Editorial
By Steve Kelly
From Issue 60, Spring 2003 You don’t get rid of me that easily. It
was part of my new strategy – to produce
a new issue every time Liverpool produce a free-flowing,
free scoring game. I got tired of waiting, so
here’s #60 anyway.
It’s not been great, has it? I’ve
had a few personal problems (nothing major, thanks
for asking) but mostly I’m just so utterly
depressed by the state of the Reds. That “blip” really
got me down. The fanzine is supposed to deal
with this stuff head on, but sometimes it gets
a bit much. People think I get a buzz out of
whinging, but I can assure you I don’t.
The football used to be my escape. Friday nights
used to be sleepless, such was the anticipation
of seeing the Reds. They’re still sleepless,
but for other reasons. Now it’s a chore,
a bind and a grind. People (not me, of course)
have their 9 to 5 rat race routine from Monday
to Friday – do they really want it at the
weekend as well? For all the fine words about
broadening our style and getting more “self
expression”, that’s all they ever
were – words. Full of sound, empty of meaning.
Gerard Houllier’s never really had any
intention of making us good to watch. His philosophy,
such as it is, does not stretch beyond the result
and whatever it takes to get it. That’s
what makes the Winter “blip” inexcusable,
because it came from a manager whose SOLE raison
d’etre is The Win. Nothing else matters.
Certainly not our reputation, which now lies
in tatters at home and abroad. We’re hated.
It isn’t going to change either, apart
from a certain ‘refinement’ of the
style, under the current regime. And it really
does need to change.
I’ve remarked before about the similarities
between this season and 1997/98. Like then, the
manager needed to alter things. Like then, he
hasn’t. Like then, we’ve got further
away from the championship and not closer. Like
then, there’s been an excruciating, embarrassing
result at least once a month. Everton, Strasbourg,
Barnsley, Coventry, Middlesbrough, Chelsea? Well,
try Middlesbrough, Fulham, Sunderland, Newcastle,
Sheffield United, Palace, Birmingham, Celtic – and
hardly any good football to compensate for it,
either. So it’s worse than 1998. The Worthington
Cup isn’t going to cut much ice with anyone,
I’m afraid.
Look at this way. You don’t replace a
manager when you reach a point where even the
one-eyed acolytes think he’s taken it as
far as he can. To listen to some Reds, we’d
have to be in the Unibond before they’ll
ever have a bad word said about Gerard. The example
to follow is Arsenal’s in 1996. Bruce Rioch
had done okay, but “okay” is not
okay for certain clubs and we’re one of
them.
This isn’t about the “blip” – and
sorry if the quotation marks are annoying you,
but unlike the manager and the chief executive
I can’t use the word to describe our worst
run of league results FOR FIFTY YEARS, not with
a straight face anyway – and it isn’t
even about whether we’ll qualify for the
Champions League or not. We’ve still got
a chance, although every Red knows we need to
be four points clear on the last day of the season
in order to do it.
No, it’s about the future and what can
reasonably be expected. Faith can move mountains,
but we’re asking Gerard Houllier: NOT to
have a major “blip” in the middle
of the season, NOT to send a team out to bore
the living daylights out of people, NOT to put
Emile Heskey’s considerations before the
good of the club (Camara, Fowler, Litmanen, Anelka – Baros
and Mellor to follow?), NOT to squander yet more
transfer money on cheap, useless imports, NOT
to continue the deterioration of the squad since
the Treble, NOT to talk incessant bullshit that
makes the club and its fans a national laughing
stock.
Well, I’m sorry, but that’s more
faith than I’ve got at the moment. An awful
lot more. I’m not saying that Gerard isn’t
a good manager, because that would clearly be
stupid beyond belief. If we didn’t finish
fourth this season and he stayed, I’d have
every confidence in him getting into the top
four next season. But what good would that do?
Liverpool FC are defined by the championship.
If that’s not the case any more, then the
club has to say that to the fans. The exploitation
(obscene ticket prices, obscene wages, hugely
inconvenient kick-off times, the impending destruction
of our spiritual home) would all have to come
to an end. If coming top 4 every season was the
sum total of our ambitions, then we should never
have got rid of Roy Evans. At least we could
have been watching some good, passing, attacking
football.
Of course, all this could change. I’m
not sure if this intransigence crept into society
after Thatcher or whether it’s always been
there, but people don’t seem to have opinions
any more – they take a stance and stand
in concrete when they take it. No matter what
happens, no matter what changes, they will never
ever shift from their original viewpoint. I’m
happy to say that I’ve never been afflicted
by this bonehead mentality. If what I’ve
written here starts to look foolish when a passing
attacking Liverpool side makes a real challenge
in the near future it won’t bother me in
the slightest if I was wrong. I’ll be ecstatic!
Who gives a shit what I think? I don’t
even give a toss what I think. The above is simply
how I feel at the moment.
I’d be a liar if I said I’ve always
doubted Houllier. There have been times when
I’ve been convinced of his power to end
our post-1990 ‘woes’. I’ve
never been 100% committed to him though, and
right now I’d say that was about 10% if
that. He has brought qualities to the club that
we all knew were desperately needed, but you
got the feeling that he’d thrown out everything
of his predecessor’s – whether it
was good or bad. That’s why you get the
revisionists shitting all over Roy, because they
have to convince everybody (mostly themselves,
I think) that there was nothing of any discernible
worth here before Gerard Houllier. That simply
isn’t the case.
A change of manager isn’t certain to
end our problems, and the chances are we could
end up with someone far worse. Is it this club’s
intention to win the title? If so, then it isn’t
a question of whether we change the man in charge.
It’s a question of ‘when’.
Because I don’t think Gerard Houllier is
ever going to get anywhere but ‘close’.
If we’re to be champions again, the risk
has to be taken.
Have a good summer, everybody. See you in August.
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