Dont get me wrong.
When it comes to journos from the Telegraph I know Henry Winter will give us fair press every time.
This article is by Chris Bascombe.
Now I dont particularly like what I read ...so don't shoot the Piano Player ... .but how much of a reality check does he give?
No one can really get around the fact of what he is saying ....however unpleasant or unpopular it may be.
There is a very Big Picture that he paints much of which has to be admitted.
Comments ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/9166045/Liverpools-latest-disappointment-at-home-to-Wigan-highlights-Anfields-blindness-to-modern-failings.htmlBy Chris Bascombe, Anfield
11:00PM BST 25 Mar 2012
Comments193 Comments
A once grand ballroom that fell into disrepair, it was a location where ladies of a certain vintage relived their golden days, throwing on the lipstick for one more shot at rapture alongside a fresh generation. Every now and again they would strike lucky too, as visitors in awe of the sheer novelty value of the 'grab a granny nightsâ succumbed to its particular charms.
In so many ways, Liverpool Football Club have something in common with the ladies of The Grafton.
They are like an old lush, sat in the corner telling the world how attractive and marvellous they are, utterly affronted when anyone blind to their natural beauty suggests otherwise. Friends, lovers and acquaintances nod enthusiastically each time the club attest to their own greatness, but neutrals and rivals think their better days have long since passed.
Every so often the reminders are more potent. A magical one-night stand in Europe, or (as this seasonâs Carling Cup final demonstrated) an occasional trophy, but the most serious threat to Liverpoolâs enduring significance is not the criticism or pity of onlookers, it is their own lack of self-awareness.
Defeat at home to a bottom-three side such as Wigan Athletic is still looked upon at Anfield as a shock, a performance which belies form or tradition.
Why?
Wigan have not lost to Liverpool for three years. They are one of 10 teams to have left Anfield this season enthused by their opponentsâ inability to win at home. Shaun Maloneyâs penalty and Gary Caldwellâs 64th-minute winner condemned Liverpool to their worst Anfield run since relegation in 1953.
In applauding his own sideâs âhistoricâ win, Wigan manager Roberto Martinez generously suggested Anfield remains a special, iconic football venue. That view is based increasingly on the placeâs sense of the past. Liverpool might as well be playing in their museum.
Walk around Old Trafford, the Etihad Arena or the Emirates on matchday. Pause, soak in the scale of the view and keep convincing yourself Anfield does not look like the remnant of another era. One day you will wake up and those Malaysian fans you keep fluttering your eyelids at will be wearing City scarves.
Look at the league table for the last 22 years and ask how many genuine title challenges there have been.
Two?
Three perhaps?
Thoroughly examine why the club have fallen from their lofty perch. It is not because they have been pushed off by others, been victims of some bizarre FA or Sir Alex Ferguson-led conspiracy, been sidelined by high finance or have suffered two decades of bad luck.
It is because successive managers have wasted millions on inadequate players.
Those still inaccurately perceived as their closest rivals (a 28-point gap to United is a loose definition of 'closeâ) have used their resources infinitely better.
When a ÂŁ35 million striker and a ÂŁ20 million midfielder turn out to be appalling, the simplistic demand is for another cheque to be signed.
Supporters work out the profits from sales, subtract the fees from purchases and use this an excuse for buying pap.
It is desperately feeble.
The other option is another managerial change and the recycling of mitigating factors for 12 more months of rebuilding. That has not worked much, either.
Kenny Dalglish is destined to get one more chance next season regardless of the debate about whether he should.
Not because it has been a fantastic season (it clearly has not), not because the league table tells fibs (it does not) and not because his signings are good enough (they certainly are not).
He will get another season because there is no appetite to write him off after one trophy winning campaign, which could still end with the FA Cup.
When Rafael Benitez came seventh and Roy Hodgson flirted with a relegation scrap, you could call anyone at Liverpool and aside from a handful of sycophants, 90 per cent of employees from the board down to the secretaries did not just crave change, they lobbied for it.
The fundamental difference between then and now is the same enquiries provoke the opposite view.
Dalglish is not just liked, or respected.
He is adored and trusted. Liverpool were booed off on Saturday, but Dalglishâs name was still sung (although not as much as it was when he still a club ambassador).
For the clubâs American owners, the challenge is brutal. Chief among them is convincing their fan base to share in a communal period of self-revelation.
âSlow and steady progress,â is their mantra. The emphasis is on slow.
They may also have to add the word 'agonisingâ. Expecting them to repair two decades of fierce cultural resistance to any view suggesting the Liverpool way is no longer the correct one will take courage and a willingness to flirt with unpopularity to do what they believe is essential and right.
âThereâs a word we have been using for the last 12 months,â managing director Ian Ayre said last week.
âUnity.â
That is all well and good, but here is another one the club better get used to if they do not accept, confront and deal more urgently with the problem of their current place in English football.
Irrelevance.
