As Liverpool trudge through the muck and bullets of their title tilt, us supporters learn the depths of our desperation for success…
YOU’VE had a skinful of Baileys.
There has been every imaginable way of eating turkey, pate or cheese realised.
‘Moana’ is on its third re-run (good movie). Novelty gifts have already worn off.
Enjoyment or endurance?
The same question can be posed of last night’s Boxing Day offering at Anfield. Oh come let us adore them. Slightly less joyful. Triumphant, but they did our heads in a bit.
Routine meshed with anxiety. Don’t fuck it up now.
I have a thing about losing to teams at the bottom of the league. My thing is don’t do it.
This stretches beyond Liverpool and to teams I’ve played for and captained. Not on my watch.
There’s something so moronic and idiotic about it. Something of the I love yous, but you are not serious people.
So when I was staring down the barrel of it last night I thought ‘not here, not now’. I thought about how I wasn’t enjoying this.
We are in a uniquely privileged position. One where our ghost of Christmas present has seemingly taken a sabbatical from torment.
In Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal there are three who can win it. Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest are very good. Newcastle decent. The rest, including Manchester City right now, are currently filler.
How do you enjoy this? How could you not?
We’re seven clear. Our rivals are good but flawed. Not imperious, not inevitable. Not Kevin De Bruyne circa 2016-2019.
It’s like Bradley Walsh telling you ‘The Governess’ is being replaced by ‘The Menace’ as your chaser.
For so many of us, the only reference point has been 2019-20. A time when drawing at Old Trafford felt like a costly dagger to the gut, despite having won the other 26.
A time when we were 16 points clear on 19 January and only then dared to allow ourselves to sing about winning the thing.
There have been too many times in my life where Liverpool has been a character in someone else’s story. Not a baddie, more an intensely romantic love rival. Perfect in many senses. Just not perfect enough.
Last night, I looked at Mohamed Salah. I thought about how a footballer’s lifespan can reflect our own.
Salah is at the point in his own career where he’s appreciative. He’s a footballer on the cusp of old age.
He looks around at his surroundings with more awe. He takes in every snapshot of Anfield in sheer wonder of its beauty.
And then he talks some more, because he has things to say. He says ‘I want to win the Premier League’ three times in the same interview.
He knows how to do course and distance. He’s going to enjoy himself.
I will probably endure it until I’m sure it’s in sight. Hoping the world will turn in normality for long enough to have a parade.
I’ll tell myself I should’ve enjoyed it more.
But I’m now at the point of wanting this so, so badly.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
