It's Not All Doom And Gloom

 There’s so much negative press around Liverpool at the moment it’s getting me down so I’m going to write this piece looking specifically for positives, as there must be some. The papers after our weekend defeat at Newcastle happily printed headlines such as ‘what a joke’ and things like that but objective writing went out of the window in favour of over hyping a story. Simpson’s goal line handball got a mention but the lack of penalty and red card was not reported as the game changing mistake that it was. Cisse’s second goal was described as ‘having a hint of offside about it’ rather than just truthfully printing he was six yards offside and the goal shouldn’t count. Never let the facts get in the way of giving us a good kicking while we’re down eh? Losing 2-0 away at high flying Newcastle (where Man Utd lost by even more than we did) whilst being on the wrong end of a couple of critical errors by the officials is not particularly embarrassing. Our current run is but if you’re going to write things like that you need to talk about the entire winless run rather than just a one off game where luck, amongst other things, was not on our side.

 John Aldridge’s comments have been widely reported today, he’s told the press we are a laughing stock and this has been jumped on with headlines everywhere. Aldo is as passionate a Liverpool fan as anyone and in this time of struggle we all need to stick together rather than stick the knife in. For this reason I doubt he only said we’re a laughing stock, I’d be very surprised if he was purely critical and didn’t highlight any positives, I imagine the press have chosen the part of what he said that will make a good snappy headline and ignored the rest, the same way they did with Patrick Viera’s interview last week.

 Let’s have a look at where we are compared to where we were. For a start we’re back in Europe next season. No European football this season has been strange after being used to it for so long. For a team that hasn’t won the title for over twenty years we must have played significantly more European games in that time than any other club who hasn’t been champions, and indeed more than some clubs who have won the league since we last did. It may not be the Champions League but playing in the Europa League next season is a step up from missing out this season. It’s extra revenue, extra exposure across Europe, an extra tool to use when trying to sign new players and, more importantly, another trophy to try to win.

 We have a trophy in the cabinet. It may be the lesser of all the competitions we are involved in but we’ve still won it, beating some very good sides along the way. Winning away at Stoke, Chelsea and Man City is something probably no other team will do this season. Our detractors say we only won the trophy on penalties against a lower division side but you don’t win a competition purely in the final. If we’d drawn 2-2 with Cardiff in the quarter final and gone through on penalties and then beaten Chelsea 2-0 in the final we would have been given much more credit for the same set of results in a different order. We can’t help the way the competition is drawn out, we can’t put ‘heated balls in the bag’ (thank you Mr Moyes for that one).

 We’re in the FA Cup semi final. This is the furthest we’ve got in the competition since we won it in 2006, and indeed both of our domestic cup runs have been significant improvements on anything we’ve managed in the last five years. We’ve only won two league games this calendar year but in that time we’ve beaten Man Utd, Man City and Stoke in cup competitions so it proves the team isn’t completely toothless. Since winning the Carling Cup there has been no real incentive to win any of our league games but as soon as a cup game comes along and we see the possibility of making it through to the next round the players have stepped up. It will still be very difficult to win the FA Cup given the other teams left in it but we have a chance, and a domestic cup double would in many ways represent a more successful season than whichever one of the Manchester clubs doesn’t win the league has had.

 We’ve beaten the neighbours twice. I’m not one of those fans obsessed with the derby, three points are three points whoever you get them from, but the reaction of the Evertonians to our slump has provoked me into pointing out how we’vebrushed them aside with very little fuss on both occasions we’ve met this season. After only taking a point from them last season taking six this term has been very welcome.

  Form. We’ve lost six of our last seven league games which is without doubt an appalling record but during this run we’ve put in arguably our two best performances of the season, the home games against Arsenal and Everton. A 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford is by no means a disgrace, we played well for seventy minutes at QPR and at Newcastle we started brightly enough and had we been given the penalty we should have had it’s likely we would have gone on to win the game, or at least not lose. Only the home game against Wigan and the away trip to Sunderland have been truly awful, and on both of these occasions the winning goal against us came as a result of a lucky ricochet. I know it seems I’m clutching at straws here but despite our poor results we’ve not been on the end of a hammering, indeed only one of the defeats has been by more than one goal, and we’ve missed decent chances in almost every match. I think our form isn’t great, and the belief seems to be missing from the players, but it’s not as bad as the run of results would suggest.

 The finances have been improved. Kenny’s activity in the transfer market has resulted in our annual wage bill being seriously reduced. The likes of Torres moving on along with Joe Cole and Alberto Aquilani being sent out on loan has made a big difference. Players we have brought in have arrived on much lower wages, I don’t know the figures but I’d bet Carroll and Suarez combined don’t earn more than Torres did on his own. The same with Henderson and Adam, I expect Joe Cole was on a similar, if not even larger amount, to those two combined.

 We have a squad that can stay together and improve together for years. Reina, Enrique, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Coates, Kelly, Flanagan, Downing, Adam, Lucas, Spearing, Henderson, Suarez and Carroll all have plenty of their career left ahead of them. I know they haven’t all been fantastic for us this season but they have all shown at least something in flashes and are all at an age where their best years are ahead of them. That’s fifteen players, none of whom will be on huge wages, that if they fulfil their potential could be with us for a long time.

 Martin Skrtel. The Slovakian has been far and away our best player this season, he’s scored goals, blocked shots and made tackles. He’s been better than I thought he was going to be and he seems very happy at Liverpool. I remember watching the likes of Ruddock, Babb, Matteo and Bjornebye in our defence and then something changed. We signed Sami Hyypia and Stephane Henchoz and our defence became safe (apart from a small period we’ll call ‘the Biscan experiment’…...). The emergence of Jamie Carragher as a top class centre back covered us when Henchoz lost form and departed, and the signing of Agger helped us as Hyypia reached the end of his career. With Agger becoming more and more injury prone, and Carragher not being the force he was we needed somebody else to step up and Skrtel has done that with minimum fuss and maximum effect.

 We have no Tom Hicks. We have no George Gillet. Our club came very close to administration and real financial meltdown during their ownership and they are now gone. The new owners seem to be sensible and despite our poor recent form they have not spoken out. They will make any difficult decisions that need making but don’t feel the need to be in the spotlight that can come with owning such a high profile club. All in all they are a massive massive improvement on the clowns that came before them.

 Well, that’s at least a few positive things, ignore all of our Premier league matches (apart from the Derby) in 2012 and everything is rosy. YNWA.