by ant london » Tue Dec 15, 2009 11:52 am
Interesting and reasonably realistic appraisal here from a Liverpool fan in a letter to f365
Can You Handle The Truth?
As a Liverpool fan, this season has been hard to bear. It's been made all the worst after the over achievement of last year's league finish and the obvious hype that followed from the pundits and media who said this season would be our year - not many Liverpool fans actually say that by the way. I never thought that we would win the league this year, what's been difficult to accept so far this season is the manner in which we have played.
Liverpool have been on the slippery slope ever since Souness destroyed our team when he was appointed in '91, we missed our chance of continuing our successful era in to the Premier League and have never recovered. This has been compounded by the lucky sequence of events which has led Man Utd to dominate the league ever since - a once in a lifetime crop of youngsters that turned out to be world class and gave Man U a massive foot up with the quality of players they had, without having to outlay what would have been a fortune all at once. Success also coincided with the new BSkyB Prem League money and the advantage of playing in the Champs League - having the most money and playing in the best European competition led to better players and more fans worldwide and in turn more money, obviously. Old Trafford has been redeveloped over the years to be what it is today, teams like Liverpool and Arsenal couldn't redevelop the stadium and have to spend a fortune to build a new one to match Old Traffords capacity and match day revenue.
Liverpools failings however are down to our own mistakes, not the success of Man Utd. The future doesn't look good at the moment for Liverpool, football has historically worked in cycles with good/bad eras for most clubs, but with the money in the game now it seems that money buys success which in turn leads to more money and more success. It seems that the only way Liverpool can now compete for the title is for an Abu Dhabi style takeover that brings Liverpool back on a level footing with Man U, Chelsea, Man City, or alternatively like Arsenal, find a very special manager that can work miracles.
I don't think that Benitez can work miracles, and don't think that, given the choice I would want him as manager if we did end up with millions to spend. Benitez has had the time afforded to him to build a squad and it seems that we are no further forward than when he took charge. We have squandered Gerrards best years and we wont get too many more out of him, we don't have anyone coming through who looks anything like being able to replace him. The future doesn't look good for Liverpool at the moment, this season looks to be a write off already, I just hope that we at least show some spirit for the remainder of the season, which includes when we are loosing. Here's hoping for a good Christmas and a better New Year.
Tom
