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Constants and Transients

I’ve been asked to be a guest blogger and I’ve jumped at the chance as I don’t write about football on my own blog. Writing about football is something I’ve never done before, and I find it… sort of daunting.

As a Liverpool fan. I am a constant. Owners, managers and players are transient. When they move on, get sold or retire, we the fans remain… constant!

Before writing this piece, I asked my Dad, a life long Liverpool fan, “What is the difference between Shankly’s Liverpool and the Liverpool of now”?

My Dad answered, “Football was simple in those days… a team visited Anfield and left defeated… Simple”!

Many things have been written recently about the state of our club. Ex players have made comments about our current manager and our nightmare season. Many say he should go, resign, move on or simply disappear.

I recognise one view expressed on this blog, a writer stating that all the clubs below us, those in the Premiership, and in lower leagues, would love to be in our position. To an extent I see her point.

However… This is Liverpool… and our standards are high!

At this present moment in time Rafa is our manager, you can like him, loath him, or maybe if you are like me, you don’t understand him… But, like it or sit on it, he is our manager. He has a long contract, and he is unlikely to resign. He would lose out on a fortune if he took that route.

He is unlikely to be sacked because doing so would cost too much. Unless there are some clauses which we don’t know about, or some club is willing to pay compensation for taking his services away. Other than that, Rafa is our manager for the next season and for many season’s to come. However… he is transient.

Our squad needs new players if we are going to be more successful next season. And there are a few stumbling blocks in attracting new players to L4.

One stumbling block, or more accurately, two stumbling blocks, are our owners. I don’t know how we ended up with these two no hopers. They clearly do not, and never did have the funds to run a club of this size. Gillette made money in a previous business because somebody falsely assumed he owned the razor company. What’s that line in that Under Siege 2 film? “Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups”!

At present, Hicks and Gillette are in talks with their lawyers about their options. Without looking up figures I think we are £237 million in debt. The main bank, the sad and very shabby Royal Bank of Scotland want the debt reduced by £100 million before a deadline date in July.

One offer covers this, but the investors want 40% of the business to make the deal swing. Hicks and The Not The Razor Guy will not accept those terms. For some reason they want the price of the club to include the perceived value when the new stadium is built. As the stadium has never left a drawing board, it doesn‘t actually exist.

Last night, it was grass, and a concrete cark park. Unless I need glasses… there is no Stadium. That’s like me trying to sell my house, but adding on the value of a garage, a conservatory and three new floors. Non of which actually exist. But they could huh! One day, maybe, might do!

The problem is, our owners are over valuing our clubs worth, and no investor is that stupid as not to see what is going on. No one is going to pay for something that “might” happen. “Might” has no value… Might’s next door neighbour is “Might Not”.

Our clubs value will drop if we do not make the Champions League, yet Hicks and Gillette are adding the value of un-built stadia! It’s a ridiculous situation. Reality has to check in somewhere, otherwise these two jokers are going to run out of money. In fact they have run out of money… our true owners are RBS… and they want their money back.

If we don’t make this 4^th place and enter the Champions League, attracting top players will be difficult. I hope we don’t lose any. I hope we don’t lose Torres, but that’s the worry when your team joins the mediocre.

Rafa has been guilty of buying some pretty average players, but I guess with limited funds he has done his best. Yes, he has made mistakes. Selling Alonso, well that one always comes up. Alonso was our engine. Remember that goal he scored from our own half of the pitch. Stevie G standing there, looking like he should have been passed the ball… his shock as it went in. That was Alonso.

Also, selling Hyypia was a mistake, he could still play a certain limited role now. Selling Bellamy was another mistake, and who knows what went on with the Robbie Keane disaster. Yeah I know sometimes things don’t work out, I could say buying Morientes stands out as the biggest let down, but I won’t. How that guy played so well for Real Madrid, yet failed to deliver at Anfield amazes me. I can’t say he was crap, Madrid don’t have crap, but he did a mighty good impression of crap every time I saw him play.

There is no answer for why our season has been so bad. Lack of heart, lack of ideas, a loss of confidence, the odd beach ball maybe? We are delighted to still be in the Europa Cup. Even if it is a consolation. And yes, I hope we can add that to our trophy cabinet at the end of the season. Whether we finish fourth, fifth, or sixth in the Premiership is yet to be decided. But whatever happens, we move on. We cannot change the past, we can only shape the future.

Shankly has gone, Paisley has gone, Dalglish has gone and one day Rafa will go too.

We are constant… those named above are transient.

Editor ~ One of the best pieces published on this site, I thought this was fabulous. Tracey is proof that beauty does indeed have brains. You can read her blog here.