BOTTLE.
They love goading you with bottle.
There are many things you learn when you find yourself setting the pace. The empathy you feel for those who become so invested in your club’s fate due to their own lack of stimulation being one.
They make it all about bottle.
It is possible that a game of football may not go your way. It is possible that there are currently two, maybe three, absolutely fantastic sides competing for the football league. It is possible that, every now and then, those teams show themselves to be human.
It is certain that all the above has absolutely fuck all to do with bottle.
Every Liverpool season will throw up a game like Wednesday night.
Last season was West Brom at home, the campaign before Swansea City.
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Braving the wind and hail against the elements around the streets of Anfield, while feeling a sense of seemingly eternal winter darkness taking its toll, 2018-19’s encounter of sheer drudgery was in full effect on and off the pitch against Leicester City.
Anxiety ravaged the game on Wednesday, with the side’s inability to be either forceful or fluid enough leading to a despairing crowd that bared their angst for all to see.
It isn’t for me or anyone else to advocate how to measure your own sense of fate or expectation in relation to this season. This isn’t me telling you how to behave at a game of football.
Yet it is clear the concept of *insert number of games remaining* being a cup final, or treating every home game with the level of gravitas displayed Wednesday may not be particularly healthy just yet.
Essentially, there is a lot of football to be played. Think of some of your own cup final experiences. They are often games you can still relive every minute of, for all the joy and anguish they bring, due to all that hinges on 90 minutes of football.
To be doing that, to be going through that torturous process at home to Leicester on a Wednesday night in January is simply not sustainable.
Comparisons to 2013-14 are a lesson in many things, maybe most notably how too much intensity can become a negative. While Liverpool were emptying themselves physically and emotionally into fixtures before the finish line was in sight, their rivals expeditiously went about doing their job.
The hardest thing about appealing for mitigation is that we all have our own desires, will and sense of entitlement attached to wishing this team to be successful.
So, to now be in the position of pacifier, to say essentially keep your nerve and trust the process is reassuring to some, yet antagonistic to others..
That appeal for calm will prove justified should Liverpool show on the pitch that the result against Leicester was The Reds at their most stretched, disjointed and injury hit in key areas and was therefore in isolation when it comes to dropping points outside the top six.
Everything felt stretched on Wednesday. For every problem there was a counter problem. The lack of experience and options at right back disrupted the rhythm of the midfield. The lack of midfield options led to an imbalance between attack and defence as well as an inability to retain possession and pressure in key moments.
Couple that with a lack momentum from playing games and a pitch which makes you think of either an injury or a card two seconds before you’ve decided what to do next, led to factors that meant it simply wasn’t our night.
Liverpool’s priority should now be on reasserting their control of games on and off the pitch.
The mastering of balance between expectancy and caution from team to fans is a strong undercurrent of the wave that has carried Liverpool this season.
The fans have been there when the team have needed. Any anger or frustration has been aimed at opposition or incompetent officiating.
The team have been there when the fans have needed. Any doubt or fear has been quashed by shows of character and maturity.
That trust in each other, of them and us, needs to remain for the season to stay on the course it has so far.
Liverpool could probably do with getting back on the pitch right away. A Saturday lunchtime kick off looks more desirable than a Monday night, right now.
Either way, a fixture away from Anfield may not be a bad thing. The barstool or sofa will get the opportunity to act as a hypothetical counsellor’s chair as we all look to revise the collective angst created on Wednesday.
A win on Monday in what is another tough fixture offers the chance for us all to reset and regain the trust we’ve invested so deeply, with good reason, into the temperament and character of this team in recent months.
The fate of Liverpool and their title rivals remains unclear, yet fans of all can take comfort in the fact in no way will their team have “bottled it”. They will have done their utmost to win a league title which was relentless in its pace from the get go, and should be praised for the achievement.
Your own bottle is another matter entirely.
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I said to my buddy that “we’ve scored too early here” on Wednesday. As I’ve said here before, an early goal against a lower team, unless it’s followed up with a 2nd soon after, can lead to crowd inertia and this team into lowering its levels. Only around 5%ish, but that’s all it needs in this league. I genuinely would’ve preferred a scratchy 0-0 at half time to 1-1. We have generally improved second half with a 15 minute blitz up to the hour mark.
The saviour could be that city appear to suffer from a similar problem.
Good article. Wednesday night had lots of things that conspired against us, which included us as supporters not doing enough to enjoy the occasion and get behind the team and actually support them. Whilst Leicester will point to the fact they gave us a game, they will do so without acknowledging the fact that we had a makeshift defence and midfield… and more so they will never acknowledge the fact that the officials ensured they got every key decision in their favour. You can argue a case that teams will get the odd decision, maybe two in a game in their favour, yet on Wednesday night, as was the same at City, every solitary decision went in favour of the team in blue shirts and none for those in red… So when there are so many key decisions in those games and you get none in your favour, then this only speak of bias.
We will have better days. We also have players returning. We are also hoping that some players may actually play themselves into form. However as supporters we should embrace all of this and start to enjoy the occasion. FFS, that’s what Leicester supporters did when they won the League. It is time we start to party and enjoy what is going on. It is not every season we have something to enjoy, but wow are we good at being miserable at it when we do. Win or not win this season’s PL… we have come along way even from last season when we were nowhere capable of winning the League. This season was about closing the gap and proving we ARE A GOOD TEAM. So let’s start enjoying that and where we are at the end of the season will dictate whether or not we won the thing. For now, knock all this title talk on the head and lets just enjoy this side, get behind them and will them on to winning just the next match.
The next match for us is West Ham away on Monday night, so let’s get behind and them and believe that we can win this one and stuff whatever else anyone else is or isn’t doing.
Can I just add a bit of context? Just imagine how most would feel if Liverpool had played Tuesday night and drew but City played Wednesday night and lost? I bet most people would feel quite different to how they felt Thursday morning
Good stuff Dan but I would add that that surface totally blerted our game. To those who claim it was the same for both teams, I say bollix, because Leics have no intention of ‘playing’ on that or any other surface; they want it in the air as often as possible, until it drops out of the sky in front of the Wicked Witch’s lad Jamie, (it’s the hooter that gives it away, even after the cosmetic removal of the wart).
From what I hear, possibly 4-5 of them on the pitch were playing with rumbling guts and wet brown-eyes from the bum-squirt they picked up in The Gulf. Add to that, we had two Africans and a Brazilian trying to play in an ice-storm, probably for the first time in their lives. Last night was bad enough for us Northern Europeans, ffs, imagine what they must have felt and Allison must have near died of exposure by halftime.
Three runs at your third sentence Dan, must have hit my head on the first run as it still doesn’t make sense–missing words??
The start on Wednesday was very good and the momentum was building at the end, ran out of time. We could have lost the game. VVDs words after the game were a timely reminder and needed. Keep going Redmen and giving your best. In you we trust. We’re all going in the same direction as you.