MY name is Paul Little. I am a Liverpool fan and I stopped believing some time ago that the club will win the league. In fact, I don’t even expect a top-four finish anymore. Despite these admissions, I still think FSG — and the now under attack FFP rules — are on the whole good for the club.
There. I’ve said it now. I think it needed to be said. It doesn’t mean winning the league or finishing in the top four can’t happen, just that it’s no longer what I expect. And that, frankly, is healthy. It’s ok. I’m fine.
Testify!
Such levels of acceptance are not to say, however, that a Roy Hodgson-type manager could ever be acceptable or that finishing a season without ever really having had a real go is ok. Instead, essentially, I’ve lowered my expectations based on reality — and I feel free and find that I am enjoying Liverpool again on the back of that decision.
I’ve no problem with high expectations, mine are still relatively high by most club’s standards; it’s unfair and unrealistic expectations that I struggle with. You know, the kinds of expectations that cloud people’s views of where the club should be and what it can achieve. The kinds of expectations that have brought, in my view, much unwarranted and often unpleasant and ungrateful criticism of the club’s owners and of Brendan Rodgers. The kinds of expectations that make enjoying Liverpool in the now almost impossible.
Too much has changed in the game since we last won the league. We let others take the lead, watched as they made the right decisions, grew richer or struck oil and got rich quick. For the moment, that all seems locked in. The league is currently the preserve of three clubs — the three richest — with Arsenal, after years of patience and sense, about to knock on the door.
These days, we are on the outside looking in. We’ve even broken in, in a mad cap, frenetic, gate-crashingly brilliant season, tipping over the Premier League table, goosing more than a few, only to be frogmarched back to the exit and ejected as the flustered Big Four readjusted their attire and restored order.
However, some fans still believe that repeating “We Are Liverpool Football Club” to themselves and anyone who’ll listen (while rocking back and forth alone in agitation in front of computer screens) will somehow have an impact in the real world and change the current order. They are unable or unwilling to see the reality and recalibrate. These poor souls are thus condemned to live in constant turmoil, entirely without perspective, where every set back is a disaster – unable to just enjoy football and deal with the Shakespearean slings and arrows.
Some fans feel the club owners and their lack of ambition are what really holds us back — that if they would just sell up to an oil rich kingdom looking to advertise its wares, we’d quickly be back where we belong. Unable, or unwilling, to recognise the reality that, even if that happened, the current rules of the European game still, for now at least, preclude the kind of consistent mega cash outlays they crave.
I don’t share such views, expectations or desires anymore. I’ve come to terms with reality and can live with how we are — more or less — provided we can be competitive in any one game, provided we go for it in every fixture and provided I am entertained.
I can live with FSG and FFP because I don’t want to be Chelsea or Manchester City. I don’t see much value in what they have achieved, or rather what their owners have achieved — for without them, they are nothing. If the Sheikh-funded shoes were on the other foot, how could I seriously celebrate a title win in good conscience? Maybe you could, but I know I couldn’t.
If we ever “do it” again, I want it to be done by Liverpool Football Club. I don’t want it tainted by any opponent who will feel about Liverpool the way I feel about City and Chelsea. I would like to win it like United — or perhaps how Arsenal will one day. Build a club and squad from the club itself. Generate the commercial revenue needed to compete from the club itself.
We were saved by FSG. That investment gave us a solid footing on which to start again, on which to approach the new realities and to grow. Now the club at least stands its own two feet. Catching up in this new reality is the long game, of course. It involves commercial deal making with donut empires and car manufacturers (deals that should not be scoffed at or considered beneath us), squad building, youth development, stadium expansion — things that necessarily take time.
Maybe we won’t catch up. So be it.
But if we do taste success again, how much sweeter would it be to do so as a football club and not just the projection of an oligarch?
There are plenty who just haven’t got the patience, of course, who can’t bear the thought of the long road, who want to knock City, Chelsea and United off their fucking perches, who want FFP to go away, and who want a mega-rich owner to come in and spend away the pain. I get that. But it’s not for me. Success garnered in that fashion will not be our success and will mean little.
FSG’s is the long game and it’s the right game — a game I can buy. It may never yield the success of the 1970s and 80s, but in many ways, the “project” is as compelling as any period in our storied club’s history. Any success will be all the more valuable given how hard it will be to earn.
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Pics: PA Images/David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
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Well said 2 many fans with unrealistic expectations expecting immediate quick fix solutions
25 years and counting…people have been patient and remain so.
What has happened has happened, nothing can change that now. Live in the moment and build patiently from where we are now.
I never heard of anybody who settled for mediocrity rising above it. We don’t create a new brighter reality by accepting today’s reality, so thankfully, you are not a football manager. Liverpool will be in the top four at the end of the season
I’m not saying accept mediocrity – just accept the reality of our situation and go from there.
I do believe in the FSG philosophy but at the same time I remain impatient, if not for anything else, then just because it is my beloved LFC.
The problem with accepting reality is that’s the moment you can’t get back to the top
Even if it seems deluded and insane we should be trying to desperately go back there, people shouldn’t be following football to be “realistic”, it’s about doing mad shit trying to win stuff and have loads of fun or anger doing so
The best period in the last 25 years that Liverpool have had was under Rafael Benitez, the only world class manager we’ve had in 25 years. Liverpool have enough finances to regularly compete for silverware, they just don’t have a world class manager talented enough to achieve it.
Benitez delivered the European cup and went close in the league in 2009. Klopp could achieve similar. Rodgers had his Kevin Keegan season and will now be consigned to the dustbin of mediocrity from whence he came.
Totaly agree, well said.
Jesus! This is what amounts to liverpool fans
:-(
I have never read such a capitulation in footballing mediocrity as the writer accepts!.. Just disgraceful.
It doesn’t matter if you think the team isn’t good enough or we don’t have the money extra….you have to believe? If we accept a position of mediocrity we will breed a whole new fan base of losers. We are LFC. The day you lower your expectations is the is the day you fail the club and its fans. Would Manu accept it? ..naa didn’t think so…so why should we be any different and don’t use money as an excuse!
How many articles can TAW produce that say, in one way or another, that Liverpool fans should shut the fuck up?
It must be about 14 since getting beaten 6-1 by Stoke on the final day of last season. You guys are consistent regardless of circumstances, I’ll give you that.
True Leanne. It’s one thing accepting the reality of our situation but it’s another settling for it.
Whether people want to admit it or not, and especially over the last few years, we’ve dropped another level. Look at our league finishes over the last 6 yrs. 5 of those 6 yrs Spurs finished above us. We’ve been in Europe a handful of times over those 6 yrs and failed miserably. We’ve won 1 trophy. This is where we’re at!
I’m all for people accepting the reality of our situation because only then can we change it.
You miss the point Leanne. True success comes about by identifying a path that will get you there and putting one foot in front of the other until you do. However, if you delude yourself that you are much closer to your ultimate goal than you actually are you will never see the right path and hence keep drifting away from it.
Believe, do not expect. There is a subtle but all important difference when it comes to inspiring people to achieve great things.
Lovely piece there.
I think the biggest stumbling block between FSG and the supporters is the gap of restlessness. It’s been 25+ years for a title at Anfield, while FSG are heading in to year 4 in a long-term investment they they can patiently wait on to make dividends.
We can talk (at length) about the North American style of their management of the club and the way they are making purchases and building a roster vs. how it’s more traditionally done in European footy, but the real dividing line is the amount of patience.
FSG will bring you glory. I guarantee it. This coming from a Yankee fan who saw the most expensive team in baseball lose out twice to FSG’s Red Sox in three horribly painful years.
(but yeah I hope this is the year we win the league please christ please.)
Bravo, Paul. Well said. I’ve been Tweeting all season that winning isn’t really winning if you sell your soul in the bargain. In 2013-14 I believe football fans all across the nation, including fans of other clubs (and perhaps around the world), were rooting for Liverpool to go all the way and win the League. I believe it was because of the hugely exciting and immensely entertaining style of open play we brought to the League during that wonderful season. If Liverpool succeeded other clubs might emulate that style and PL football would ultimately be better for everyone.
It didn’t happen for us that season, but what did happen in 2014-15 is that it felt like not many outside Stamford Bridge really celebrated Chelsea’s win. They expressed respect but not exuberance. It almost felt grudging.
I’m all for a pragmatic attitude and also prefer to accept reality over fantasy and delusions of grandeur, but I temper my reality with strong hope that building a young team that can grow and mature together into a cohesive and powerful force will indeed reap results eventually. What I don’t buy into or succumb to is the current tendency among some of our fans to assume defeat is inevitable. That defeatist mindset, to me, is the biggest problem facing our club right now.
I was in Athens in 2007. We were the better side and should have had our 6th European Cup – after all we were the most feared side in Europe, ranked no 1 by UEFA. The insane sacking of Rafa Benitez and the complete mismanagement that has marked our club since is why some like Paul think that having to accept defeatism is the only rational thing to do. Absolute bollo*ks. The correct manager supported by the correct backroom staff and owners prepared to accept that success is the only thing we exist for can and will make Liverpool FC the Champions of England and Europe. Our current manager and his new backroom staff are, in my view, not capable of doing the job and will sadly depart in good time. Then FSG will be tested – are they here to win or make money? As a Liverpool supporter I sincerely hope I’m the one talking bollo*ks and Rodgers brings us the title and goes on to add to our European pedigree. We’ll see.
Nailed it Paul.
“But if we do taste success again, how much sweeter would it be to do so as a football club and not just the projection of an oligarch?”
Says it all for me. Without the money of the others at the top of the table we are only going to get there by having a winning formula, it nearly happened with BR’s football and Suarez leading the charge – and it was fucking brilliant…
It can happen again. Belief. Positivity.
If you don’t like what’s happening at the club and can’t deal with it then fuck off now.We’ll get there with or without you.YNWA.
Tell someone to”fuck off”, then finish off with a YNWA, can’t work out if you’re just being ironic..
That’s got to be a quote taken direct from either Hicks and Gillett or the legendary Roy Hodgson.
It”ll be another 25years as long as this man is our manager.
With that attitude especially
Sorry paul, i cant agree with your train of thought, i go into every season expecting us to win the lge or at the very least challenge for it, we have to carry on believing, we stop believing we may as well stop supporting and i”ll never stop supporting LFC, the greatest football club in the world.
Support our manager then – always helps!! :-/
How about you start supporting the man in charge to begin with you twat!
Nah man…this year, we are winning the league.
But, really, great article. I like your points re: expectations and how those expectations can be a source for making things toxic. For me, I keep the high expectations, and don’t let the toxic feelings/reactions get the better of me if those expectations aren’t met for one reason or another. I also agree with you — I don’t want to be like Chelsea/Man City…it would feel unearned and unsatisfactory.
Thing is, we are Liverpool (FFS I might add). By all rights we’re entitled to be up there and give it a big go. We, Liverpool FC and all it’s fans, staff, employees, players and everyone involved, are still one of the biggest clubs in the world. There’s no denying that.
What we need to face is that we’ve been hurt real bad by g&h. Just when the rich came to town and build two new topclubs, we got skinned alive. They spent too much on bang average, mid table team players as Adam, Cole, Downing, Carroll and the likes. Over the three years before Rodgers we were 7th in the league. No wonder with midtable players. Under Rodgers we’re average 4,5th in the league. Even if you want to dismiss that one great season (which is testament that we’re Liverpool ffs) we’re 6th. Maybe not much, but even last horrible season we did better then the last 4, if you want to dismiss our near winning the league season.
We’ve set out on a course with FSG to build a dominant side for the future. We’ve bought a lot of youth with high potential. Some have been working out, Coutinho, Sturridge, Sterling, Sakho, Migs and Henderson are starters when fit and are very capable of beating everybody. We’ve got a lot growing into that group with the likes of Moreno, Can, Markovic and Ibe. And there’s some misfires aiming to hit higher this season with Lallana and Lovren to name the highest profiles. There’s academy kids in Wisdom, Flanno and Rossiter, the last two that all needed Scouse heartbeat.
And we’re building, adding quality to the starting eleven and upgrading the squad overall.
We we close to winning the league, it wasn’t the others setting us straight, we failed ourselves. We’re culling, we’re adding, we go again. Oh how we go again.
I’d have no problem with that if LFC were charging prices comparable to winning nothing. Everton and West Brom are not going to win the league; are not going to come in the top 4; and are not going to win anything. They are charging less than £500 for a season ticket. Mine costs more than every Man City and Man Utd fan I work with. We are a big club when it comes to admission prices and are becoming a small club in every other way.
Just to say – accepting reality is not the same as accepting mediocrity and nowhere have I suggested doing so
We’re pretty good at cycling.
It’s simple. Although FSG are viewing LFC from a distance through a looking glass with a cool decisive mind but what say they are on a huge wave of a learning curve and if they may indeed be in the best cold light of day frame of mind and possess all the best tools and resources to cure the patient with precision surgery. Let’s face facts. With vitriolic mania flowing through the net and elsewhere these days who does indeed have the coolest head to perform the open heart surgery that is going to cure the patient.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m only playing Devils Advocate here as an eternal optimist and a ‘the glass is always half full’ kinda guy and although I tend to get gut feelings whether someone is a good fella or whether theyr’re a bit of an arse hole. Right now I’m getting the more positive feeling about JWH and maybe this Mike Gordon character that he may well be the real deal. Anyone and everyone whio’s a club fan is surely impressed with the latest action as opposed to the usual releasing the talk is cheap sound bytes. Sure the Clubs silence is deafening and I for one can’t remember seeing anything like it in European sport with such a dramatic and at this moment in time impressive see change in a matter of weeks since the manager’s annual review.
Well they have my full attention and Im on the edge of my seat to see what comes next. COME ON YOU REEEDS!!!! YNWA