All Good Things (Come To an End)
I donât know how many of you bought Nelly Furtadoâs album from last year âLooseâ, but on it you will find the rather appealing ditty that shares the same title with this humble little piece.
Granted Miss Furtadoâs song has as much in common with Liverpool FC as the Bahamas have with snow, but the sentiments echoed in that song should be ringing true with just about every Liverpool fan right about now.
I like most watched in horror as the match against Reading, a game we were primed to win with as great a depth of margin as we have shown to our opponents in recent times, was turned on its ear with the gift of a farcical penalty, and a 12th man in the guise of a referee who would not have been out of place sporting the blue and white of the proud faithful at The Madejski.
And boy does it hurt that as the evening wore on, it became abundantly clear, what with the woodwork first denying Gerrard and then Crouch, that Lady Luck was not planning on making an appearance on Liverpoolâs side of the pitch at all. No, she was wining and dining our boys from Reading on the other side in a style to which, it must be said, they have not become accustomed of late.
Were the calls bad, yes you bet they were.
Were Reading a tad fortunate? I would say so...
But the truth of the matter is, daft as it might sound, in hindsight I believe it was just simply our turn to lose. We could have played on for a week, and I donât think the result would have been much different. Ok, Reading might have poached a few more goals perhaps, but nothing would have turned the tide in our favour.
But what was to blame for a loss that was as spectacular in its result as our recent form has been utterly mind bogglingly brilliant in its substance? What accounts for a 3-1 loss to a team that quite frankly have more in common with the Championship than The Premiership?
Shall we talk complacency?
Perhaps, for I, like many LFC fans, believed that the final result would have Reading on the wrong side of the same score line if not far worse. As such it is not inconceivable that some of the players harboured similar thoughts with one eye (ok, maybe in some cases both) on our next so called bigger games against Man U and Marseille.
Was it team selection? Doubtful. Benitez for my money chose pretty much the right team for what should have been a fair stroll. Sure Reading have in the past shown they are nobodyâs mugs, but against Liverpool? Well for one thing they were never in danger of outplaying our men from Anfield, and there is no one, not even those who fully enjoyed the experience of watching Liverpool been downed 1-3, who could claim that that was the case on the night.
Not even Sissokoâs abysmal passing (by the way someone should remind the lad that his team mates usually wear red and always with the legend âCarlsbergâ clearly written on them rather than jerseys sporting âKyoceraâ, âAIGâ or âSamsungâ and the like) can account for the shocking score line.
Itâs difficult not to become a tad philosophical about a bizarre match such as this, where we were much the better team on paper and in reality, the instances of those penalties (their one gained to our lord knows how many denied) bearing this out.
But however painful it might seem, however unfair and incomprehensible to our sense of reason, we must realise that this game was not by any means season defining. It simply went against us and by so doing we âearnedâ our first loss this term-an unbeaten streak wiped out, and on this 8th day of December, 2007; we could have met the first eleven of Boston FC and I firmly believe we still would have lost! (Do they have a first eleven by the way?)Anyway, it was quite simply one of those days and Reading fair dues to them made capital as the circumstances presented.
You can call it Karma if one must put it into some sort of context, but get over it we must as losses against Marseille or Man United in the coming week could result in an all too early end to our Champions League aspirations (wouldnât the papers simply love that headline come Wednesday) in the case of the former, and too many disastrous implications in the case of the latter.
So, do I like witnessing another loss to another also-ran team we probably should have beaten? Certainly not.
But will I accept it, yes for in reality I fail to see any other option...after all, all good things must come to an end....right?
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