BACK TO BASICS
“We need to get back to the basics,” said Brendan Rodgers, after the latest – and worst – setback of this setbackiest of early-seasons, a could-actually-have-been-worse 3-1 beating at Crystal Palace that left Liverpool 12th in the table.
Back, then, to the basics, those immovable, inarguable foundations upon which the club’s historic success has been founded. The famous Liverpool Way. But what the devil is it?
Some ways are really easy to define, like Olympic Way (a short pedestrian route linking Wembley Park tube station to the national stadium), My Way (a 1965 top-five smash by Frank Sinatra) and Ian Holloway (madcap soundbite generator occasionally employed by football clubs). But this way, no way. So the Fiver asked some experts to define it, or at least found places where experts had already defined it and then copied what they’d said. Each of the following, in the Fiver’s opinion, had a decent stab:
Ronnie Whelan: “As a player [there were] boxes you had to tick at Anfield: good technique, a football brain, huge work ethic and a genuine heart. That was the formula. If that’s what people mean by the Liverpool Way, so be it.”
Football historian David Goldblatt: “The Liverpool Way was a tradition of simple football, pass and move, defending and attacking collectively, continuity of staff and players, respecting player autonomy but insisting on solidarity. Possession was the first priority, the virtue of patience extolled.”
A 2012-era Brendan Rodgers: “The way I want to play here is the Liverpool way. The history and tradition of this club has been about offensive football, attacking football – but always with discipline. The game will be based around what Liverpool are about, which is control, dominating games with the ball, working very hard when you haven’t got the ball and keeping the game as simple as possible.”
Steven Gerrard: “We celebrated together and commiserated together. The Liverpool way. Liverpool’s family feel is essential to someone like me who works best in a strong, caring environment.”
Alan Hansen: “I go along with the Liverpool way of thinking, that any goal is a bad goal and you’ve got to make the opposition do something special to get one.”
Kenny Dalglish: “Gentle initiation helped the boys settle in, so it wasn’t too much of a culture shock when they were promoted from the reserves full-time. That was the Liverpool way, building for the future.”
Kenny Dalglish again: “The Liverpool way was giving everything, that was what made Liverpool so formidable.”
Still Kenny Dalglish: “That’s the Liverpool way, the passing-down of club traditions from one generation to the next.”
More Kenny Dalglish: “Humility was an important part of the Liverpool way.”
And Dalglish again: “The Liverpool way was keeping the game nice and simple, just tackling, passing and moving – win it, give it.”
And, incredibly, Kenny Dalglish: “From the moment my family arrived from Glasgow we were very well looked after by Jack Ferguson at the Holiday Inn. While I was out training, Marina went down for tea and toast with the front-desk staff, who became friends. The chambermaid ended up as babysitter. That’s the Liverpool way, everybody so accommodating.”
And so to today, when, with critics busily arching their backs, baring their teeth and hissing like angry tomcats, Rodgers set about redefining his Liverpool way: “We need to get back to the basics,” he said (as we’ve established) “of fighting and being aggressive. We have to get on with it and find ways of getting results. That’s what Liverpool is all about.”
Rodgers seems to have made an important error here. As we now know, and Rodgers himself seemed to have grasped until just a couple of months ago, Liverpool is all about gentle initiation, hard work, collective thinking, humility, passing, moving, and winning most of your football matches. Fighting and being aggressive, meanwhile, are what Stoke City is all about. It’s disappointing for anyone to get this the wrong way round, least of all the Liverpool manager, and Rodgers evidently has much work to do before he’s back on track. We’ll know he’s finally getting there the moment he asks his chambermaid to babysit.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We lost today because we were absolutely pants in the first half” – Margate manager Terry Brown tells it straight.
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FIVER LETTERS
“I have a suspicion as to the identity of the Arsenal fan who threw his wine at the United bench this weekend” – Tim Grey.
“I agree with D Whipp” – Gareth Bayford.
“I don’t” – Doug Jeffrey (Dr).
“I read with interest Brendan Rodgers’ analysis that there’s an ‘underlying issue’ explaining Daniel Sturridge’s chronic-knack-knack, and decided to track down an article I’d read some time ago on ‘broken heart syndrome’. Apparently the odds of a debilitating health setback are significantly increased for some six months after one’s long-term partner ‘moves on’; before then returning to pre-tragedy levels. Some figures, in case you’re not convinced: you-know-whose departure to Barça announced: 17 July 2014. Sturridge’s predicted return to training: ‘in the new year’. Liverpool’s mid-January fixture: Aston Villa, 17 January 2015. Heard it here first etc” – Ben Jones.
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BITS AND BOBS
Arsenal’s lack of belief in Olivier Giroud’s ability to revitalise himself as quickly as a character from Cocoon has led to the striker being left off the squad list for the club’s final two Big Cup group games.
Meanwhile Alisher Usmanov, Arsenal’s second largest shareholder (by shares owned, not suit size), has made the radical point that Arsène Wenger does not always learn from his mistakes.
And in further Arsenal meanwhiles, Lukas Podolski has told the club: “I’m not some clown who can sit out his contract in the stands,” as Krusty, Bim Bom, Binky, Pierrot and Sepp Blatter shifted uneasily in their Emirates seats.
Sergio Agüero and Stevan Jovetic are doubtful for Manchester City’s 3-1 Big Cup defeat to Bayern Munich after sitting out training.
Dave Whelan said he will resign as chairman of Wigan if the FA finds him guilty of having made comments of a racist nature. “I’m absolutely anti-racist, always have been, always will be,” he said, thankfully offending no one.
Ankle-knack’s Marco Reus has done it again and will be out until 2015. “How much bad luck can you have?” sniffed Dortmund chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke, stubbing his toe in the process.
Armin Veh has seen himself out of the door marked Do One after locating Bundesliga’s slippery slope and taking Stuttgart skidding to the bottom of it. “It was a difficult step to take,” dead-panned the man who had targeted a possible return to Big Cup just three months ago.
And in another “well-thought, robust and professional” example of Fifa decision-making, Iker Casillas is on the list of five goalkeepers nominated for its team of the year despite the Real Madrid captain spending much of his time re-popularising vaudeville comedy last year.
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STILL WANT MORE?
Amy Lawrence spent the weekend pondering a lot of things, like what inspires the puffer fish to make those underwater designs and why didn’t Arsène Wenger just get the hell out of Arsenal when he won the FA Cup. She wanted to write about the fish but the Big Paper chiefs said no. They’re mean like that.
In fact they are so mean, they also forced Sean Ingle into writing about the Arsenal manager too.
Sid Lowe on why David Moyes probably felt quite at home in his first match in Spain.
Paolo Bandini on why the Milan derby wasn’t much cop.
Armin Veh’s resignation may be Vfb Stuttgart’s only touch of class this term, sniffs Raphael Honigstein.
To get in the mood for watching Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s Burton, Jeremy Alexander had poffertjes for breakfast, popped on his clogs and blasted his favourite recordings of the work of Jacob van Eyck. Not one of them left him disappointed.
Big Website’s football writers broke off from their chat about whether or not Kim Kardashian’s recent photo-shoot constituted art, long enough to write about what they learned from the Premier League this weekend.
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