Support

(TAW column. Didn’t read the replies.)

WE'RE BACK HERE again.

There’s nothing I can say here which will put balm on all the bruises of supporting the club this weekend because the issues are so broad and agendas are set. No one’s winning here. 

And, I’ll be honest, I’m furious and what’s worse is that I’m furious with far too many people and factors. It’s easier if you’re fuming with just a player or the manager or someone online or whoever but when you’re spreading your ire across absolutely everything – players, manager, management team, background staff, fans and, worst of all, mates, then things spiral and a sort of cluster-hate of everything descends. 

It’s then that I wonder why I’m spending so much time allowing my mood to plunge about something I can do nothing about.

No one’s defending Saturday. The last half hour was a nonsense. It was amateurish. There was no focus, no plan and no energy. 

I love Alexis Mac Allister with all my heart, but I swear if I see him blam another one over the bar when it’s easier to put it at least somewhere between those two white sticks then I’m going to tear my hair out. 

I love Dominik Szoboszlai and I love that he scores long range goals, but God almighty, you can’t go for a Hail Mary every single time you get the ball, and a calm head is needed. It’s a desperate act from a world class footballer and that depresses me. 

I love Arne Slot. He’s only the second man in the last 36 years who has shown me a Premier League trophy, but why is he making everything so slow? What’s the plan here?

And yet. 

It’s the online stuff about the manager’s future that really got to me. I mean, what happened to support? What happened to loyalty, to digging in together and getting through this?

I was particularly frustrated because that debacle was on the players far more than the manager. He’s just an easy target.  I know, yeah. You’re shaking your head. Fine.

I mean, we all liked the line-up, we all liked the first hour and we all adore the free role given to Florian Wirtz and that’s the manager’s job. All he can do is set them up and trust them to overpower a poor side. What he can’t do is get on the pitch and gently suggest that a challenge in the build up to the goal once Jeremie Frimpong lost the ball might have been a good idea. He can’t do that. Equally, he can’t score goals himself or stop yet another wayward shot from distance.

So, when people were talking about ‘He’s got to go’ I was more interested in taking at least eight Liverpool players into a room and screaming at them for an hour.

The Alonso situation adds a ton of context to this. Liverpool’s number one choice to replace Jürgen Klopp is available after his Madrid dream came to an end. I imagine he’d jump at the chance. It’s just a pity that he jumped the other way at the time but that seems to be forgotten in the intangible belief that ‘he gets us.’

‘Ah, but no one can say no to Madrid.’

Funny, as we were booing a local lad who didn’t say no either last summer. Ah well.

And I hate that. ‘Get Xabi in,’ like it would solve everything. Like last year, and navigating the grief of the majority of your squad, was nothing. I’ve already seen the downplaying of the title as ‘it was Jürgen’s team.’ The same team that didn’t win the league the year before.

Don’t we owe Arne Slot something. Loyalty? Support? At least remember what he’s done. Can we at least pay a debt to him?

Two men in 36 years and we want to replace one of them because it’s got hard and he’s struggling. He held the league trophy up last summer, true, but what have you done for me lately?

And I know. No one’s bigger than the club, you can’t sit still, you have to be ruthless. Yeah, great.

Chelsea have just replaced yet another manager - this time with one that sounds like Jake Humphries in a tracksuit - and United have got in another interim manager to replace the other interim manager as another five-year plan slides down the pan.

And what is Xabi Alonso supposed to do? He’s still got too few centre-halves. He’s still got directors at the club who bought wildly while leaving holes everywhere. He’s still got to bed in loads of new players and have to deal with the ones who are about to be too old. None of that is easy. We know that because a title winning manager is struggling to do it.

None of this is to say that everything is alright. Liverpool are the worst versions of themselves. Mentally weak and practically brain-dead when they concede. Individual players do my head and, of course, the manager does my head in, but like Florian Wirtz has done, you have to adapt and find a way. Wholesale changes can put us back years and sometimes the immediacy of demanding success can be harmful.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m too close to all this. I know that will be unpopular - standing up for a title-winning Liverpool manager. This is where we are and I hate it. I certainly won’t be reading the comments. 

I love football. I love watching it, discussing it, writing about it and playing it, but on Saturday I had a long think about reducing the time I spend on it. The Hicks/Gillett years were bad enough and I don’t think I can go through the fan wars again.

I just want to support my team and pay my dues to a man who unexpectedly brought me so much. I like it when we dig and solve problems collectively rather than run to the next flavour of the month who will be binned at the first sign of trouble if some people had their way.

Football should be about joy and there’s not much of that about at the moment.

It’s all shouting at clouds anyway so I’m not sure why I’m wasting the energy. 

I suppose because you pay for the good times with the bad. And this isn’t even a particularly bad time when you look at the entirety of the game.

I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I’ll just support my Liverpool and try to ignore the noise.

We’re back here again.

Karl