"Alan Hansen: Hitting the Wrong Targets Again"
Almost two years after I wrote a piece pulling apart an Alan Hansen attack
on low-flying Liverpool, the ex-captain is back with some more heavy
criticisms.
I've no problem with him criticising the club, and if there's ever a time to
be critical of performances it's now. But I just wish he'd get it right, and
show a bit more balance in his approach to criticism. For me, he's been as
off-target as many of the Reds' shots this season.
Hansen was on my mind anyway. I've only just finished writing 'Golden Past,
Red Future Revisited' for a new anthology I'm releasing, and that involved
reassessing Alan Hansen's stinging criticism of Benítez in January 2005,
while simultaneously reassessing my response to it. I'm more than happy to
admit to the things I got wrong in that book, and indeed do so in this new
book, but the Hansen critique is not one of them. Everyone gets stuff wrong
in football writing, as no one has a crystal ball, but at least consider all
angles regarding what you're saying.
There are problems at the moment, that's clear. And the performance at Old
Trafford, once United scored, was incredibly limp, as the confidence visibly
drained from the players. But too many of the things Hansen identifies are
lazy criticisms dressed up as facts.
United's success in the game came through three home-grown players immersed
in the club, according to Hansen. But we had two out there, Gerrard and
Carragher, and neither played well. Gerrard seemed to moan more than
encourage, while Carra, despite his unstinting effort, was at fault in some
way for both goals (the second due to injury, admittedly).
Why all the talk of locals again, when there were so few during Hansen's
halcyon days? Xabi Alonso, a Spaniard, gives 100% every single game, even if
he's not a blood-and-thunder type player. He cares. His form has been stodgy
this season, but we've had two great years from him. The same can be said of
Carragher and Gerrard. All three care; none is playing anywhere near their
best.
Momo Sissoko, who's only been at the club 15 months, was our best player at
Old Trafford, all over the pitch working his extra-long socks off. He's not
local, nor immersed in the club. He's just a great player and a hard worker
with lungs of titanium. Sami Hyypia's commitment can never be questioned,
even if his form can be. How local is he?
As for Hansen's talk of the Reds lacking a striker capable of 20 league
goals a season since the sale of Michael Owen, it has to be pointed out that
Owen never actually scored 20 league goals in a season. Of course, he came
close, with a 19 and a couple of 18s, and was capable of getting 20 if he
stayed fit long enough.
But where did that get the Reds? Not as many points as Benítez's team
managed last season, with no striker even making double figures, while the
top scoring striker on the run to winning the European Cup in 2005 was Milan
Baros, with just two goals. And Chelsea have won the league the last two
years with low-scoring forwards, as have teams on a number of occasions
since the Premiership began.
Dirk Kuyt could well be capable of 20 Premiership goals a season, and that
has to be the aim, but he needs time to adjust. He's scored as many league
goals as £30m Shevchenko, rated the best finisher in the world, in far less
minutes on the pitch. Okay, so it's not saying much. But until this point
Kuyt has looked better value. It took Michael Owen a while to adapt to life
in Madrid, and to find his scoring boots, so why should Kuyt be any
different here? Newcastle then paid £17m for Owen, and will be lucky to get
more than ten games out of him in his first two seasons.
Hansen then says the club's limited funds mean it has to buy 'maybe' players
between £4-9m: "That gets you 'maybe' players, footballers who could do a
job but who would be dangerous to rely on in a crisis."
Well, Reina was in that price range, and he was superb last season, as he
had been in Spain for a number of years, despite still being just 23; but
now, as a young keeper, he's not playing so well, so he's crap, right?
Sissoko was another. He's been a real steal, and while he can be rash with
his passing (take your time, Momo) he's superb for his age. Luis Garcia is
another, and while he's in and out, he's scored a lot of important goals
that are worth their weight in gold.
Peter Crouch cost £7m, and has been a revelation for club and country since
the summer, to the point where there's an outcry if he's omitted. He may not
be the best player in the world, but he presents defences with unique
problems, and is now scoring at a rate Owen would be proud of. Craig Bellamy
would have cost double his £6m but for a clause in his contract. He just
needs time to adapt to being at Liverpool, as do the clutch of other new
signings. You can't just throw new players into the equation and expect
instant dividends, as nice as it would be.
Finnan, Riise and Hyypia all cost £4m or less. The new players, like
Gonzalez and Pennant, cost in Hansen's quoted bracket. But Jesus, give them
time to settle; Shevchenko cost £30m and he's been pony this season. You
cannot even start to write off any new players before at least six months at
a new club, and up to a year if in a new country. Too many have taken that
long, or even longer, to adapt.
As for the point on big spending, when Liverpool have shelled out in excess
of £10m, only Xabi Alonso has been worth the money. (Kuyt, who cost between
£9-10m, should prove good value, too.) But Diouf? Heskey? Cissé? They turned
out to be 'maybe' players, if that.
As with Hansen's criticisms two years ago - namely that Benítez should have
bought British - his assertion that spending little has resulted in average
players makes no sense based on what the Reds have actually got for that
money. There's also the fact that Benítez has had 80% of the squad to
rebuild since 2004, rather than merely needing to add a couple of players;
so the money had to be spread fairly evenly across a number of purchases.
The option of more money always helps, of course; but there's no simple
solution to that.
There are also serious problems with the back four, according to Hansen. But
it's much the same personnel as last season, when it was the best around;
could it be that it's just form and confidence? After all, they proved how
good they can be last season, even when the full-backs were heavily rotated.
They've not all become bad players overnight, have they?
While I agree with Hansen on what he says about the centre of defence being
an area you don't needlessly tinker with, Hyypia was struggling for form at
the point when Agger came in, with Carragher injured. Agger played so well
it meant one defender had to drop out, so it was only going to be Hyypia.
Except when it came to playing at Bolton, where the aerial bombardment was
on the cards, so a switch to the Finn was made.
Then Agger, the best defender in the league this season, broke his hand with
Denmark, and hasn't played since. So I've not seen much rotation there, just
enforced changes, plus one understandable tactical change (especially after
a couple of headers were conceded against Galatasaray). United have rotated
their team as heavily as Liverpool in the league this season, but it's
working for them. Then again, it worked for the Reds last season. Doesn't
that suggest that blaming rotation is a cop out?
Hansen says the Reds don't look capable of going on a run like the one at
the end of last season, but this time a year ago the same could have been
said; and the Reds went on two outstanding runs, not just the one he
mentions, having also had a similar slump between January and March.
It doesn't mean such great runs will happen again, but it does show what the
team is capable of doing, and how this manager can turn things around. A few
weeks back Arsenal were in the bottom three after poor home results, now
they're full of confidence. Last year they couldn't win an away Premiership
game, now they're cruising. Things can quickly change. Maybe it's too late
for a title push from Liverpool this season, and that's frustrating; but
it's still early on, and so much can happen.
Is Benítez making mistakes? Almost certainly. But hindsight is a wonderful
thing. All managers can be said to have made mistakes if their team has
lost.
Are the players making mistakes? Of course. Low confidence does that; but
confidence cannot be restored with a pep talk. If it could, there'd never be
any shortage of confidence in the sport. The problem at Liverpool, to my
mind, is that too many players, including nearly all of the key men, are low
on confidence following dips in their own form, and once it affects the team
as a whole it gets that much harder to do anything about it. You can't
'rest' an entire team.
So while I maintain that Alan Hansen has every right to air his views, and
to be critical, I'd like to see him take a little more time in thinking
about what he's saying. I don't have it in for the Reds' legend, but I do
expect better from him.
© Paul Tomkins 2006
GUEST COLUMN : PAUL TOMKINS
LIVERPOOL FC: IS MY OPTIMISM STILL WELL FOUNDED?
As a football fan, your glass tends to be half full or half empty. In
Liverpool's case, in recent years at least, we can at least be
thankful that the trophy cabinet has been neither; it's been fairly
full.
Number 19 has proved elusive, but it's been a very good decade so far;
six major trophies, when other big clubs like Newcastle would kill for
just one. Then there's been a return to regular Champions League
football, with the Reds on the biggest stage after a dark decade in
the wilderness. For three years running Rafa has overseen a successful
group stage of the Champions League; it's not decided yet this year,
but the Reds are in control, and that after just one home game.
But our expectations have been raised; and I'm no different. I had
high hopes for this season.
I get labelled an optimist. If that's because I'm being compared with
some real pessimists, then I'll accept that. I like to think I'm a
realist. Then again, that's what the pessimists say of themselves. I
guess we all see our own views as the true reality. Why would we think
otherwise?
I personally find being pessimistic tiring. I'd rather look for the
positives, but only if positives are there; I have no desire to invent
them.
I do think I need those powers of optimism right now, and I'll admit
I'm struggling a little. However, maybe it's my own mentality, from a
lifetime in and around sport, but I don't see how focusing on the
negatives helps. Of course, that's different from the club's manager
ignoring the negatives; it's his job to identify problems and
eradicate them (which is always easier said than done, and is why I
don't like offering pithy solutions).
But I still have unswerving faith in the manager and this group of
players. That's not always been the case during my lifetime, but while
it's so I feel it's only a matter of time before the tide turns.
I'm generally more positive these days than when I went to 40+ games a
season home and away, before I fell ill and had family commitments. I
still get to games, but it's no longer possible to let going to the
match dictate my life.
In my experience, going to the match can make bad results and/or
performances hurt that bit more, but it can also cloud your judgement.
My judgement is generally better these days. Maybe that's age and
experience, but it's also not being around the negativity that can
understandably swell at games when it's not champagne football. I
personally think it helps me to be one step removed, as I'm not quite
as obsessively invested in it; it helps me take a better overview - at
least that's how I feel when comparing myself with how I was years
ago. You miss things by not being at every game, of course, but you
can escape the crowd mentality in your thinking.
I don't believe I've ever been a blind optimist. Was I optimistic in
1993-94? Not a chance. Was I optimistic exactly a decade later? Not at
all. Indeed, was I optimistic at half-time in the Atatürk? Not in a
million years (although I stayed to lift the lads in song, and prayed
for a miracle, i.e. that we only lose 3-0).
It's difficult for a manager to intervene when players are lacking
confidence; there's no easy fix. When the collective confidence dips,
it nearly always needs something to happen on the field to boost it,
while setbacks damage it yet further.
The Reds started well enough at Old Trafford, but the first goal was
too big a mental blow for a team struggling to get results away from
home; indeed, until this weekend's reversal, away performances hadn't
been too bad on the whole. When they're confident, you know this team
is easily capable of coming back from a goal down (and even two or
three), but at the moment, away from home, it's killing the
confidence.
Fans often mistake low confidence for not trying. But when confidence
is low, you can find yourself treading water, or thinking too hard. It
stops being natural. Players become more inhibited, and more static,
getting caught in two minds as to where to run. There's less movement
as a result, so everyone plays the ball simply, but often too safely.
It's the obverse of being confident, when everyone wants a touch,
movement off the ball is rife, and it all seems natural to the
players. Instinct takes over.
As ever in these situations, it can sometimes take just one good
result, a moment of individual inspiration, or even just one piece of
good fortune, to turn things around. Arsenal were in the bottom three
a few weeks back and being written off, but now they're playing some
sensational stuff. Of course it doesn't look like we're about to
immediately turn the corner, but we were losing badly in October 2005,
too. Sometimes an upward turn in form isn't signposted; it just turns
on one single moment.
How many points the Reds need to make a belated title challenge
depends on what the others rack up. If it's a total like 80-85 points,
as opposed to 90-95, that instantly makes it more attainable. There's
now less margin for error, of course, but also far less challenging
fixtures (on paper, at least) than from this point 12 months ago. The
big boys all have to come to Anfield, too. And this week a year ago we
were six further points behind the leaders.
I don't want to clutch at straws, merely search out reasons why the
future might prove more fruitful. But it won't happen without hard
work, and something to spark the confidence.
I've recently been going through the hundreds of articles I've written
since the year 2000, trying to edit the list down to the best for an
anthology I'm working on. In amongst the woeful predictions and the
wayward pronouncements, there are examples of where my optimism has
proved well-founded, and indeed, at times didn't actually prove
optimistic enough.
At the start of last season I felt we'd get 80 points in the league
and that our best chance in Europe was the quarter-finals. I revised
that to 75 points in October, but both proved too pessimistic. In the
March of the season before I said we'd win the Champions League.
During the two slumps last season I never lost faith, and always felt
the confidence could quickly turn, as indeed it did.
I was actually tempted to try and pass off as new an article I dug up
from precisely a year ago, to see if anyone noticed the difference. It
could have been written in October 2006, so similar was the situation.
We didn't go on to challenge for the title, of course, but we did have
our best season, points wise, for 18 years. And won the FA Cup.
Perhaps in hindsight this was a season too soon for a title challenge.
I think we're around the stage in Rafa's reign when things should be
clicking strongly into gear. But there was still a lot of transitional
work that took place this summer, and all of it was needed. Of course
I felt we'd be doing better at this stage, but it also relied on the
new signings settling very quickly, and a lack of injuries, and you
can never guarantee that will happen. I don't see much rebuilding work
still to be done next summer, but this round of changes needs time to
gel.
We've seen flashes of quality from all of the new boys, not to mention
the work ethic required, but not the consistency, nor the
understanding with team-mates, which is understandable. It's just not
clicking for 90 minutes. Kuyt has shown some great moments, but he's
yet to find his scoring rhythm or fully come to terms with how much
time he is allowed on the ball. Players have to work at creating a new
sense confidence when they switch to a different environment.
There have been a greater number of niggling injuries this season, to
disrupt the flow. Daniel Agger's broken hand came when he was the best
defender in the league; Bellamy, whose pace would have caused United
to defend very differently, had to pull out injured, just as he'd
found his scoring boots; then Carragher's latest injury made it
impossible for him to properly defend the cross that led to
Ferdinand's killer goal.
On top of this, some key players just haven't been firing on all
cylinders. It's easy to take the excellent standards of some of them
for granted.
Perhaps players like Carragher and Gerrard are suffering from so much
unrelenting high-pressure football in the last two years, and from
maintaining incredibly high standards in that time. I don't wish to
make excuses for them, but maybe there are extenuating circumstances
at work.
Since the turn of 2005 they have played on the way to, and in, four
cup finals (League Cup, Champions League, World Club Championship, FA
Cup), and played at the World Cup finals with England, which was also
psychologically tiring, given the team's struggles. (It was tiring
watching, too). The 2004/05 season ended late, and the 2005/06 season
began just a few weeks later for the Reds, and Japan clogged up the
fixture list. This summer, thanks to events in Germany, there was
little rest, too.
If either of these players gets rested, there follows criticisms of
rotation. But beyond missing the odd game, they've not had a decent
break in all that time; the Reds played 122 games in Rafa's first two
seasons, compared with the 88 Spurs undertook, by way of an example.
As the Reds' captain and vice-captain, and as locals, they perhaps
feel the pressure more than most. As players who never go out to
merely stroll, that too takes its toll.
Carra is playing okay, but he's so much better than okay. Last season
he wasn't directly at fault for a single goal in the Premiership, a
remarkable record. This year you could fault him in some way on three,
maybe four. But the ones at Goodison and Old Trafford (two places
where you don't want to be making mistakes) came when he wasn't 100%
fit.
And Gerrard is doing well at times, but just not finding those goals
that are an essential ingredient of the Reds' attacking prowess. His
sharpness in front of goal isn't quite there, although he's been close
on numerous occasions. You could blame shifting him between different
positions, but last season his minutes were split pretty equally
between the right, the centre and as a second striker. It never harmed
him then.
So I'll continue to look for the positives, and make no apologies for
that. Sometimes teams have bad seasons, for a number of reasons that
converge and conspire to derail things, and it's happened to all the
best managers. Arsenal had massive struggles in the league last year,
and it was mostly away from home; Manchester United have had a few
poor years by their 1990s standards. Both Wenger and Ferguson know the
English game inside out. The key is to never have two bad seasons in a
row.
It's not too late to turn this season around. But if Rafa can't fully
revive this campaign, he's still the right man to take this club
forward. After winning the league in his first season with Valencia
the team slumped to 5th a year later. Was he a flash in the pan? The
media thought so.
Lesser men might not have been able to reverse that trend, and would
have let a rot set in. But he roused his team to win both the title
and the Uefa Cup in his third season. That's an important indicator of
how he works. To quote Iain Dowie, he has 'bouncebackability'.
Rafa's first season at Liverpool was a mix of the mediocre and the
magnificent. His second, punctuated by two sluggish spells, was full
of impressive records. Liverpool won a massive percentage of
Premiership games, and the FA Cup provided a second piece of
silverware. The team defended like marvels for much of the campaign.
If it was capable of doing that, it can do it again.
And the same applies to the team as a whole. Form is temporary, class
is permanent, and you have to trust that the class will shine through
sooner or later.
Almost two years after I wrote a piece pulling apart an Alan Hansen attack
on low-flying Liverpool, the ex-captain is back with some more heavy
criticisms.
I've no problem with him criticising the club, and if there's ever a time to
be critical of performances it's now. But I just wish he'd get it right, and
show a bit more balance in his approach to criticism. For me, he's been as
off-target as many of the Reds' shots this season.
Hansen was on my mind anyway. I've only just finished writing 'Golden Past,
Red Future Revisited' for a new anthology I'm releasing, and that involved
reassessing Alan Hansen's stinging criticism of Benítez in January 2005,
while simultaneously reassessing my response to it. I'm more than happy to
admit to the things I got wrong in that book, and indeed do so in this new
book, but the Hansen critique is not one of them. Everyone gets stuff wrong
in football writing, as no one has a crystal ball, but at least consider all
angles regarding what you're saying.
There are problems at the moment, that's clear. And the performance at Old
Trafford, once United scored, was incredibly limp, as the confidence visibly
drained from the players. But too many of the things Hansen identifies are
lazy criticisms dressed up as facts.
United's success in the game came through three home-grown players immersed
in the club, according to Hansen. But we had two out there, Gerrard and
Carragher, and neither played well. Gerrard seemed to moan more than
encourage, while Carra, despite his unstinting effort, was at fault in some
way for both goals (the second due to injury, admittedly).
Why all the talk of locals again, when there were so few during Hansen's
halcyon days? Xabi Alonso, a Spaniard, gives 100% every single game, even if
he's not a blood-and-thunder type player. He cares. His form has been stodgy
this season, but we've had two great years from him. The same can be said of
Carragher and Gerrard. All three care; none is playing anywhere near their
best.
Momo Sissoko, who's only been at the club 15 months, was our best player at
Old Trafford, all over the pitch working his extra-long socks off. He's not
local, nor immersed in the club. He's just a great player and a hard worker
with lungs of titanium. Sami Hyypia's commitment can never be questioned,
even if his form can be. How local is he?
As for Hansen's talk of the Reds lacking a striker capable of 20 league
goals a season since the sale of Michael Owen, it has to be pointed out that
Owen never actually scored 20 league goals in a season. Of course, he came
close, with a 19 and a couple of 18s, and was capable of getting 20 if he
stayed fit long enough.
But where did that get the Reds? Not as many points as Benítez's team
managed last season, with no striker even making double figures, while the
top scoring striker on the run to winning the European Cup in 2005 was Milan
Baros, with just two goals. And Chelsea have won the league the last two
years with low-scoring forwards, as have teams on a number of occasions
since the Premiership began.
Dirk Kuyt could well be capable of 20 Premiership goals a season, and that
has to be the aim, but he needs time to adjust. He's scored as many league
goals as £30m Shevchenko, rated the best finisher in the world, in far less
minutes on the pitch. Okay, so it's not saying much. But until this point
Kuyt has looked better value. It took Michael Owen a while to adapt to life
in Madrid, and to find his scoring boots, so why should Kuyt be any
different here? Newcastle then paid £17m for Owen, and will be lucky to get
more than ten games out of him in his first two seasons.
Hansen then says the club's limited funds mean it has to buy 'maybe' players
between £4-9m: "That gets you 'maybe' players, footballers who could do a
job but who would be dangerous to rely on in a crisis."
Well, Reina was in that price range, and he was superb last season, as he
had been in Spain for a number of years, despite still being just 23; but
now, as a young keeper, he's not playing so well, so he's crap, right?
Sissoko was another. He's been a real steal, and while he can be rash with
his passing (take your time, Momo) he's superb for his age. Luis Garcia is
another, and while he's in and out, he's scored a lot of important goals
that are worth their weight in gold.
Peter Crouch cost £7m, and has been a revelation for club and country since
the summer, to the point where there's an outcry if he's omitted. He may not
be the best player in the world, but he presents defences with unique
problems, and is now scoring at a rate Owen would be proud of. Craig Bellamy
would have cost double his £6m but for a clause in his contract. He just
needs time to adapt to being at Liverpool, as do the clutch of other new
signings. You can't just throw new players into the equation and expect
instant dividends, as nice as it would be.
Finnan, Riise and Hyypia all cost £4m or less. The new players, like
Gonzalez and Pennant, cost in Hansen's quoted bracket. But Jesus, give them
time to settle; Shevchenko cost £30m and he's been pony this season. You
cannot even start to write off any new players before at least six months at
a new club, and up to a year if in a new country. Too many have taken that
long, or even longer, to adapt.
As for the point on big spending, when Liverpool have shelled out in excess
of £10m, only Xabi Alonso has been worth the money. (Kuyt, who cost between
£9-10m, should prove good value, too.) But Diouf? Heskey? Cissé? They turned
out to be 'maybe' players, if that.
As with Hansen's criticisms two years ago - namely that Benítez should have
bought British - his assertion that spending little has resulted in average
players makes no sense based on what the Reds have actually got for that
money. There's also the fact that Benítez has had 80% of the squad to
rebuild since 2004, rather than merely needing to add a couple of players;
so the money had to be spread fairly evenly across a number of purchases.
The option of more money always helps, of course; but there's no simple
solution to that.
There are also serious problems with the back four, according to Hansen. But
it's much the same personnel as last season, when it was the best around;
could it be that it's just form and confidence? After all, they proved how
good they can be last season, even when the full-backs were heavily rotated.
They've not all become bad players overnight, have they?
While I agree with Hansen on what he says about the centre of defence being
an area you don't needlessly tinker with, Hyypia was struggling for form at
the point when Agger came in, with Carragher injured. Agger played so well
it meant one defender had to drop out, so it was only going to be Hyypia.
Except when it came to playing at Bolton, where the aerial bombardment was
on the cards, so a switch to the Finn was made.
Then Agger, the best defender in the league this season, broke his hand with
Denmark, and hasn't played since. So I've not seen much rotation there, just
enforced changes, plus one understandable tactical change (especially after
a couple of headers were conceded against Galatasaray). United have rotated
their team as heavily as Liverpool in the league this season, but it's
working for them. Then again, it worked for the Reds last season. Doesn't
that suggest that blaming rotation is a cop out?
Hansen says the Reds don't look capable of going on a run like the one at
the end of last season, but this time a year ago the same could have been
said; and the Reds went on two outstanding runs, not just the one he
mentions, having also had a similar slump between January and March.
It doesn't mean such great runs will happen again, but it does show what the
team is capable of doing, and how this manager can turn things around. A few
weeks back Arsenal were in the bottom three after poor home results, now
they're full of confidence. Last year they couldn't win an away Premiership
game, now they're cruising. Things can quickly change. Maybe it's too late
for a title push from Liverpool this season, and that's frustrating; but
it's still early on, and so much can happen.
Is Benítez making mistakes? Almost certainly. But hindsight is a wonderful
thing. All managers can be said to have made mistakes if their team has
lost.
Are the players making mistakes? Of course. Low confidence does that; but
confidence cannot be restored with a pep talk. If it could, there'd never be
any shortage of confidence in the sport. The problem at Liverpool, to my
mind, is that too many players, including nearly all of the key men, are low
on confidence following dips in their own form, and once it affects the team
as a whole it gets that much harder to do anything about it. You can't
'rest' an entire team.
So while I maintain that Alan Hansen has every right to air his views, and
to be critical, I'd like to see him take a little more time in thinking
about what he's saying. I don't have it in for the Reds' legend, but I do
expect better from him.
© Paul Tomkins 2006
GUEST COLUMN : PAUL TOMKINS
LIVERPOOL FC: IS MY OPTIMISM STILL WELL FOUNDED?
As a football fan, your glass tends to be half full or half empty. In
Liverpool's case, in recent years at least, we can at least be
thankful that the trophy cabinet has been neither; it's been fairly
full.
Number 19 has proved elusive, but it's been a very good decade so far;
six major trophies, when other big clubs like Newcastle would kill for
just one. Then there's been a return to regular Champions League
football, with the Reds on the biggest stage after a dark decade in
the wilderness. For three years running Rafa has overseen a successful
group stage of the Champions League; it's not decided yet this year,
but the Reds are in control, and that after just one home game.
But our expectations have been raised; and I'm no different. I had
high hopes for this season.
I get labelled an optimist. If that's because I'm being compared with
some real pessimists, then I'll accept that. I like to think I'm a
realist. Then again, that's what the pessimists say of themselves. I
guess we all see our own views as the true reality. Why would we think
otherwise?
I personally find being pessimistic tiring. I'd rather look for the
positives, but only if positives are there; I have no desire to invent
them.
I do think I need those powers of optimism right now, and I'll admit
I'm struggling a little. However, maybe it's my own mentality, from a
lifetime in and around sport, but I don't see how focusing on the
negatives helps. Of course, that's different from the club's manager
ignoring the negatives; it's his job to identify problems and
eradicate them (which is always easier said than done, and is why I
don't like offering pithy solutions).
But I still have unswerving faith in the manager and this group of
players. That's not always been the case during my lifetime, but while
it's so I feel it's only a matter of time before the tide turns.
I'm generally more positive these days than when I went to 40+ games a
season home and away, before I fell ill and had family commitments. I
still get to games, but it's no longer possible to let going to the
match dictate my life.
In my experience, going to the match can make bad results and/or
performances hurt that bit more, but it can also cloud your judgement.
My judgement is generally better these days. Maybe that's age and
experience, but it's also not being around the negativity that can
understandably swell at games when it's not champagne football. I
personally think it helps me to be one step removed, as I'm not quite
as obsessively invested in it; it helps me take a better overview - at
least that's how I feel when comparing myself with how I was years
ago. You miss things by not being at every game, of course, but you
can escape the crowd mentality in your thinking.
I don't believe I've ever been a blind optimist. Was I optimistic in
1993-94? Not a chance. Was I optimistic exactly a decade later? Not at
all. Indeed, was I optimistic at half-time in the Atatürk? Not in a
million years (although I stayed to lift the lads in song, and prayed
for a miracle, i.e. that we only lose 3-0).
It's difficult for a manager to intervene when players are lacking
confidence; there's no easy fix. When the collective confidence dips,
it nearly always needs something to happen on the field to boost it,
while setbacks damage it yet further.
The Reds started well enough at Old Trafford, but the first goal was
too big a mental blow for a team struggling to get results away from
home; indeed, until this weekend's reversal, away performances hadn't
been too bad on the whole. When they're confident, you know this team
is easily capable of coming back from a goal down (and even two or
three), but at the moment, away from home, it's killing the
confidence.
Fans often mistake low confidence for not trying. But when confidence
is low, you can find yourself treading water, or thinking too hard. It
stops being natural. Players become more inhibited, and more static,
getting caught in two minds as to where to run. There's less movement
as a result, so everyone plays the ball simply, but often too safely.
It's the obverse of being confident, when everyone wants a touch,
movement off the ball is rife, and it all seems natural to the
players. Instinct takes over.
As ever in these situations, it can sometimes take just one good
result, a moment of individual inspiration, or even just one piece of
good fortune, to turn things around. Arsenal were in the bottom three
a few weeks back and being written off, but now they're playing some
sensational stuff. Of course it doesn't look like we're about to
immediately turn the corner, but we were losing badly in October 2005,
too. Sometimes an upward turn in form isn't signposted; it just turns
on one single moment.
How many points the Reds need to make a belated title challenge
depends on what the others rack up. If it's a total like 80-85 points,
as opposed to 90-95, that instantly makes it more attainable. There's
now less margin for error, of course, but also far less challenging
fixtures (on paper, at least) than from this point 12 months ago. The
big boys all have to come to Anfield, too. And this week a year ago we
were six further points behind the leaders.
I don't want to clutch at straws, merely search out reasons why the
future might prove more fruitful. But it won't happen without hard
work, and something to spark the confidence.
I've recently been going through the hundreds of articles I've written
since the year 2000, trying to edit the list down to the best for an
anthology I'm working on. In amongst the woeful predictions and the
wayward pronouncements, there are examples of where my optimism has
proved well-founded, and indeed, at times didn't actually prove
optimistic enough.
At the start of last season I felt we'd get 80 points in the league
and that our best chance in Europe was the quarter-finals. I revised
that to 75 points in October, but both proved too pessimistic. In the
March of the season before I said we'd win the Champions League.
During the two slumps last season I never lost faith, and always felt
the confidence could quickly turn, as indeed it did.
I was actually tempted to try and pass off as new an article I dug up
from precisely a year ago, to see if anyone noticed the difference. It
could have been written in October 2006, so similar was the situation.
We didn't go on to challenge for the title, of course, but we did have
our best season, points wise, for 18 years. And won the FA Cup.
Perhaps in hindsight this was a season too soon for a title challenge.
I think we're around the stage in Rafa's reign when things should be
clicking strongly into gear. But there was still a lot of transitional
work that took place this summer, and all of it was needed. Of course
I felt we'd be doing better at this stage, but it also relied on the
new signings settling very quickly, and a lack of injuries, and you
can never guarantee that will happen. I don't see much rebuilding work
still to be done next summer, but this round of changes needs time to
gel.
We've seen flashes of quality from all of the new boys, not to mention
the work ethic required, but not the consistency, nor the
understanding with team-mates, which is understandable. It's just not
clicking for 90 minutes. Kuyt has shown some great moments, but he's
yet to find his scoring rhythm or fully come to terms with how much
time he is allowed on the ball. Players have to work at creating a new
sense confidence when they switch to a different environment.
There have been a greater number of niggling injuries this season, to
disrupt the flow. Daniel Agger's broken hand came when he was the best
defender in the league; Bellamy, whose pace would have caused United
to defend very differently, had to pull out injured, just as he'd
found his scoring boots; then Carragher's latest injury made it
impossible for him to properly defend the cross that led to
Ferdinand's killer goal.
On top of this, some key players just haven't been firing on all
cylinders. It's easy to take the excellent standards of some of them
for granted.
Perhaps players like Carragher and Gerrard are suffering from so much
unrelenting high-pressure football in the last two years, and from
maintaining incredibly high standards in that time. I don't wish to
make excuses for them, but maybe there are extenuating circumstances
at work.
Since the turn of 2005 they have played on the way to, and in, four
cup finals (League Cup, Champions League, World Club Championship, FA
Cup), and played at the World Cup finals with England, which was also
psychologically tiring, given the team's struggles. (It was tiring
watching, too). The 2004/05 season ended late, and the 2005/06 season
began just a few weeks later for the Reds, and Japan clogged up the
fixture list. This summer, thanks to events in Germany, there was
little rest, too.
If either of these players gets rested, there follows criticisms of
rotation. But beyond missing the odd game, they've not had a decent
break in all that time; the Reds played 122 games in Rafa's first two
seasons, compared with the 88 Spurs undertook, by way of an example.
As the Reds' captain and vice-captain, and as locals, they perhaps
feel the pressure more than most. As players who never go out to
merely stroll, that too takes its toll.
Carra is playing okay, but he's so much better than okay. Last season
he wasn't directly at fault for a single goal in the Premiership, a
remarkable record. This year you could fault him in some way on three,
maybe four. But the ones at Goodison and Old Trafford (two places
where you don't want to be making mistakes) came when he wasn't 100%
fit.
And Gerrard is doing well at times, but just not finding those goals
that are an essential ingredient of the Reds' attacking prowess. His
sharpness in front of goal isn't quite there, although he's been close
on numerous occasions. You could blame shifting him between different
positions, but last season his minutes were split pretty equally
between the right, the centre and as a second striker. It never harmed
him then.
So I'll continue to look for the positives, and make no apologies for
that. Sometimes teams have bad seasons, for a number of reasons that
converge and conspire to derail things, and it's happened to all the
best managers. Arsenal had massive struggles in the league last year,
and it was mostly away from home; Manchester United have had a few
poor years by their 1990s standards. Both Wenger and Ferguson know the
English game inside out. The key is to never have two bad seasons in a
row.
It's not too late to turn this season around. But if Rafa can't fully
revive this campaign, he's still the right man to take this club
forward. After winning the league in his first season with Valencia
the team slumped to 5th a year later. Was he a flash in the pan? The
media thought so.
Lesser men might not have been able to reverse that trend, and would
have let a rot set in. But he roused his team to win both the title
and the Uefa Cup in his third season. That's an important indicator of
how he works. To quote Iain Dowie, he has 'bouncebackability'.
Rafa's first season at Liverpool was a mix of the mediocre and the
magnificent. His second, punctuated by two sluggish spells, was full
of impressive records. Liverpool won a massive percentage of
Premiership games, and the FA Cup provided a second piece of
silverware. The team defended like marvels for much of the campaign.
If it was capable of doing that, it can do it again.
And the same applies to the team as a whole. Form is temporary, class
is permanent, and you have to trust that the class will shine through
sooner or later.
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