WHEN it comes to sport, at my heart, I am a bit of a pessimist. Not one that drones on and on with constant negativity, but rather one who is very reluctant to get carried away too quickly.
In 2014, as Liverpool’s steam train rolled relentlessly on towards the league title, I did not let any combination of “league, winners or champions” cross my lips. I had even stamped out the mental images of Steven Gerrard lifting the trophy high above his head in front of a delirious Anfield.
It was after the Manchester City game that I first allowed myself to say out loud that I thought Liverpool would win the league. And when events unfolded as they did, the little fatalist voice in my head told me that’s what happens when you get ahead of yourself.
Yet, this year, not even halfway through the season, I have already spoken words to the effect that I think Liverpool could win the league.
Why offer you this glimpse into the psychology of my support for the Reds? To make one simple point: this season, everything is more than a bit mad.
Such has been the madness of this season as a whole so far, it does not take a one-eyed optimist to make the case for Liverpool winning the league. Cases are being made for Leicester winning it. So why not us? Equally, it would not take a killjoy pessimist to put forward a scenario where the Reds may finish fifth.
Last weekend was another filled with surprises and shocks, unexpected results and unusual outcomes. A weekend that started with Stoke beating Man City 2-0 ended with the same score in favour of Newcastle over Liverpool. And that is without mentioning United drawing with West Ham, Spurs with West Brom, Chelsea losing at home to Bournemouth and Leicester City ending the weekend on top of the table.
It seems as though this season, the league has become that elderly relative who has stopped caring what others think and voices any opinion they like. Not the best thing to show off to the neighbours but bloody hell is it good fun.
This season has been so significantly mad that on Saturday, the reigning champions losing at home to a promoted side sitting in 18th was only good enough to be fourth in the running order for Match of the Day. Three other games were deemed to be a bigger story. It has now become accepted in this madcap season that Chelsea can lose to Bournemouth. This is a thing that can happen and won’t even make the biggest splash of the day.
Leading the charge into madness this season have been Liverpool. Such has been the hectic nature of the fixture list that it has become normal to think of Jürgen Klopp as the manager. It seems as though he has been here ages now.
But stop to think about it for a second. How brilliantly mad is it that Klopp is Liverpool’s manager? It can still sometimes be faintly unbelievable sometimes to catch a press-conference and see him sat at the desk all decked out in the club’s training gear. But there he is. And it has already been accepted as normal.
It is not just the manager that is hard to wrap one’s head around with Liverpool this season. They have dismantled Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, battered Man City away and gone to Southampton in the Carling Cup and handed out a 6-1 hammering. In the same space of time, they have lost (and played poorly) against Crystal Palace and Newcastle.
And all of that has happened since Klopp took over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlE9aQMXdVE&index=11&list=PL-zD5aeS9UhfzwN0yHD37T3H_LhpZqLCn
There will be more good days than bad for Klopp’s Reds this season.
There is too much about this manager and this squad for this not to be the case. Making any other concrete predictions beyond that, however, becomes difficult.
There cannot be outcry every time this team has a bad result this season (it has to be said that the usual burst of negativity that follows a Liverpool defeat was largely absent after Newcastle at the weekend). Pessimists will have to hold their tongue. The pattern of this season has shown us that trying too hard to figure things out will only end badly for you.
The madness of this season is different to that of 2014. That year the madness was all of Liverpool’s making.
It was a madness of scoring and winning, winning and scoring and never looking like they wanted to stop doing either. Watching the team was like watching a magician, turning an away fixture at Stoke into a 3-5 thriller and pulling from a hat a 5-1 hammering of Arsenal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl6iIgSvXZI
This season is more akin to a three-ringed circus with no ringmaster — most sides in the league seem in on the act.
The thing about this madness, be it the magician in 2014 or this year’s circus, is that it is brilliant fun. And that’s why we follow football. Because it’s fun. And the madder things get, the more fun they become, too. We don’t watch football to see a team bore their way through game after game. We watch football to see brilliant things, mad things, things that make us shout and roar and jump up and down.
Liverpool earlier this season had become a tough watch. It was a worry watching them. You worried about them playing three at the back. You worried about what the plan was, how they hoped to do the things that made goals happened. You worried if they did not score early in games and you worried if they went behind.
For a few weeks it stopped being as fun as it had been.
But now. Klopp is here. The madness is here. And it’s fun again.
In this crazy season, it is not mad to talk about Liverpool winning the league, nor is it mad to talk about them missing out on the top four. But not enjoying these Reds playing football? Now that would be mad.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
“For a few weeks it stopped being as fun as it had been”….for me, every day Bodgers was here was about as much fun as eating your own fingers. I hated Rodgers and his mid table bullshit. I hope he ends up back at Swansea. He put us back years.
You must have missed the season we nearly won the league.
We didn’t almost win it. It was Rodger’s fault we LOST the league! Why don’t you talk about that? Eh? Eh? mmh?
prick.
concise, short, brief, compact, condensed, crisp, laconic, terse, tight, to the point, economic, pithy, thumbnail, summary, short and sweet, in a few well-chosen words, compendious, epigrammatic, synoptic, aphoristic, gnomic.
I like it.
Most wins in the Premier League era.
Most goals in the Premier League era.
Best goal difference in the Premier League era.
Best home record in the Premier League era.
Longest winning streak in the Premier League era.
Best time any of us had in the Premier League era.
Put 13/14 with the latter half of the 12/13 season and our record was 36-12-9 with 143 goals scored and 67 conceded (GD of +76).
But it was Rodgers’ incompetence that cost us the league…
Saurez will be rightly proud of those stats, which were no doubt noted by Barca.
Where is Rodgers now?
Nothing wrong with saying ‘we could win the league’ but as long as there are days like Newcastle and West Brom (c’mon, we all know how that’s gonna go), and it’s embedded in Liverpool’s DNA now, we’ll never win it.
Of course we will win the league, the question is when. I am a convinced that Kloppo will bring us the Premier league title – YNWA
Yeah Bob’s on his dinner.
While we remain consistently inconsistent we will win no league.
Everyone other than Leicester is consistently inconsistent this year, so really, logically why not think we can sneak it if we get on a run like we know we are capable of?
And if you think you can only win it with consistency, then logically Leicester have to be in the frame, and if you think Leicester can win it then logically just about anyone can win it, so why not us…
Leicesters consistency, so far, has ensured that they currently sit top of the Prem clear by 2 points.
Our inconsistency has ensured we sit 8th.
My statement still stands.
Leicester ARE in the frame as long as they remain consistent.
Please accept my apologies for having an opinion (Especially the fucking beaut calling people a “prick”)for denegrating a manager who was sacked three times, has never won anything and is given credit for achieving in a weak season with one of a generations greatest strikers…
Credit were its due though. He did get a result with one of his secretaries.
Apology accepted. Thanks for being the bigger man.
Stay classy. That’s something they can never take away from you.
Thanks Walter. I feel so much better now you have accepted my apology. Honestly. I feel “classy”….middle England almost.
Not seeing it, 7 games since the manager change and, despite some great results, further off the top than when he came in. Further behind Arsenal, further behind Leicester, further behind Man Utd, further behind Spurs, no closer to Man City. Moved from 10th to 8th.
Far too many points to make up on too many teams. Top4 remains a do-able, but still tricky task from back in 8th. Even catching Leicester isn’t a gimme (9 Pts) and have to catch them and Spurs or one other.
All this talk of points, squad’s, managers and the opposition is all irrelevant to me. I say I think we can win the league in defiance to, and in the fight against becoming like, the people who say we can’t. It’s not the first time I’ve said on here that it all comes down to a persons outlook on life. Not bothered about repeating myself because everyone who comments on here says the same thing in every comment anyway. It just gets re-hashed to suit the topic. That’s because people are a certain way. They have personality traits. Negativity, pessimism and cynicism are those traits as is optimism. We don’t see anyone mixing it up. Some defend whatever the subject, some go on the attack.
My view is it’s an English thing to be so negative an it gets worse at this time of year. I have travelled a fair bit and I’ve never met any nationality as bitter, jealous, negative and sarcastic as the English. Nor have I met any nationality who are such a good laugh. We seem to have many at both ends of the spectrum. I just refuse to believe that the negative comments on here are from Aussies or Americans. I may be wrong and there are always exceptions but I don’t see them as the ones showing their bitterness on here because say, a match review wasn’t written the way they expect a review to be. In the 79th minute he ran down the wing and crossed it. Jesus! We all watched the match. My point is, it’s all so predictable from what I’ve seen here in England over a lifetime. I’d expect it more this week and I’ve seen it. It wasn’t too bad after Newcastle. If you win an award and celebrate like you think you’ve done a good job, watch out. It’s the English way to play down success. People say, who do they think they are. They’re not better than me just because they won something. If someone writes something and tries to express themselves you get who the fuck does he think he is. Why can’t he just use exactly the same words as I use and write exactly the same way the Echo or the BBC would.
Some people don’t feel comfortable expressing themselves. They want everyone to be the same. That way they fit in. I walk my dog through the park and I see goths getting attacked by scallies. They say, who the fuck do they think they are wanting to be different from us. We’ll show them. If someone comes from another country and wears the clothes their culture wears then you get who the fuck do they think they are coming here and not wearing the same clothes as us. We’re a vile nation. We think we know it all but we’re real losers missing out on so much joy through cynicism. Luckily it’s not the majority but we’ll always hear their voices, especially now we’ve got the internet. Some people are ugly through and through. Some of them follow Liverpool. Some comment on here. It runs through everything they post on any subject.
Ask any optimist if Liverpool can win the league and they’ll all tell you they can. Ask any pessimist and they’ll all say they can’t. My view is we can, because we can be top in 3 or 4 games if results go our way. Would I put money on it? Well, I haven’t. I’m gonna hope, believe and enjoy it. When I was growing up we had the Carpenters playing around the house and I also have hope everything will be perfect but then Karen’s story reminds you that hope and belief aren’t always enough. Life can be cruel as we found out against Chelsea. What I refuse to do though is give up hope. There’s no point then. The answer to whether Liverpool can win the league lies within. It’s absolutely mathematically possible. It’s whether you want to free the shackles of your mind or whether you want to play it safe. We were all right last year when we said we couldn’t win it but who benefited from it? A lot of us were wrong in 2014 when we said we could win it but all those that were wrong had their best time ever watching Liverpool. You wouldn’t change the belief we had for the world. Football is so much better if you think the games really important in the league challenge.
Can we win the league? Could it rain in Aigburth on 22/02/15….will my berd turn the heating on full bifters tomorrow night? Who the fuck knows and why even ask the question?
We go again tomorrow night and I am hoping for a good result.
Whatever Klopp achieves in this season he has already bought fun, hope and unity. And the team clearly enjoy being played in thier best positions. A basic competency in a manager.
One game at a time…
To be honest mate. I think there’s a difference between people asking if Liverpool can win the league and whether your bird will turn the heating on but I get your point about 1 game at a time. What I don’t get is after having the unity you speak of why some fans would ruin it by getting obsessed by the fact that we can’t win the league and turning on those who think we can. Like you say, who gives a fuck. It’s a bit of fun.