conceded over 130 goals are relevant.
“His moves in the transfer market have mostly been awful limited in their success. ”
I remember people saying the same about Henderson, and after he’d had much longer in the team than any of Rodgers’ recent buys.
Big game tomorrow for Dick Emery teeth. Needs to earn his corn. Less talk. More walk.
Yep you are all right Rodgers no clue – we were winning titles & competing in champions league latter stages until he took over.
Seriously look were we where in 2012 and look where we currently are – in October 2012 any genuine liverpool fan would have given anything to have been thumped 3-0 by Real in the champions league!
Please…. I beg you