Fury & Sadness: There have been many mixed emotions during a strange season, but the bottom line is Liverpool are not playing well enough…
CONFLICTING EMOTIONS, frankly.
Joy for the first half hour. I remember this. Mo Salah giving the excellent Williams and Anderson a proper run out, the Reds hunting in packs. It looked like Villa again.
Then fury.
Oh, that’s not offside now? It was a fortnight ago and now it’s not? Got that. Great. Will it be the same at West Ham or does it depend on who scored it? (I hate conspiracy theories like that, but it does make you wonder) then they get another, but he chalks it off because … well, I don’t even know anymore.
It doesn’t even matter. Howard Webb will still stand up and argue that black is white before talking about respecting the ref. You crack on, lads. Maybe just let us know what the West Ham score’s going to be before we travel, and we can all save some time.
Ibou Konate can have a bit of fury too. He’ll still get picked next week so if you’re passing the manager, Ibou…
So, Joe Gomez doesn’t get on because he’s hardly played any footy. Is 35 minutes too much for him too? I get that he didn’t train all week but 35 minutes? Come on, eh?
Is that enough fury? No, because that was just the first-half. The second and third goals aren’t unlucky. Nor are they anything to do with ‘that just happens sometimes.’
The second and third goals are down to a sheer lack of professionalism. A lack of professionalism that is an anathema to everything that club expects. There should be repercussions for that. There should be teacups lashed against walls.
On top of that I heard that the Sing Fong was shut. Things can’t get much worse.
And then, sadness. Just a deep sadness. We’re here again. No plan, no passion, no clue. We’re everyone’s favourite opponent. Just score first and you won’t lose. Liverpool won’t have the vitamins to argue. We had decades of this.
But there’s also an elephant in the room. Robbo (and I thought it impossible to love him more) ushered it back in midweek.
And it’s valid. No one’s saying it isn’t valid unless you’re of a boorish persuasion. I’ve heard that too. ‘When X died, I was in work the next day.’ Good for you. Like your experience is the same as everyone else’s.
I lost my sister in 2018 and a year later I was still getting off at the wrong Tube stop and forgetting where I was supposed to be in the first place. No one was asking me to be a League champion and go into 50/50s with Grocks. There’s no time limit to this. No cut off date where it’ll be alright.
And grief is exhausting. It’s lethargy’s best friend. Even the simplest task seems too much and that’s before you get into the whole ‘What’s the point of anything anymore?’ thing.
Mo Salah standing in front of the Kop, tears in his eyes, trying to make sense of it all. That image will never leave me. That’s still every day for him.
And I wish we’d save Diogo’s song till the end, rather than the 20-minute reminder. I really do.
It’s valid and it explains a lot, but professionalism is the bottom line. Ibou Konate doesn’t stop running at Brentford because of Diogo and Andre. The manager doesn’t drop our best goalscorer for the majority of the game for that reason either.
It can be both. Grief is a factor, of course it is, but this isn’t good enough and I don’t think it’s unfair to point that out.
I agree with Neil’s point on the Post-Match Show, and I’ve been saying the same thing for weeks. I want them to get angry. I want them to right the wrongs of going behind with a merciless attack on the opposition goal.
I don’t want to see 11th in the league as a sorry state of affairs, but as a personal insult to this club. I want a reaction, not drooped shoulders at the latest PGMOL gift.
But none of that’s easy.
I watched the Kenny documentary at the weekend. Alan Hansen standing in, I think, the old Main Stand car park, telling a reporter that he doesn’t want to play football, in April 1989. He didn’t have to. His demeanour alone let the world know that.
The whole point of tragedy is that there’s no warning of it. It just becomes something to deal with.
And there’s no playbook for this. It’s Captain Darling giving Blackadder a blank piece of canvas and asking him to fill it in while he’s in No Man’s Land. There’s nothing in the coaching manual.
I just want to see them challenging fate, not just accepting the cruelty of it.
But none of this is easy.
Conflicting emotions. All valid.
Wear your colours now. Now we’re needed.
