“LET’S go and sing songs with our friends.”
My words to Marjo at the foot of the stairs outside the ground. I’ve spent too much of the last five years not singing songs with my friends. I intend to do it all night tonight.
Brendan.
I am amazed Liverpool haven’t won the league. I verged on a state of shock when I realised it hadn’t happened. How couldn’t it? Have you seen these Reds? Do I need to go through it again?
Rodgers.
I’m not upset. Well, I’m not upset for myself. Or my friends. I’m upset for the footballers. We’re fine. It’s the footballers I worry about.
Brendan.
There’s something that happens to footballers when they become them. They become slightly other to the business of football support. Young lads who love the game suddenly become so embedded in it they struggle to see what’s happening outside the group. The idea.
Rodgers.
I’m 33 years old and for the first time of practical drinking age I went to watch Liverpool play knowing they could win the league.
That’s the idea.
It’s the idea I was brought up on.
I saw Liverpool beat Birmingham City 5-0 in 1986. I saw them a fair bit 87/88. But this idea I was brought up on I’d not seen until today.
Brendan.
I’m far from alone. There are thousands of us, millions of us. The idea you’d been brought up on not realised. Imagine it. And those brought up on that idea who had saw it realised were even edgier.
Let me tell them what has happened outside the group:
We’ve believed.
We’ve lived.
We’ve remembered.
We’ve brought hope back into town. We’ve reclaimed. Tra-la-la-la.
Next year will be saner. Maybe more points. But saner. Domestically.
Rodgers.
In Europe? Let’s stay terrifying, upset every apple cart going. Thrilling, break neck stuff. Imagine screaming at them. Europe’s finest. Imagine the Reds pouring forwards. See you in Berlin.
Berlin tomorrow. Today edgy. Then two stunning deliveries from the captain. Two cast iron belters. Two cast iron belters to precede a night out which means something. Two deliveries that have saved a million nights out. Two deliveries that mean everything even if, in real terms, they mean nothing.
Brendan.
I hope he knows this. They are different from us the footballers. They have to be. I hope he knows he just saved a million nights out across the world. Someone tell him. This is the game, why it sustains. Why the B in B team should stand for Bellend. Why we are so, so, so lucky.
I was in a pub before the game and it was effervescent. It shimmered. This.
Rodgers.
Let’s go and sing songs with our friends.
And thank you for reading and not hating these. You are good people. Sing songs.
Neil
You scare me with how quickly you get these out.
Thanks for the reports, podcasts and the mag.
You are a sound bunch of lads
To think that on the 17th August we were anticipating a hard fought fight to 4th place, and now after 38 games we have achieved second and could have won. All our despair and sadness in May needs bringing in line, we have really done his in style. Despite our feelings at the moment this has been a superb year and bodes well for the future. Let the lads relax over summer, let the feelings slowly drop ready for next season, when we use the pain to move on. YNWA. We just need the Anfield wrap to keep our spirits up over close season, and who knows, maybe Dr Steve can do wonders with England (as long as our lads don’t get injured). Roll on next season I can’t wait!
Here’s one: The second those lads step out onto the pitch for the first match of next season, let’s sing “We’re gonna win the League!”.
Thank you LFC and thank you TAW. What a year, what a future.
I just want next season to start next week. Fuck the World Cup and fuck Engerland. Lets have some more of this please. More Suarez, more poetry and more pure joy. We are indeed once more Liverpool and it feels good.
Gutted and proud in equal measures.
What a season?!
Can’t wait for next season already…
The ins, the outs, the poetry in motion…and FFP.
BRENDAN ROGERS!!!
BRENDAN ROGERS!!!
I really don’t want this to end. I felt relatively alone in the wilderness of the American midwest, watching LFC week in and week out from my home in Overland Park, Kansas until I stumbled across TAW about two months ago. TAW has been a wonderful support group through this wild run-in.
Like I said, I really don’t want this to end. I want the Reds to keep playing. I want TAW to keep writing and making podcasts.
August can’t come soon enough.
A great season and so much to be proud of. Well done to all of you at TAW, you are a credit to the club and City and should be winning awards. Fantastic show, podcast and journalism.
Now to get on with my life for 3 months!
Be thankful it hurts. It means you’re alive.
So, so proud of the team. We came up just short against a team that brought £70m of player off the bench on against Villa. Unless they buy Messi or Ronaldo they can’t get stronger despite the line of pundits queuing up to tell us differently. Your EPL squad can only consist of 25 players. Citeh could buy another 50 £25m players and it couldn’t make them stronger.
Man Utd need a new defence and new midfield. See Spurs this season for how difficult it is to throw 6 or 7 new players into a team and expect them to gel instantly. Year of transition for Utd next season. They’ll be closer than the 20pts behind us they are today, but they won’t challenge for the title.
“All Chelsea need is a striker,” I hear them say. Stamford Bridge is where word class strikers go to die and it will stay that way until Mourinho changes his philosophy. They can be better but in the Mourinho system I don’t see any striker – Costa, Cavani, whoever – getting 25 goals in a season. More of the same for CFC…or worse if Hazard decides he can do without his manager denigrating him in public.
Arsenal will be Arsenal. There or thereabouts, but ultimately flattering to deceive.
Tottenham I expect to improve, maybe significantly, but a lot depends on who comes in to manage. If they keep the core of the squad then Soldado, Eriksen, Chiriches, Paulinho, etc. will all be better for having one season under their belts. They’ll go top 4, I think, maybe at the expense of Arsenal.
And then there’s us. Keep Suarez and with CL football we’ll attract the calibre of player we’ve struggled to bring to Anfield in recent years. No more getting gazumped on our main targets. We’ll have Sterling, Henderson and Sturridge with breakout seasons under their belts and every player with experience of a genuine title challenge to sustain them. When I hear people question whether we can be as good again next year, I wonder how we cannot be.
Bring it on.
Thanks to Brendan and the boys, and the TAW team. It’s been a blast. An arse-ripping, tongue-swallowing, neglect_your_work_and_family fucking blast.
Nail. Head.
Gutted the season’s over. What am I going to do for the next three months?
Thank you Brendan
Thank you Reds
Thank you Neil and the Anfield Wrap commentariat.
It’s been a blast!
From this far away, I’m in Spain, it’s hard to assess the level of dejection you lot must be experiencing, but this much I can tell you: as a lifelong LFC supporter I’m prouder than ever of this team, this blessed club. If this communion between supporters and team grows stronger and stronger, the league will be ours next season, positive. They made me dream, and I’ll keep on dreaming no matter what.
By the way…this TAW thing is a joy to read, brilliant stuff. It’s got me engrossed ever since the first time I came by it. For us, Liverpool fans from abroad, it’s a fantastic way to be in touch with the club and city’s culture. Please, don’t let it die.
Majestic & inspiring.
Oh….and the footy team aint too shabby either.
No mental Robert tonight?
Anyway strange performance today considering – seemed to play like a team four pts behind, but hey still got the win.
Brilliant season no doubt but still feel gutted – didn’t expect to win league at all until we beat city. Then I really thought it was going hi happen but alas not to be. Still pushed mourinho into third – that will really fuck him off even if he never lets on!
Next season.
YNWA
Been probably the best season I can ever remember.
So many iconic moments, moments of madness and greatness.
I am gutted tonight, I really thought we were going to do it just by how each game seemed to have something magical and noteworthy about it.
Full of pride and excitement. This site and the podcast are my goto sites nowadays. Really want to buy these lads a beer some time. Keep it up lads.
Proud.
I’m a bit scrambled.I don’t know why.For weeks and weeks I’ve gone to sleep with league tables and goal differences swirling round my head.Working out if they do this and we do that.
I’ve woken up every morning with a new scenario.I’ve tried my best.
I’ve retaken free-kicks.I’ve come to the edge of the area for crosses.I’ve tackled before they got into the penalty area.I’ve pulled out of tackles so as not to get a card.I’ve shot instead of passed.I’ve passed instead of shot.Sometimes I got it wrong;sometimes I got it right.
I’ve taken short throw-ins.I’ve taken long throw-ins.I’ve had yellow cards and sometimes I would have taken a red.
I’ve tried to beat a man when I should have passed;passed when I should have taken him on.
I’ve kicked every bloody ball this season for the first time since I started going in the early sixties.
I’ve encountered triumph and disaster along the way.But this is the most exhilarating season I can remember.
I can’t wait for next season.And I’m bringing my boots with me to every game.Just in case………
Neil and the team at TAW,
Thanks for all the effort throughout the season, bringing your commentary and humour – from your time in Australia all the way through to today – it has been a great journey and the manner with which TAW approaches every podcast and every article is fantastic. It makes you want to move across the world to live in Liverpool so you can soak in it each week.
Hasn’t the team and the club moved forward in such a short period of time! Isn’t there now such wonderful optimism as to how we can progress through to next season. The team has been fantastic and Brendan Rogers has delivered above all else a level of hope, a happiness and European football. Take a moment to reflect on where we were only a few short years ago.
Gutted for Steven Gerard and you could tell from his body language today that being so close may take a little while to get over. He is a true champion and we should remind him of that every time we get the chance.
Neil & Co.
As I’ve pottered around the streets of Stockholm, Sweden, this season you cannot know how many smilies you’ve brought. Thank you for helping to define one of the best seasons I can remember in the last 24 years. I will always look back at 2013/14 as a classic and right up there will be TAW, making each week of the season a vivid, enthralling, journey; a fitting backdrop to Rodgers’ Tricky Reds.
I wish it was August already !
Thanks to all at the wrap, its been a great season made better by you. Have a good summer, we go again.
An outstanding season of which many of us have never seen the like of before. The team were brilliant for so long and that post christmas run when “poetry in motion” boomed out of grounds across the country was one of the finest periods I can remember supporting the reds.
I feel sorry for the few fans who were too scared to embrace the madness and behold the joy in following the team. Next year these people need to get on board and what that extra willpower and belief (along with a couple of great new players) we will hopefully push the team that extra bit required to attain the greatness they all deserve.
Thanks to all at TAW for adding some sensible and interesting and informative debate to what has often been a very dull narrative to a football season.
Hope and pride are back, and so is Liverpool Football Club.
Hey Jonny P, have you seen Jonny Q anywhere?
Neil-thanks to you and TAW lads for all the banter, belief and fun- it’s been an amazing season.
As we left the ground yesterday there was the strangest feeling-between pride of the seasons achievements and a slight flatness. After a few reflective pints (and a few ill judged hours lost in the Slaughterhouse) we headed to Matthew Street and my word….crowds cheering and singing, it was a pure joy to be part off and amazing as we carried on down to Flanagans and sung our songs over and over in the streets and finally the bar with one of the most emotional YNWA I have ever had the honour to be a part of.
Roll on next season, I am on board the Brendan Express and we are going to win the league.next year.
Fact.
Is this some kind of joke?
Yesterday was the end of the beginning…
Well, watching the QPR vs Wigan championship playoff makes me wonder how we get any quality in the PL at all. It’s shocking football, hoof and chase, be bigger, stronger, faster but playing ball is entirely optional.
So, that’s the season. End of the end, or the end of the beginning we hope? Brilliant, but after the Chavs I was reconciled. Disappointed and hurt but actually content. We had done all we could.
A 14 streak win would have been a PL record. 12 wins and a draw in 14 games shows the problems were elsewhere, in the other 24 games, not this set of games. But it’s ok, we were in development. Still are truth be known. A bigger squad and we can share the burden, the emotional strain. Buy well boys, buy well. It’s a must.
But next season will be a different beast. Whatever Rodgers says, we’re unlikely to get 100 goals. Newcastle played 631. Chelski showed the way. Suarez will have no space. Sturridge will be isolated, the crowd will have to be patient but still supportive. Suarez will have to bear the frustration of being closed down and assaulted regularly.
Others will follow too and we need to break through parked buses. More intricate interplay will be required. And better defence against the counter.
It will be a new challenge. Rodgers will have to learn and improve. The players will have to be more mature yet not lose the fearless attacking mindset. They will need to be clinical and ruthless but sensible and mature. They can’t come home with blood on their shirts, it will likely accompany dropped points. More skill will be required. More patience. More ruthlessness. More clevers.
It will be tough and there will have to be a new Reds team to meet the challenge. I wish our players were getting a summer’s rest.
Is this available in English?
My word, you lot really are a strange bunch.