Football moves on so quickly that it’s extremely rare not to have anything to look forward to. But this season has been so grim, so lacking in hope that the only thing to look forward to is it having ended. And it’s been so bad that even after that, pre-season won’t provide anything to get excited about.
I can stand losing games. Even nine of them. It’s the good goals, the sharp tackles, the strength in adversity that I remember. Being robbed by bad referees, luck opponents, even beach balls has it’s own romanticism.
I can stand having bad years – we all do – and progress isn’t ever linear. As long as there’s some chink of light. Back in the early 1990s it was the emergence of Robbie Fowler. Pre Rafa it was Steven Gerrard carrying the team – a super-human effort that yielded more than we deserved.
Any even in bad years there’s always the cup competitions. You don’t need to win the cup necessarily, just win some high profile games in auspicious circumstances and have a memorable trip as a fan or a buzzing Anfield night under lights.
This year there’s been nothing. The good wins (Manchester United and Spurs at home) have only ever felt like a comma in a harrowing read. Great players haven’t performed and squad players have been diminished to mice. Recoveries from injury have only been accompanied by more injuries. The end of a tough run of games has been met only by slip-ups in 3 point bankers (eg. Wigan away).
And at the end of this 10 month torture of pulling nails against a blackboard, pre-season will see other sides spend lots of money as we struggle to not get weaker. And all the time supposed Liverpool ’supporters’ will churn out the views of media pundits who support other teams an enjoy the ratings uplift from any article that criticises LFC.
All around me I see Arsenal fans who know that they are not good enough ad likely to fall short at the end of the season. But even after five barren years they get close enough to still have hope. How I envy them now.
It doesn’t take much to give me hope. I’d rather believe in the tiny glimmers than require a mountain of hard fact for the scales of cynicism to fall from my eyes. But we’re dangling off a cliff with nothing to hold on to. At least if we’re knocked out of the cup this week, we won’t have to endure another couple of games.
So thanks for asking how I feel this morning. You didn’t really want to know, did you?