'A Team that Plays the Liverpool Way' by John Brennan

‘A Team that Plays the Liverpool Way, And Wins the Championship in May’…Any chance of changing ‘May’ to ‘February’ or ‘March’ in future years, Reds? You see, I’d become accustomed to gardening, doing the weekly shopping on Saturday middays/afternoons/evenings, Super Sunday lunchtimes/afternoons, Monday nights (thanks Sky) for the last few years, all in a vain attempt to avoid the habitual Mancunian and London Title celebrations… 

And now this! Shaking like a shitting dog as we try to defend our 2, 3 or 4-0 lead that we’ve built up after 20 minutes... Looking at the Table for 30 minutes trying to predict the future, adding, subtracting, miscalculating, wincing… Hoping – yes, the hope is the hardest thing to bear, because it can so often be false – that this Team of Ours can just give us three more great days in this most wonderful of seasons..

A season, that no matter what happens, will have been punctuated by Glory Days. Oscar Wilde said something about ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ but who can deny 96 (ninety-six) goals? 11 (eleven) wins in a row? Sorry for the Vidiprinter brackets! 46 points out of 51 at Anfield. 34 points on the road! 45 goals away from home. A 30-goal striker. Three or more goals in 20 games. And, beyond the statistics, a Red Wave of attacking football, not seen since 2003-2004 in Gérard’s last season, not seen since Kenny’s Boys of ’88.

Rodgers has described the Team’s achievement as ‘remarkable’. He has, of course, a vested interest when he says that, but he is right to underline the huge effort of this Team this season. I’ve often thought of the ‘We aren’t English, We are Scouse’ line this year. What we’ve done has been to take on what are essentially Nation States: the billions, let alone millions, of Chelsea and City. We’ve matched them every step of the way, even at their places, where we could well have come away with a point, at the very least. Rodgers and his team deserve every credit for allowing us to go head to head with them. Not to forget a resurgent Manchester United, under the watchful and sage eye of the Moyesiah, guided by a powerhouse midfield of Carrick and Fletcher, so good that even Fellaini can’t get a game.  

That the Team has provided such entertainment is down to Rodgers. He had the foresight to bring in Sturridge and Coutinho, to get rid of Carroll and to set the team up exactly as he wanted. Gerrard’s new role has given him a new lease of life and also taken the burden off his shoulders – that of wanting to do everything, everywhere. Suarez has been largely fantastic and even when he has an odd off-day, others have started to step up. Sterling has been a revelation, having put his personal issues behind him and Allen has been useful. Henderson, despite his ‘gait’ (shit yourself yet Fergie?), has been wonderful, snapping, harassing, biting in order to allow the players play.

That the Team has provided such heart-stopping moments is also down to Rodgers. If, going forward, we are ‘Poetry in Motion’, at the back we’re often motionless, bumbling and ultimately letting down our main men up front. The old adage that defending starts from the front has remained true this season. Without the ball, Sterling, Suarez and Coutinho (against City he was immense) and Henderson are fantastic: their determination to get it back underlines the spirit in this team. Why then do we concede so many? Absence of a regular partnership at the back? Full-backs hell-bent (under the manager’s orders) on attacking? A keeper who has been identified as a weak link under the high ball? Who knows? Rodgers certainly doesn’t…and if he does, he seems to be doing nothing about it.

This frailty has been flagged for a time now and the least we could expect was some improvement or maybe just some acknowledgement of the problem. I fear that with Rodgers that that would be too much to ask, such is his stubborn streak. He’s pretty untouchable at the moment, which is fair enough given the season we’ve had, but we’ve got to be demanding and vigilant. Demanding in terms of next season – will he have learned anything from this season’s errors?, will he tighten things up?, will he learn to close out games? It’s nice to qualify for the European Cup, but if we defend like we have at times this season, we’ll only have three European nights at Anfield. We’ve got to be vigilant in terms of his press/media outings, all too frequent and all too long. Your team is doing the talking for you Brendan…such verbosity is not required.

‘Three games from Greatness’, to paraphrase an ex-manager. Where are those Betablockers?

John Brennan