There is roughly a five-year cycle of despondency at Liverpool FC, when the summer is endless and not in a Beach Boys way. It may be spent hiding in shame (1985) or crippled with sorrow (1989). It may see us riddled with fear for the future of our awful team (1994, 1999, 2004) facing the talent and wealth of others. But never have the months passed as slowly as these next few will, when we’ll ponder on whether we have a future at all. Leeds are on the up again, finally, so there’s Straw Number 1; after each of the Anfield seasons above the club displayed its remarkable capacity for recovery, so there’s more to clutch. As each financial revelation lands like a haymaker we just pray - the last straw - that we’ll hang bloodied on the ropes La Motta style and mumble “never put us down George, never put us down Tomâ€. That’s the worst of it. What happens on the pitch is ultimately what counts; not so much raging bulls as frightened mice. The club of Shankly’s miracle, of Gerry Byrne, of countless comebacks against all odds, Houllier near death and the Ataturk - beaten before a ball was kicked. From bastion of invincibility to quivering jelly. No money spent, y’see. End of story. Well not quite. I can imagine the heads of Benitez and his annoying acolytes exploding with the insufferable betrayal of it all if WE had sold Ronaldo and discarded Tevez, only to replace them with Wigan’s winger and a malingering malodorous midget. Ferguson shrugged and got on with it. Call me Nostradamus, but Aquilani was an accident waiting to happen and Johnson, whenever fit, was an attacking square peg in a defensive round hole. The excuses began as a trickle and ended up as Rafa’s personal waterfall of whinge. 19 defeats sounds a lot to me, but there’s always someone there to protect the manager and blame everything else. It’s understandable in a way, because success can become camouflage and every small betrayal on the pitch was propagandised to spotlight the huge betrayal off it. Small pockets of annoyance to The Resistance invoked the United rebels’ ability to protest successfully as their team displayed a smidgen of backbone, but they were swiftly culled in Stalinist purges. Money is not responsible for the way we’ve played, not even close, but unless Butch and Sundance are corralled the day when it is responsible comes closer. With no Champions League cash and the manager’s compensation to organise, it’s hard to see things improving. Ah, the manager. I suppose you want to hear about the football now, do you? Well, it was mostly awful, not bad at home but insufferable away. If one thought there was a chance of him sticking around you’d mention the five areas ripe for improvement; fitness, motivation, adventure, transfers - and kicking politics into touch. Not going to happen. Any of it. Rafa doesn’t do Change. Each year there’s been an increase in his precious control, and he’s buckled underneath the weight of it. Having had such a poor season, the size of his alleged pay-off and dalliances with another club would have seriously weakened any other coach in the game. No other football club falls under the manager’s spell as lovingly and trustingly as this one, and until 2009/10 there had only been minor doubts that we hadn’t got it right “this timeâ€. Oops. He’s on the offensive, as always, demanding to know what he’ll get to spend on players next season. Given what’s been bought recently here’s hoping that’s a big fat zero. Of course the rumours fly thick and fast, his sycophants reacting furiously when someone within the club decides to fight fire with fire and reveal how Rafa plays the fans like a two-bob banjo. But these are the Machiavellian stratagems that were irritating but ignorable when we were winning. Now they stick out like rhinos on rice. There is some hope for this group of players, and given the chaos of financial uncertainty there aren’t many who wouldn’t take the current squad in August, maybe with a couple of swaps for the deadwood. Given his talent there may even be hope for Aquilani, but who knows what state Torres and Gerrard will be in when they return from Seth Efrica. Inevitably there were opposition quips about Thursday night football, as if that were the worst thing that could happen. The season’s over, but we won’t be hibernating until August. Each morning there’ll be a desperate click onto news websites to discover some vestige of consolation. Losing football matches is not the worst thing in the world right now. Let us all pray silently for a return to the days when winning was more important than life itself.
We’re happy there’s no hysteria this time By Steven Kelly Friday, July 02, 2010 AN old Hollywood actor became the byword for wooden performances. The subject of a celebrated urban myth, he became infamous several years after a radio presenter supposedly announced his upcoming appearance on a show by howling in disbelief: "Sonny Tufts?!" For all its modern glitz, football has yet to unveil a manager with such melodrama, but one suspects the news of Roy Hodgson’s arrival would be greeted with similar incredulity had it not been heavily sign-posted from the moment Benitez bailed. Let’s get the mewling of his predecessor’s idolaters out of the way first. There will inevitably be cries of "we gave up Rafa for this?", but they resemble the lovelorn yelps of a scorned teenager ranting at his parents – "you never liked her did you? I hate you!" – when in fact he was probably dumped for a hunk with more money and less hysteria. Through recent turmoil a blind eye was turned toward Rafa’s predilection for politics when results were good. As the situation deteriorated he was left with nothing but excuses and demands for money and confirmations that he knew he’d never get. Once compensation was offered he soon fled, and any claims he’d have stayed to face the complexities now awaiting his successor seem witless in the extreme. Even if this could be accepted, Roy wasn’t first choice. In fact, each fresh tabloid candidate was greeted with such fervour it seemed even if the flavour of the day didn’t accept the poisoned chalice there was no way Hodgson could after being ‘blanked’ by so many supporters. His approval dropped to around 6% around the time Dalglish was linked with the job. Sentiment must never be casually dismissed where football is concerned, especially in this part of the world. I’m one of the stereotypical Scousers that bristles with every new slight – which hardly helps my cause! – but I know we have a maudlin streak and the return of King Kenny would have tapped into the mother lode of all mawkishness. A prolonged absence from the game did not deflect supporters from what they now saw as a new holy quest (having failed to get Rafa off the cross). I’d have been all for it if any hint had come from Kenny about his second in command being a top coach with youth, fresh ideas and ambition enough to see this could be his shortcut into the big job if all went well. But when the only name to emerge was Ian Rush, that’s when my heart sank and the shadow of Kendall loomed. It seemed a particularly Geordie thing to do, Keegan and Shearer proving Romance does not conquer all. And that’s from someone who called Dalglish ‘The Supreme Being’ when he was last manager here. More straws were clutched – Deschamps couldn’t have been more dismissive – before finally people had to accept the inevitable; it was Hodgson or nothing. Safe pair of hands, steering us through choppy waters, blahdy blah. Modern football’s clamour for glamour and "HUGE HEADLINES" was rebuffed. I’d be a liar if I said that didn’t given me a quiver of pleasure. WHEN Moores sent Souness packing and replaced him with the other Roy, he used a Tory slogan; Back To Basics. Not a judicious thing to do. Had the power from Red shoulder-shrugging been harnessed it could have kept the city’s lights on for months. It turned out to be a vital though ultimately unsuccessful decision, because God knows what would have happened had we gone backwards with two consecutive managers. We’re not far from a similar situation now. For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth it’s not as if every appointment sets the pulses racing. In fact I can only think of two, both of them hugely ironic; Souness and Benitez. Shankly’s Huddersfield were barely higher in 1959 than they are now. Maybe we’ve had enough of deifying the man in the top job at the expense of the men on the actual pitch. Whenever Paisley was presented with his annual manager of the year award, he would tell the interviewer "it’s all aboot the players, reeeeally". Since the Spice Boys all but eroded the supporter-player bond you’ve never once heard a Liverpool manager say that. Roy might just break that spell, without hopefully encouraging the lifestyle excess of the 90’s that turned our love septic and cynical. Whether he can keep them all here is another hugely debatable matter. I’ve not seen one article on the man that didn’t include the word "respected". We may miss the genius of Rafa Benitez, in fact it’s a stone-cold fact we will, but if in its place comes composure, focus and a happier stable dressing room we may not be heading for the abyss many predicted, gleefully in outsiders’ cases and fearfully in our own.