I want to get proper mad at them when such abject nothingness like the last hour happens as it did yesterday. I want to scream and rant at the coach and players for collectively being as abysmal the last 60 as anyone can remember in recent memory.
But when I take the emotion of the game out of it, I can’t for all they are dealing with on the daily that has totally broken them and the changies.
So if you are devoid of human empathy and sympathy, save yourself the trouble reading. If you are so cold hearted to think what follows is just an ‘excuse’, this match missive isn’t for you.
Yesterdays admin-
Title Defence Countdown:
6 wins down/ 21 to go.
18 points down/ 71 to go.
For 33 minutes, L’pool are super. They start fast, and Forest were just doing all they could to hang in and survive. If they had been 2 or 3 up before Forest scored, nobody could have argued. The wing play was superb. Getting in behind time after time. Fizzing in great crosses and creating great chances. Salah produced his best display of the year. Supported brilliantly by Szoboszlai who was showing why he was the right, and ONLY, play at RB to solve that issue. Milos Kerkez, for the first time, showed just why we bought him and what a threat he’s going to be from the left. Looking every bit the player he was at Bournemouth that elevated him to one of the best left fulls in the league. AllyMac was spraying it all over. Everything was clicking and Forest were just about hanging in.
And then the set back happens with the joke opening goal. And we crumble quicker than a soggy digestive biscuit and look utterly spineless from that point on.
And as much as you want to rant and rave in anger at them. As much as you want to want to slaughter Arne for just throwing on attacker after attacker sub wise with no structure within that. After starting the continually abysmal Konate again. And not having Ekitike up alongside Isak. (Who had to start. That was the right call for me. Just not how he set them up and the personnel around Alex.). You can’t when you put aside that emotion and bring in the context and cold hard reality of what they are dealing with. The thing that has utterly broken them mentally to the point where we currently can’t handle ANY adversity.
Perspective.
I honestly hadn’t realised just HOW big and constant a factor Diogo's loss was until AndyRobbo gave us a small glimpse into what he has personally been dealing with on the daily with the perspective evidence in his emotional interview after the Scotland game midweek. I mean you accepted it was the biggest of all the current issues and a major contributing factor in how things naturally would be the start of this season. But the enormity of just HOW much it has broken them didn’t hit home until Andrew spoke.
The loss of #20 has completely broken them mentally and any resilience to overcome adversity just isn’t there. It’s why we have no draws this season and an identical win/ loss record. (Which is ironically, mathematically at least, keeping us well in the picture.). If things are going our way, everything’s sound. As it was until Forest scored. But if we don’t get that first goal. If we get ANY controversy like Forests opener. (Which should never have stood if they are saying Virgil’s should never have stood at City. I mean in reality, there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with both goals. But you can’t rule out one and not the other. ). They just don’t have it in them mentally to deal with that at present.
And that is the single most important thing we have to deal with. And the thing that stops you from laying into them. We have a full time grief councillor at the training ground which tells you all about their mental state. It’s totally understandable after what tragically happened last summer. And that’s not to excuse the current S/show. But it’s the biggest overriding factor of everything. And I honestly don’t know how you fix that shy of giving them time to work through it themselves and accepting that they’ll be more days like yesterday to come before they fully heal.
The changies are mentally broken. And it’s not just affecting the veterans close to him. The knock-on effect is far reaching on the new players too.
One of the biggest overlooked factors about the Jota situation that is getting missed is the effect it’s had on the new signings. It must have been like walking in on someone else’s grief and will have made it very difficult to build up that crucial team spirit because the banter that’s so important in bonding just won’t have been there. I have NO doubt, in any other situation bar the tragedy that happened the summer, that £450 million investment or whatever it was would be paying massive dividends now. But it did happen. And it naturally isn’t.
Anyone can call for the managers head at their leisure. You can slate him for tactics/ formations/ personnel selections et al. You can slate individual performances and bemoan unacceptable displays and results. All valid criticisms. And all contributing factors to the current dip.
But this goes FAR beyond that for me. And currently, I don’t see how ANY manager, Jurgen or anyone else, changes things in the interim when the biggest issue is the unquantifiable mental one of dealing with #20 not being there and it mentally breaking them.
Which is why the support is with them. And why I believe Fenway won’t be making any managerial change any time soon. If we aren’t with them at the match ..... If the owners weren’t standing firm behind him and his players ..... we’d be a complete bunch of unsympathetic C completely lacking in empathy for the cruel hand we have been dealt.
This is a really complex situation to tally up and reason with. And I’d hate to be Arne or anyone else having to deal with it and the natural fragility of their broken mentality. And they’ll doubtless be more days like yesterday to come in the interim.
But you just have to keep the overriding reason why in your mind and give them ALL an understandable pass and support them whilst they work through it.
We know more than most any other set of supporters that football, as important a factor in our lives that it is, matters little in comparison to what happened this past summer. 'The least important of life's most important things' as a great man recently said.
Among all the anger and frustration, we will stay with them no matter how bad it gets. Because doing the right thing together is what defines us and is what we do.
Up the Reds! They’ll NEVER walk alone!
www.liverpoolfc.com
