After a 25 year wait.

[ratcatcher]

Hmmmm. Thought provoking.

 

After a 25-year wait, should Liverpool still consider themselves title contenders?

 

 

COMMENT: Raheem Sterling’s attitude towards Liverpool as a stepping stone may be a taste of what’s to come, writes Sam Wallace

Sam Wallace

 

Monday 25 May 2015

 

There is a special significance for 2016 in the history of Liverpool Football Club, or rather a special significance in the history of Liverpool that concerns itself with winning their elusive 19th league championship title.

 

If and when the club pass a 26th anniversary without another league title, as looks likely barring a miraculous turnaround next season, then they will have gone longer than Manchester United did in their 26-year wait to win a league championship between 1967 and 1993. That 26-year wait for United felt epic, including, as it did, relegation, near misses, expensive transfer flops and a lurking suspicion that, as the pressure built in the 1980s, something was just fundamentally wrong with the club.

 

Yet this was football at a different time when, even under the yoke of Liverpool’s domestic dominance, there was always the possibility of change, which came eventually with Alex Ferguson. At Liverpool, that potential in United was always acknowledged by Peter Robinson, erstwhile secretary and chief executive at the club who, as Graeme Souness wrote in his autobiography, held the “fear that Manchester United might get it right one day and if that happened they could take off in a big way and leave everyone else behind”.

 

For the Liverpool of 2015 who have just hit 25 years without a title, having just United in front of them would be an extraordinary blessing. That group has swelled to include Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur and now the question is not when the next league championship at Anfield will come, but whether winning league titles is realistically the sort of thing this club can still expect to do – at least in this era of football.

 

You might say they are the same fundamental questions now facing Liverpool, at one of their lowest ebbs, as face the Labour Party at a crossroads in its history. At what level can they compete? And what can they realistically hope to achieve? The 6-1 defeat at Stoke City for Brendan Rodgers had an awkward parallel with Ed Miliband’s election night, in as much as every time one suspected that rock bottom had been reached, it turned out to be some leagues deeper than previously thought.

Ronnie Moran, Kenny Dalglish and Roy Evans celebrate in Liverpool’s glory years, when they last won the league trophy in 1990

 

As a club, Liverpool have, over the past 25 years, often failed to read the future of football: hardly improving or expanding Anfield while others have built new stadiums; being slow to exploit their commercial potential; selling out originally to the wrong kind of owner. Now elite European football is changing again, with the Uefa decision to relax financial fair play, and as natural supporters of those regulations the club’s owners Fenway Sports Group find themselves at odds with the mood of the times.

 

It comes at a moment when they have unequivocally supported their young manager to the tune of £240m over three years, and yet have finished second just once – and been unable to hold on to the player, Luis Suarez, chiefly responsible for having got them to that finish last season. FSG and John W Henry have a clear idea of what they want Liverpool to be: a self-sustaining entity in football’s mad world and a club that, as the old saying goes, exists to win trophies.

 

But what happens when Uefa’s president, Michel Platini, relaxes FFP and the floodgates open again? The mad world shows no sign of relenting. In fact, it might just be that the madness is elite European football’s natural state of existence: the fossil fuel billionaires in the Premier League and at Paris Saint-Germain; Real Madrid and Barcelona’s pillaging their own league’s television deal; Bayern Munich’s one-party state. Gary Neville warned Liverpool of succumbing to their own provincialism at the weekend but in many respects they overcame incredible odds to dominate Europe in the glory years of the 1970s and 1980s.

 

In 1980, when Liverpool were two European Cups into their run of four in seven years, the author James McClure spent a year embedded with Merseyside police. He described the inner-city area of Liverpool as “one of the most wretched in Western Europe, just as it was more than a century ago” in his book Spike Island about the challenges facing the city’s police force. Liverpool’s infant mortality rate in 1977 was at the average level of 1930, “its general living standards were judged to be those of the 1940s” and the city had Europe’s worst teenage unemployment problem.

 

All that and Liverpool produced arguably the greatest club team that Britain has ever known. For those of us of Neville’s generation, the temptation was to see Liverpool in the 1980s as an inviolable part of English football’s establishment. Yet they were very much outsiders, a provincial club defying the economic and political conditions of the time. As John Aldridge observed of the north-south divide in the Anfield Rap in 1988, “they’ve got the jobs but we’ve got the side”. Sustaining that success in a new global market for players, against the lure of London with its economic pre-eminence and the wealth of United and latterly Manchester City was always going to be a conjuring act.

 

There has been a long tail from the league titles of the past, as Liverpool have enjoyed the power to attract great players and managers on the back of their history, and there have been spikes along the way such as 2001 under Gérard Houllier and then 10 years ago in Istanbul with Rafa Benitez – an achievement that becomes more remarkable as the years go by. But the question facing Liverpool as they reach the 26-year mark is whether they can still afford to judge themselves by those standards.

 

There will be the purists who will never step back from the expectation that the club exist to win trophies. If there is a buyer willing to take Liverpool off FSG’s hands and pump them full of the money that Platini will permit in the post-FFP era then that existence could once again be viable. Otherwise Raheem Sterling’s attitude towards Liverpool as a stepping stone club is a foretaste of what is to come – he was born after the second of United’s first two Premier League titles, never mind Liverpool’s last championship in 1990.

 

In the next few years the connection between the new generation of footballers and the last league title for Liverpool in 1990 will be even more distant than the one the children who grew up in the 1980s felt to the era of George Best and Bobby Charlton.

 

As for the 19th league title, failure in that regard only matters if Liverpool still consider themselves to be a club seriously in contention to win it.

[Section_31]

Great players have always left liverpool dating back to Keegan's era, this is nothing new nor symptomatic of some greater demise, it's just a load of tedious bloggers and scribblers jumping on the bandwagon. 

 

Suarez left because he was one of the three greatest players in the world just coming into his prime. Ronaldo left the mancs for the same reason. 

 

Sterling is just a gobshite. That's it. 

[an tha]

Those lads all giving sterling dogs and that Asian lad is there applauding on his own!

[stringvest]

1200 words saying nothing.  

[FanchesterCity]

I actually think that picture is a stitch up.... I don't think it's at Sterling, the rabid mob seem to be venting at something well behind him.

The camera does lie sometimes!

[ratcatcher]

Great players have always left liverpool dating back to Keegan's era, this is nothing new nor symptomatic of some greater demise, it's just a load of tedious bloggers and scribblers jumping on the bandwagon. 

 

Suarez left because he was one of the three greatest players in the world just coming into his prime. Ronaldo left the mancs for the same reason. 

 

Sterling is just a gobshite. That's it. 

 

Er those players tended to leave on Liverpool's terms. Prior to Keegan and up to El Sulk, which greats have left at the peak of their career for better thing?

 

No doubt some will mention mascherano but he was generally played out of position when he went to barcelona and took ages to establish himself.

 

I agree sterling's a little shite. But what if Coutinho follows. Then Ibe. Then Wilson etc?

 

1200 words saying nothing.  

 

Maybes. But I think the question of whether we can think about when the next title will be won is pertinent. Id be surprised if we win 19 in the next 10 years now unless a mega rich owner comes along and spends shitloads to win it.

[xerxes]

Hmmmm. Thought provoking.

Share it with us.

[stringvest]

 

Maybes. But I think the question of whether we can think about when the next title will be won is pertinent. Id be surprised if we win 19 in the next 10 years now unless a mega rich owner comes along and spends shitloads to win it.

 

I think even JP might admit that we're not going to win the league under FSG's ownership unless they fundamentally change their strategy.  I thought they might have looked to sell by now, but I'm far from convinced there's a buyer out there with the funds or appetite.  Now they've finally started work on the main stand, the asking price has just risen significantly again.  

[Section_31]

Er those players tended to leave on Liverpool's terms. Prior to Keegan and up to El Sulk, which greats have left at the peak of their career for better thing?

 

No doubt some will mention mascherano but he was generally played out of position when he went to barcelona and took ages to establish himself.

 

I agree sterling's a little shite. But what if Coutinho follows. Then Ibe. Then Wilson etc?

 

 

Maybes. But I think the question of whether we can think about when the next title will be won is pertinent. Id be surprised if we win 19 in the next 10 years now unless a mega rich owner comes along and spends shitloads to win it.

Ian Rush, McManaman, Owen, Gerrard very nearly. We've never been a top draw for the cream of world football, Michael Laoudrup was probably the closest we've ever come. There's also a long list of British household names that knocked us back even when we were in our prime. We built our squads on grafters and solid pros, not cunts who easily have their heads turned.

[Ranxerox]

the big bloke in the red shirt is one for the ages

[Pureblood]

Er those players tended to leave on Liverpool's terms. Prior to Keegan and up to El Sulk, which greats have left at the peak of their career for better thing?

 

Alonso.

[Section_31]

the big bloke in the red shirt is one for the ages

Kopitegaz has put on weight.

[Dr Nowt]

[Pureblood]

It's funny that with these threads there's an interesting mini-theme of mancs sneering down on Liverpool FC.  There's this one and the Gary Neville one.  Thought provoking, indeed.

[ratcatcher]

Ian Rush, McManaman, Owen, Gerrard very nearly. We've never been a top draw for the cream of world football, Michael Laoudrup was probably the closest we've ever come. There's also a long list of British household names that knocked us back even when we were in our prime. We built our squads on grafters and solid pros, not cunts who easily have their heads turned.

 

OK, fair enough. But look closer. Gerrard didnt leave. Rush returned within 12 months. McManaman and Owen were cut from the same cloth.

 

But that's not the point really is it? I mean we could play  player tennis all night but the facts are the club is in a hell of a worse position now than at any time when the players you mention left.

 

I really dont get this not bothered dont care attitude but each to their own.

[ratcatcher]

It's funny that with these threads there's an interesting mini-theme of mancs sneering down on Liverpool FC.  There's this one and the Gary Neville one.  Thought provoking, indeed.

 

Dunno. Is wallace a manc? Are only Liverpool fan writers like maddock and boardman only allowed to write articles on us now?

[Pureblood]

Dunno. Is wallace a manc?

 

I don't know.  I just noticed the connection between this thread and the Gary Neville one.  They're quite similar.

[Section_31]

OK, fair enough. But look closer. Gerrard didnt leave. Rush returned within 12 months. McManaman and Owen were cut from the same cloth.

 

But that's not the point really is it? I mean we could play player tennis all night but the facts are the club is in a hell of a worse position now than at any time when the players you mention left.

 

I really dont get this not bothered dont care attitude but each to their own.

It's not a not bothered attitude. I just don't subscribe to the notion that we're in some kind of terminal decline or that Suarez and Sterling are somehow 'telling' developments. Wankers are piling shit on and not telling us anything we don't already know.

[stringvest]

It's not a not bothered attitude. I just don't subscribe to the notion that we're in some kind of terminal decline or that Suarez and Sterling are somehow 'telling' developments. Wankers are piling shit on and not telling us anything we don't alresyd know.

 

It's just filler Mark.  There's fuck all insight in there.  

[ratcatcher]

It's not a not bothered attitude. I just don't subscribe to the notion that we're in some kind of terminal decline or that Suarez and Sterling are somehow 'telling' developments. Wankers are piling shit on and not telling us anything we don't already know.

 

I dont think we're in terminal decline either. But we're certainly not in any ascendency are we? Id hate to say we're in decline but that where I think we're at especially when you factor in where we've got to since 1990.

[Captain]

I dont think we're in terminal decline either. But we're certainly not in any ascendency are we? Id hate to say we're in decline but that where I think we're at especially when you factor in where we've got to since 1990.

 

You sure as hell was as preaching the Rodgers theme recently.

[ratcatcher]

I don't know.  I just noticed the connection between this thread and the Gary Neville one.  They're quite similar.

 

I dont think they are apart from a couple of sentences. But people can make their own judgement.

 

It seems people would rather have god knows how many threads and polls on rodgers, sterling and the rest.

 

Neither do I think the article is saying we're in terminal decline. Its saying can we expect to compete for the holy grail especially as UEFA look to relax FFP while the owners appear to have a committment to supporting its principles.

[MOGLET]

Sadly, footy isnt what footy was, and players certainly arent what players were.

 

Money has ruined what was the best game in the world, and made it the playboy cash cow that it now is.

 

Loyalty means nothing, barring the very very few who stick to their home grown roots, loyalty is now a case of who will give me the most is who I will be loyal to, until I have to give loyalty to the next highest bidder.

 

LFC will never be what it was until we get an owner with the right amount of readies willing to open his purse like the big clubs around the world do.

 

Thats not saying we arent a big club, but in the scheme of money, we arent and havent been for a long long time.

 

Sold to the highest bidder to line the pockets of fakes and wankers, thats us (G&H by moores and his twatsake parry) then onto the latest bunch of cowboys etc etc.

 

Money makes the world go round, but its ruined football and has also made us nothing more than a historical memory.

 

And I hate saying that.

[Nightcat]

Great players have always left liverpool dating back to Keegan's era, this is nothing new nor symptomatic of some greater demise, it's just a load of tedious bloggers and scribblers jumping on the bandwagon. 

 

Suarez left because he was one of the three greatest players in the world just coming into his prime. Ronaldo left the mancs for the same reason. 

 

Sterling is just a gobshite. That's it. 

 

I agree about Sterling.

 

However the trouble with using United as your example is that United won everything (Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup etc...) before selling Ronaldo and United are used to buying world class players in their prime. They had one shite season and went out and got a world class manager, a world class winger and a world class striker to complement Van Persie and Rooney. 

 

We instead -at least in the Premier League era-have never really signed a world class player. We sold Torres to our direct rivals Chelsea before we even won a trophy with us and Suarez who has developed to the world class level with us, to Barcelona after winning a League Cup and reaching another FA cup final.   

 

We have no vision to succeed and the players are not stupid, they see Liverpool as a stepping stone in their careers before signing for an elite club. Liverpool is run by people with no vision and no interest to create or invest in one.

[razor]

In 1980, when Liverpool were two European Cups into their run of four in seven years, the author James McClure spent a year embedded with Merseyside police. He described the inner-city area of Liverpool as “one of the most wretched in Western Europe, just as it was more than a century ago” in his book Spike Island about the challenges facing the city’s police force. Liverpool’s infant mortality rate in 1977 was at the average level of 1930, “its general living standards were judged to be those of the 1940s” and the city had Europe’s worst teenage unemployment problem.

 

All that and Liverpool produced arguably the greatest club team that Britain has ever known.

 

 

Filler it may be Stringy, but it made me feel nostalgic.  But actually, that might be a crime now, so I'd best shut up.