This was a blog entry from TheKop.
I'm about to say something that will probably leave you thinking I'm an imbecile who needs a reminder on his phone to remember to breathe, but bear with me.
I think we NEEDED this past season, and it may be the season that makes Liverpool.
If I can go all scientific for a second I'd like to use Newton's First Law of Motion:
"Every body remains in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force."
In other words, pretty much eveything in the world will happily coast along in the state that it's in until something affects it and changes it's course, the bigger the impact, the greater the change... and I think it's fair to say that Liverpool, as a club, needed a big change.
For years it's felt like we've been coasting a little, taking what triumphs we can and always looking to the mythical Next Year. Unfortunately, more often than not, Next Year never arrived, it was always Next Year as we stumbled through another This Year.
It seems bizarre writing this today, as fate has decreed I'm writing this on the 6th anniversary of the magical night in Istanbul, but despite trophies and near misses in the last decade or two it's hard to pin down many times when we've been a truly dangerous challenger for major honours year-in, year-out.
Last season has changed all that though. Last season was the unbalanced force big enough and powerful enough to bring it's newtonian forces to bear on Liverpool and drive it from it's constant velocity, hopefully accelerating it to a much higher level.
So, what has the black hole of last season done to make me feel cheerful and optimistic? Sit back dear reader, get comfy in your computer chair and let me list the ways...
1) Liverpool have it's soul back.
As fanciful as non-football supporters would deem the notion it's true that football clubs have a soul, a residing personality both on and off the pitch.
In a world of changing managers, players even stadiums this soul is kept alive by one thing and one thing only, the fans. As we introduce new football fans into the Liverpool Way we talk about more than just the 11 men on the pitch at any one time.
We talk about the history, we use phrases like "pass and move", we look back and honour those players from the past that epitomised the Liverpool Way. We teach songs about the Fields of Anfield Road where we saw King Kenny play (and could he play!) as often as we teach songs about the current crop of players.
We don't do this because we live in the past, as some other clubs would have you believe, but because the club itself is created on the foundations of that history. That is the basis of the club's SOUL.
It's a way of playing, a way of behaving, an aura that surrounds the club. I'm not suggesting we're the only club that have this, many other clubs do, but ours seems to have been ironclad in some areas and totally missing in others.
Tactics come and go but earlier this season did it even FEEL like watching Liverpool play? Without meaning any disrespect to those clubs the first few months of the season felt strangely detached from reality, like someone had given Blackburn or West Brom some red shirts and told them to play at Anfield.
As stupid as this may sound it felt WRONG, not because of just the results, not because of the awful press conferences, not simply because of the tactics, everything from the grass on the pitch upwards felt distorted.
Now, however, everything that has always made Liverpool great is back again. The style of play, the happiness in all corners, the hiding of dirty laundry into the back-room where it belongs. Watching Liverpool stopped feeling like watching a bad imitation and started feeling like watching Liverpool again.
The King is sitting at the head of the table again and the SOUL of the club is back. It's such an intangible thing to talk about because it's hard to find the words. All I can do is put it like this...
It's like someone coming into your house at night and moving things around in small ways, hanging a picture an inch to the left, swapping two photos around, moving your chair closer to the wall or your TV so it's angle is a few degrees out.
You feel a little disorientated, everything you know should be there... is there. But in the same way everything seems out of sync, displaced.
Finally it feels like someone has come in and put all the pieces of the club back exactly where they were. It feels like it's just RIGHT again.
2) The right players at the right time with the right attitude.
Big spenders such as Real Madrid, Man City and AC Milan have all shown us great examples of the footballing rule that it's not about having the BEST players, it's about having the RIGHT players in so many ways.
It's about finding the player who fits, the player who wants to be wearing the shirt, the player at the right time of his career.
As much as we can, and do, place the blame for Liverpool's dismal start to the season at the feet of Roy Hodgson is that really the full story?
As much as I really don't want to throw dirt at a players feet, especially one alread widely derided and demonised in many an internet home of writing, but when someone as important as your main, some would say only, centre forward gives the impression of wanting to be elsewhere, how will that impact the team?
I will openly say I'm a little worried for Torres, for around a season and a half now he's looked almost disilllusioned with football itself, at first I felt it was that he didn't want to be in Liverpool anymore, but after watching some of his performances in both a Spain and a Chelsea shirt it seems to be a deeper malaise.
Torres was, at first, the right player at the right time in the right attitude. In the early years when the grin never left his face, when he was scoring (quite literally) for fun, when everything about him said "I love Liverpool".
Then, the unfortunate fact is, he became the right player at the wrong time with the wrong attitude. Without energy and enthusiasm he would never have the same impact, and how much did that reverberate around the rest of the squad? How much was that negativity reflected in not only his performance but the performance of those around him?
I simply cannot fail to smile when I see Luis Suarez play, not for his seemingly superglued boots and ball control, not for his occasionally asylum-worthy attempts at goal that give him the air of a 10 year old who still has the belief he can find the net from literally anywhere on the pitch... No, I adore the sight of Luis Suarez in a Liverpool shirt for his 50'000 volt, never fading, addictive grin.
He reminds me of Dwight Yorke in his prime, forever giving the impression that he's not quite sure how he got to be here, but now he is? He's going to enjoy every damn second of it and pish tosh and piffle to any downers.
Likewise the newly crowned player of the season, Lucas. A lesser man, a man who didn't care for the club as much as he does, would have taken an offer and been gone, another name to add to the list of Liverpool exports who've gone on to have their best days elsewhere in the last two decades.
But no, despite being a figure of fun, even a figure of HATE, Lucas kept going, kept his head up, kept strong in the face of adversity and possibly gave more to Liverpool in the last two years than any other player.
Arguably Lucas was the right player at the wrong time with the right attitude, he suffered for the unavoidable fact that he wasn't Xabi Alonso. He suffered from the inability of the management to buy the right cover to replace Alonso and give Lucas time to grow. Now, he is undoubtably the right player, and the right time, with the right attitude.
Quality, of course, does come into it. We're not going to sign the entire squad of AFC Wimbledon and imagine we'll find success because they're loving being in red shirts.
But what we have right now is a nucleus of quality players at the right times in their careers who want to be wearing the liver bird on their chest. We also have the men who will remove any wrong players and look to replace them with the RIGHT players... which brings us on to my final reason to be cheerful.
3) The right leaders.
To prepare for a battle you can't go too far wrong with a gracious king, a tactically impressive knight, some quality advisors and a generous and trusting banker...
As much as the focus has fallen on the return of King Kenny, and rightly so, I think we need to be looking at the entire Round Table and the men sitting at every seat.
King Kenny has returned the soul to Liverpool, reinvigorated the club and shown he's not lost any of the tactical nous that made him THE greatest player in Liverpool history and on course to be one of it's greatest managers.
But nobody does it without a support staff, and I think the aquisition of Steve Clarke is just as important as the Return of the King. I've rated the man since day one and I don't doubt he has been a pivotal part of the Liverpool turnaround with his coaching and his tactical skill.
As a defender he was (with the utmost respect) never the biggest, the strongest or the quickest. Instead, much like our beloved Sami Hyypia who was the subject of my last blog post, he was what he was by being the cleverest on the pitch. The man who was always where the ball was going, always getting his foot in the last place the attacker wanted it.
He was one of those "chess player" defenders that so infuriates a striker, and it's this tactical awareness that he's now bringing to the team.
Add to that the support of Sammy Lee, Damian Comolli and Ian Ayre inside the club and it's a team that certainly, just like the players, seem to be the right men in the right jobs.
Of course, mention here must also be made of the owners. Hands up who worried when newspaper report said we'd have to sell to buy and that no transfer money would be made available. There were even reports that at least half of any incoming transfer money would go to paying off debts.
How foolish did we then feel at the £57million outlay on strikers in January?
It's more than simply money however, I'm a big fan of baseball and have seen how the Red Sox are run. Big money names come in, but also young players are nurtured and brought through the farm system.
That also is the Liverpool Way, and a way that everyone from the top down seem keen on embracing once again.
Some would say King Kenny should have been manager from day one, I say Roy Hodgson did us a favour. He showed us the price of taking things for granted and not allowing for change. Without the catastrophic lows, we might not have reached the highs we did.
I'll leave you with this quote, and a hope that warmth, light and joy come calling to Liverpool in the coming seasons, and we feel it all the more thanks to the beginning of this one.
"We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness." - David Weatherford
http://thekop.liverpoolfc.tv/_Reasons-to-be-cheerful/blog/3678889/173471.htmlAnyway, I'm sure many of you will have already read this article, but I figured I'd post it for those of you who haven't. I found it to be very well written, and very entertaining!
