The Cynic Never Fails, Never Cries, As He Never Loves, Never Tries by Paul Tomkins

 https://tomkinstimes.com/2022/05/the-cynic-never-fails-never-cries-as-he-never-loves-never-tries/

By Paul Tomkins

May 28, 2022In By Paul Tomkins, Free

 

You may have heard the following maxims before. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Arriving is not the best part of a fantastic journey. The chase is better than the kill. And so on. 

Better to have reached finals and been within touching distance of the title than to, I don’t know, get knocked out early or finish 16th. Spare me your giggling gifs, as really, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones (and if you were battling relegation or mired in mediocrity, you probably won’t hit anything anyway.)

Better to have a chance of the title in the second half of the final game of the season than to not even be on the ride; to sneer and say that only idiots subject themselves to such high drama and tension. Better to be in the Champions League final than to watch it hoping a rival loses. 

The week leading up to a final is something special, to savour. Beaten finalist hurts, but it’s better than beaten semi-finalist, beaten quarter-finalist. Better than not-even-qualified. 

I sat down before the game today to write this piece, in case the worst happened. (It did, and I feel dejected – but it won’t last.)

Obviously I didn’t expect Liverpool to dominate to such an incredible degree, and to lose to a Real Madrid side who rode their luck and whose best player, by far, was their keeper. The save from Mo Salah in the second half was ridiculous. That’s football, that’s life. The policing and organisation was a disgrace, but those who were there will talk more about that.

Anyway, you may not want to read this now (or at all), and prefer to retreat to a darkened cave. But a final defeat should not obscure how amazing this team is, and how superb this season has been; especially a defeat so unmerited. I wanted to create something that would transcend the post-match fog. Sometimes sport is unfair, and that’s all part of the package. 

I’ve only been to two Champions League finals – Istanbul and Athens – and while the former remains one of the best two days of my life, the latter was great fun too, with a group of about ten Reds, beautiful weather, drinking and eating al fresco, and full of hope and anticipation in the Greek sunshine. Liverpool played well – actually outplaying Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan (after only outplaying them for six minutes in 2005) when losing 2-1 – but again, such is football. 

Another cliché: you need to buy a ticket to win the lottery. This season, Liverpool bought a shit-load of lottery tickets for the fans. Basically it’s been a lottery-ticket-tastic campaign. It’s be a lottery ticket every game. No single game has been meaningless, beyond when the “group of death” was won early on the way to winning all six games, and even that set a record for an English club. 

This team won 49 games this season (including shootouts). FORTY-NINE! Most clubs didn’t even play 49 games this season. 

Surprisingly (to me) within hours of Manchester City winning the Premier League by a single point, I felt only pride at the Reds’ achievements, and I didn’t need to subject myself to what some gobby monobrowed ex-frontman had to say. I didn’t need to watch them – good, bad and indifferent City fans – enjoy themselves, but of course, enjoy themselves they did (albeit it’s just weird when all they do – the not-so-good ones – is focus on the defeated fans, but that’s the ‘banter loop of hell’ for you).

It struck me that, actually, I didn’t feel too bad – it didn’t hurt as much as expected, perhaps because it was only ever an outside chance on the final day.

And it struck me that it was 90 of the maddest minutes of football I could recall, in terms of a rollercoaster of emotions. And of course, that’s why people pay lots of money to ride rollercoasters: they’re fun, even if you hate the fucking things and want to get off ASAP; afterwards, the thrill remains. In those moments, life feels real.

Losing is part of life. 

My favourite quote for life is from the Stoic philosopher Seneca: 

We suffer more in imagination than in reality 

With a few exceptions (being mangled alive in some horrific machining accident, having Roy Hodgson as your manager), it rings true.

Losing hurts, but rarely as badly as you expect, at least once the initial sting wears off. It hurts like hell but then, in contrast to a loved one dying or a long-term relationship ending (or even a beloved pet needing to be put to sleep), it passes quickly. 

There’s always another season, another game, another win, just around the corner. Other big chances to win trophies, too, if you’re lucky. 

(I’m feeling pretty raw as I reread this and get ready to publish it, but when the opposition keeper is the man of the match, it’s hard to be too crucial about anything.)

Of course, you can make it worse if you’ve been a dick all season on social media and people are now coming back to haunt you; or, if just unlucky, you run into the cockwombles, online and in the streets or pubs, from other clubs, whose fans go out looking for innocent Reds to abuse and mock. 

For all those who mock Liverpool losing, this is far better than the chloroformic pall of dead seasons, over by January, sleepwalking until May when some weirdos will then focus on winning the transfer window (if they haven’t since the January one slammed shut). 

Few seasons are this exciting, this much fun. Few will be as memorable. 

Great teams are often remembered more than who won what when. 

Holland 1974, 1978. Hungary 1954. Brazil 1982. Dortmund 2013, even, and Spurs 2019 – certainly more memorable than the Juande Ramos-won trophy of 2008. England in 1990, which, with Gazza’s tears in the Italian summer, has been mythologised. (I can’t say I’ll remember much about recent England performances as I stopped watching years ago.) 

The best Liverpool teams of since I first went to a game in 1990 are the 1995/96 team, who won nothing the season after the 1994/95 team won a cup – but Roy Evans’ team was so exciting a year later; Gérard Houllier’s 2001/02 team was probably better balanced than the treble-winning team of 2000/01. The 2008/09 team was better than either of Rafa Benítez’s sides that reached the Champions League final. The chaotic brilliance of 2013/14, with Luis Suárez settled and unstoppable, was better than the cup-winning team of 2012, albeit it almost completed a memorable cup double. 

Yet it would be wrong to define this team by its narrow failures, or to call it one of the best teams to never win certain things.

Indeed, this is a Liverpool team (with just a few altered faces) who have won the Champions League, the Premier League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the World Club championship and the European Super Cup. It’s greatness is secured in those successes and moreover, the football played, the points tallies racked up in the league, the runs to major finals, the beautiful ride, the joyous journey. It all goes into the mix. 

If you’re going to laugh, then did your team beat the Italian champions of last season and the Italian champions of this season? The Spanish champions of last season? Chelsea in two cup finals? Your local rivals 6-1 on aggregate and your historical rivals 9-0 on aggregate? 

Did your team post 92 points whilst reaching a Champions League final, having got 97 in 2019 (when I first worked it out), which at the time made them the only team in England (and Europe’s top five leagues, I’ve since been told) to get over 90 points when reaching the European Cup final? No other team has done that, and now Liverpool have done it twice, whilst rising to be the #1 ranked team on the reliable Club Elo Index. 

And did your team achieve whatever it achieved without petrodollar doping, or dodgy inflated financial deals?

If you love your club and enjoyed your team’s season, great. That’s your prerogative. If escaping relegation was better to you than being in the Champions League final, that’s your call (you just clearly wouldn’t know how the latter felt). 

But don’t pity Liverpool fans. We’ve had an absolute blast, believe me. (Apart from some of the very-online ones who think that Liverpool would have won the quadruple if only more of this or that had been done.)

We got to watch Thiago, Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Sadio Mané, Luis Díaz, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Diogo Jota, Fabinho, Bobby Firmino, Joël Matip and Naby Keïta: players in their positions with unique skills, wide-ranging brilliance and ongoing potential. We got to watch Alisson make incredible saves (as well as score the goal that put the club into the Champions League this season to start with). 

We got to watch Jordan Henderson, Andy Robertson, Ibrahima Konaté, James Milner, Kostas Tsimikas, Joe Gomez, Divock Origi, Harvey Elliott, Curtis Jones, Takumi Minamino, Caoimhín Kelleher and others who, though still talented, drove on game after game, in many cases when coming in from the cold, to fill in, before time back on the bench. Some are not as gifted as the first group of players, but also, this group contains the two main leaders, as well as talented backups and youngsters on the rise. We got to see Tsimikas celebrate goals from the bench as if he’d been on the Kop for 40 years.

(Plus, how good was Konaté tonight? So unlucky to be on the losing side.)

If you enjoyed your team’s players more, that’s great – that’s what the game’s there for. But we can find no one to fault in this squad, lest we be looking to piss and moan. (No team is perfect; no player is perfect. But you rarely get this lucky. I mean, how many clubs’ 7th-choice striker got 10 goals this season?)

American sports analyst, author, podcaster, and sports writer Bill Simmons,  writing a few years ago, summed up how I felt this week, when the joys of success were still a possibility:

“Then I remembered something. Sports is a metaphor for life. Everything is black and white on the surface. You win, you lose, you laugh, you cry, you cheer, you boo, and most of all, you care.

“Lurking underneath that surface, that’s where all the good stuff is — the memories, the connections, the love, the fans, the layers that make sports what they are.

“It’s not about watching your team win the Cup as much as that moment when you wake up thinking, ‘In 12 hours, I might watch my team win the Cup’. It’s about sitting in the same chair for Game 5 because that chair worked for you in Game 3 and Game 4, and somehow, this has to mean something.

“It’s about leaning out of a window to yell at people wearing the same jersey as you, and it’s about noticing an airport security guy staring at your Celtics jersey and knowing he’ll say, ‘You think they win tonight?’ before he does.”

And hell, he’s not even writing about football.

Most of us on this site are old enough to have lived throughout the entire fallow period that began in 1990, albeit even then, there were highs along the way, as discussed, up until the 2018 overdrive.  

(While we welcome young subscribers, the site is not exactly full of TikTok videos, bantz and skilz. For instance, we still use esses at the end of words.) 

Some on this site started watching Liverpool in the early Bill Shankly years, in the second tier, a club drifting when the Scot arrived. A handful of our subscribers even predate Shanks, albeit like WWII veterans, that generation cannot go on forever.

We’re not always right in what we say, but there’s wisdom here, in this crowd. We know an amazing team when we see it. Maybe some young fans or new fans are too unaware of the dark days; indeed, dark decades. 

On here, we know that the cynic never loves. He never allows himself to. He – and his ilk – takes to his basement, and tells the world that all women are evil, and that the true way to be a man is to post mean memes online. (Not that all incels are equally sad and troubling, and being alone and feeling unlovable is not a nice feeling – albeit not one the world needs projecting outward in bitter ways; just as online trolls, in general, reveal their own sense of “lack”, and as such, are best ignored.)

The cynic never falls off the bike, as the cynic never rides the bike. He’ll never get back on the horse, as he wasn’t even on the horse in the first place. 

As Theodore Roosevelt said more than a century ago:  

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Savour it, friends, as this is a rare frequency of forays to this final. It happened once before for Liverpool, 1977-1985. Then there were the two finals, 2005-2007, before more drought. 

Now it’s three in five seasons, 2018, 2019 and 2022 (with Covid not helping to keep that streak even hotter.) If a generation is 20 years, then this isn’t even a generational richness; it skipped a generation. And that previous time was the first in the club’s history, albeit beginning one full generation (22 years) after the European Cup/Champions League became a thing.

Some clubs are lucky if they make it to one Champions League final, even with spending that’s literally off the charts (PSG, Manchester City). They stack the deck, and they still can’t do it. If their fans are happy, then all power to them. But they have no right to laugh at us; nor should we fear such laughter. They don’t get to be us. 

For now, this sucks. It stings. We feel bruised. 

Yet it will pass, sooner than expected. Life will move on, and football will begin again, because the football never ends. 

Jürgen Klopp and his team will get back on their horses, as these are winners – winners of more games this season than in any in the club’s history, winners of every trophy going since 2019 – who will sometimes stumble, but will remount and, starting at dawn, ride, ride again. 

Paul Tomkins

The creator of this website; author of several books on Liverpool FC, and of one novel. Co-creator of The Transfer Price Index (TPI). Columnist on the official Liverpool FC website between 2005-2010. International man of mystery. Possibly bald.

Finest of Teams – Klopp’s Liverpool – Lose Title By Finest Of Margins by Paul Tomkins

 https://tomkinstimes.com/2022/05/finest-of-teams-klopps-liverpool-lose-title-by-finest-of-margins/

By Paul Tomkins

May 22, 2022In By Paul Tomkins, Free

 

Club Elo rankings going into the final Premier League game today:

1 Liverpool 2,043

2 Man City 2,023

With the results meaning that Liverpool will still be ranked the best team in Europe (having beaten a higher-ranked side than Aston Villa today), and therefore the world. 

Small consolation, of course, but vital context. Congratulations to those at City who merit it.

So, 358 points for Man City since the start of 2018, 357 for Liverpool, on a much lesser budget, with three Champions League finals thrown in (and the chance to win a second). No plastic flags, no tacky flamethrowers, no staged atmosphere, no sportswashing. 

In the week, Barney Ronay of the Guardian, summed up a more-or-less invisible gap between the sides: 

“Let’s face it, despite our best attempts to find clear air between them, these are two remarkably well-matched modern juggernauts. Both managers have claimed to be underdogs in recent weeks: Pep Guardiola because everyone supports Liverpool (narrator: everyone doesn’t support Liverpool); Klopp because of having to play so many games in all these damn tournaments we keep winning.” 

For City to have such a bigger wage bill and much costlier squad cost (even more so when adjusted for football inflation), and to reach only a third of the Champions League finals, is a bit of a damning indictment of City, but only when compared to Liverpool. 

Compared to everyone else, City are obviously exceptional; but their spending a ton of money cleverly, and being managed by a world-class coach, is difficult to overcome, even if other clubs, like Manchester United (and more recently, Everton), spend a ton of money stupidly. 

In terms of finances, Liverpool are a super-middleweight and City are a bona fide heavyweight. Pep Guardiola is an absolutely elite manager, and he has a huge war-chest. It’s testament to Jürgen Klopp and the backroom staff at Liverpool that the gap is so minimal (albeit the two domestic cups won this season were also a case of fine margins; some you win, some you lose). 

As TTT stalwart Andrew Beasley wrote in the Liverpool Echo this week, working with the inflation model I created with Graeme Riley in 2010, “It says everything for the Reds’ achievement in running the Premier League title  race so close, no matter what happens on Sunday, that Manchester City have  only once fielded a team which cost less than Liverpool’s most expensive XI.”

City had no games cancelled for Covid, and their injury crises seemed to be a couple of defenders “out for the season” a couple of weeks ago, who were then fit again anyway. As luck would have it, they faced an Aston Villa side likely to tire late on, having played on Thursday. That’s life. 

Liverpool’s fortunes turned on a nightmare three winter games with Covid absentees that perhaps cost the title (particularly away at Spurs, allied to the truly horrific officiating in that game). Then there was that lack of a penalty that Everton got an apology for, but where a late spot-kick could have seen City drop two points (although I still think Everton would have found a way to miss it, but in general, 80% are scored). It remains a scarcely believable decision that took the mounting pressure off City. I mean, it only hit Rodri’s lower arm. 

(And as much as I rate Michael Oliver, he has just again made a mockery of time-added-on, as do most refs. Time-wasting is the way to go, then; even if City were likely to just retain possession anyway. Actual time-accountancy should be paramount, not just making it up, and then blowing early. But hey ho.)

Rodri’s handball didn’t matter in the relegation race in the end, but it did in the title race (even if we can’t say all results would then have followed as identically as they did, with cause and effect at play, but you can say that a last-minute penalty is a game-changing event, if converted). Plus, the early red card West Ham should have had in the Reds’ first defeat of the season proved another costly mistake by what is often the same group of officials.

Then there’s Liverpool not being able to run up a cricket score against Brighton as the keeper wasn’t sent off for about as blatant a red card as you can expect to see, when he leapt into the air to hit Luis Díaz in the face with (just) his hand and knee. That surely would have helped the Reds’ goal difference, albeit it wasn’t an issue by the 38th game, but might have heaped a bit more pressure on City at the time.  

Unlike one or two recent campaigns, it didn’t feel like a season of constant officiating blunders against Liverpool, but there were some big ones that went against the team at key moments in games and at pivotal points of the season. All that said, for once Liverpool rank near the top for penalties won, so that’s progress of sorts. 

But even so, Liverpool will yet again (as with every single season under Klopp, and as was the case under Rafa Benítez) rank lower on penalties won than on league position (when for Brendan Rodgers it was always the opposite: ranked higher in penalties won than league position). 

Despite putting up attacking numbers that are off the charts, Liverpool have still won fewer penalties than Man City and Chelsea, and the same as Crystal Palace. At least Liverpool are not ranking mid-table for penalties won, as has often been the case in recent years; ranking 3rd is progress, but still not great when finishing 2nd. 

Liverpool also had three first-team players go to AFCON right after the three-game “slump” (two draws and a defeat in a mad run of three away games: Spurs, Leicester, Chelsea), two of them key players. This was always likely to be the case. Again, that’s unfortunate, but also part of the drawback of signing African players; yet signing Mo Salah and Sadio Mané, both of whom scored again today, has been a massive success overall.

While the Reds excelled without them, Salah returned jaded (or lacking confidence), after several periods of extra-time in the African heat. Jürgen Klopp’s men then also played every possible cup game this season (one to go), to make for a monumental season. The possibility of the quadruple, while always unlikely, was taken 21 days further than any English team had previously managed. That is a staggering achievement (albeit not all achievements are measured in silver). But maybe it also added to the mental burden; the talk of quadruples tiresome and tiring. 

Thankfully Luis Díaz made a startling impact upon his arrival at the start of February, as the Reds again showed the value of adding quality rather than quantity (so as to make it easier to integrate). What a joy he’s been. Ibrahima Konaté, still unbeaten, took time to adapt during a promising start, but by the run-in looked increasingly assured; at least until today, when some nerves got to the young Frenchman – albeit he recovered well, and is surely the best young centre-back in the world right now (and 22 is still pretty young for the role).

The early season defending was an issue, but one that was a hangover from the injuries of last season. As such, Konaté wasn’t the solution, as he had only just arrived – and needed time to settle.

When I recently analysed certain defensive metrics for Virgil van Dijk, he was relatively mediocre in the first 15-or-so games. Indeed, as the most consistent elite defender on these metrics since 2016 (every season his figures were almost identical), his figures were suddenly those of a merely average stopper, way below his normal numbers.

Since game 15, based on the metrics I was combining, he’s been the best in the Premier League. Liverpool had enough to get past Wolves today without him (as they did in midweek), but a sharper van Dijk earlier in the season would have helped.

And while last season was not just about van Dijk’s injury, given that Liverpool were down to their 7th and 8th choice centre-backs (and were still top two months after his injury, before the others also got crocked), obviously an elite-form van Dijk remains the best on the planet. 

Indeed, even at 30, there are signs that he’s every bit as good as his best at 27, with his form in the months of 2022 generally his best in England on the metrics I covered. The recovery pace was clearly back in 2022, when it wasn’t necessarily present in the autumn of 2021, especially after – crucially – missing the early part of preseason. He was playing catch-up early in the campaign, and the Reds maybe shipped a few too many goals at that point.

(More about van Dijk’s resurgence, amongst many other things, in the new Liverpool FC book I’m writing – which I started in January, when the season looked to be falling apart, the Reds well adrift in the league to the point where I called it City’s title. The research for the book I was supposed to be writing has been collated for a few years, yet the more interesting this season got, the more focus had to go on that. When the book is released and the final emphasis is obviously dependent on what happens in Paris, but it should prove interesting either way. TTT subscribers can still preorder the special edition of the book.)

Thinking back, Liverpool started the season with great attacking gusto but not quite the right balance, with a new attacking emphasis in midfield (more of a 1-2 midfield, instead of a 2-1), and the defenders taking time to get up to their old speeds after injury. It took a bit of getting used to. The football felt more gung-ho than it had at any point since Klopp’s early days: great fun, but a slightly vulnerable centre. 

Indeed, that was how today’s game was, until – yet again – that weird atmosphere descended when the entire stadium started celebrating and the Reds, playing Wolves as they had in 2019 when it also happened, suddenly went from all-out attack to nervous (that day was the weirdest I’ve ever experienced Anfield). It must be very odd for the players, as they usually garner crowd reactions from their own play. Almost instantly it lifted Wolves, and confused Liverpool, who seemed to think “do we still attack?” having just been having about 15 attacks per minute. 

At no point did the Reds go 2-1 up while City were behind or level, and so, it was different to 2019 in that sense; but then, as now, I would always expect a top team, when going behind early at home in a title-decider, to come back, and the away team to eventually wilt. 

I expected it of City today at 1-0, although at 2-0 it felt like City (as at West Ham) were then more likely to draw than win. Of course, Wolves did the same: early goal, then lost 3-1 at Anfield. If Wolves had gone 2-0 up early enough today, I feel that Liverpool would have likely won 3-2.

(It’s hard in these circumstances, but it feels like the later goals are scored against the favourite, the better. Scoring too early allows pressure to build as the underdog sits back, and the pace of modern football can make for relentless attacking.)

Back in the autumn, Harvey Elliott was excelling until he got his ankle and leg broken; the balance on the right side rather beautiful up to that point, with Mo Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold benefiting from the young midfielder’s vision and tenacity, playing in glorious triangles, and the Londoner bringing fresh energy to the team. 

Thiago Alcântara then missed all of October (and was not fit enough to start in November in the defeat at West Ham), and then was out again from mid-December through to February, and thus the mini Christmas/New Year slump. 

In some ways it perhaps left him fresher for the run-in, but his control was missed in midfield. Having to play away at a hungry and refreshed Spurs without van Dijk, Jordan Henderson, Thiago and Fabinho, amongst others – and a teenage Tyler Morton anchoring the midfield – meant that, actually, a point was a good result; but City weren’t having to play teenage rookies in their toughest away games. (Cole Palmer started one game, at home to Everton.)

And now Thiago is injured again, six days ahead of the Champions League final, with Spain giving their team a two extra days to recover.

The miracle, having been 14 points behind and still facing AFCON absentees and injuries, was to get the gap to just one point going into the final game, whilst winning both domestic cups and reaching the yet-to-be-played Champions League final. Seriously, City nearly blew it. Liverpool have been the better team in 2022, across four competitions. 

City got lucky, blowing that lead and not blowing more thanks to the decision at Everton, but clearly they’ve made plenty of their own luck by being such a good team (even if the way it is funded is nauseating). 

For them, the situations where they choke tend to be in Europe, at key moments. Even then, the madness of fine margins: had Jack Grealish not been denied twice in incredible circumstances in the last minute when 1-0 up (and 3-1 up on aggregate), they’d have been facing Liverpool in the final, instead of it being Real Madrid. City then threw away two quick goals, then a third; just as they did to Villa today.

You can argue that City are better than Liverpool because they won the league, but pound for pound, and spread across the Champions League as well as the Premier League, you’d have to say that Liverpool have been the better team since 2018. They have achieved more for the money spent, and played the more exciting football. (Not that City’s football is dull: I think it’s technically excellent, and can be exciting. They have an incredible squad, albeit you can’t separate that from the money it cost to assemble.)

Back in 2019, Liverpool became the first English club to reach a Champions League/European Cup final while racking up more than 90 points (38 games). This season they’ve just done it again, to become the second. It’s the third 90+ point finish in just four seasons. City fans can enjoy their success, but this also shows how amazing Liverpool are.

All this is why Liverpool are still ranked as the best team in the world right now (just ahead of City), and have been for a large chunk of 2022. City get to lift the title trophy, and that’s life; just as Kepa missing a penalty won Liverpool the League Cup.  

One final thought is that this Liverpool team is almost always at its most dangerous and devastating after disappointment. 

But with just six days until Paris – a nice enough turnaround time if there hadn’t already been so many games (and new injuries) – it may be hard to find the energy for one last push. 

Madrid, also with a squad costing much more than Liverpool’s, should not allowed to treat the game as plucky underdogs, with more time to prepare, too. 

But whatever Liverpool have left in the tank on Saturday, you’ll know they’ll give every last drop of it.

Paul Tomkins

The creator of this website; author of several books on Liverpool FC, and of one novel. Co-creator of The Transfer Price Index (TPI). Columnist on the official Liverpool FC website between 2005-2010. International man of mystery. Possibly bald.

Liverpool Don’t Look Ready” – Preseason Anxieties Justified? by Paul Tomkins

https://tomkinstimes.com/2019/07/liverpool-dont-look-ready-preseason-anxieties-justified/

By Paul Tomkins

July 30, 2019In By Paul Tomkins, Free, Transfer Debate

Well, let’s be clear: it’s hard to look ready when your players only finished their competitive club season in June (three weeks later than every other English club bar Spurs, and the first time since forming in 1892 that the Reds had a competitive game that late in the summer), then saw players go to the Nations League (four first-XI players and an impact sub), the Copa America (two first-XI players) and the African Nations Cup (three first-XI players and a borderline first-XI player), whilst others were out injured.

Last summer it was Spurs and Man City who had the greater number of players away during the summer, all at the World Cup, and in Spurs’ case, it probably contributed to their domestic collapse in the run-in (although playing in knockout Champions League games tends to damage league form, on average – compared against their league tallies from the season before and the season after a run to the final; and the less-expensive the squad, the greater the damage). Liverpool had an insanely tough start to last season on paper, but a lot of the players had come home early from the World Cup, or not even gone there.

Indeed, as I noted at the time, when Liverpool went to Napoli and lost 1-0, it was just days after they put in a mind-blowing 154 sprints at Chelsea, trying to until the end to rescue a point in a game where they played very well indeed. That kind of effort takes its toll; and so, despite losing all three away games in the group stages, I never wavered from my belief in the team. It was largely the circumstances, with tough league games penned in by tough Champions League games. Something has to give.

Between them, Liverpool’s two main rivals in the two main competitions signed just one player last season, and Spurs rushed all of their stars back for the first league game. That may explain why they ended the domestic season on their knees, but it was still their best overall season since 1961 (4th in the league and a Champions League final), and Manchester City had their best season ever in terms of silverware. They were not integrating new players (bar bench-option Mahrez), and were able to rely on greater understanding. But they probably didn’t start the season in peak physical condition; Chelsea made a better start that City, after all, and were top after five games.

In order for Liverpool to look fully ready now then they’d have had to have given all their stars zero time off this summer. That would mean they would be sharp and available for the start of the campaign (having lost no residual fitness), but likely done for by December. And the scheduling at the start of this summer is another huge spanner in the works. There’s no way around it. A crazy summer and a crazy number of additional games is the way the cards have fallen, in part due to the success of last season.

Liverpool have to play the Community Shield, the European Super Cup and then, before the turn of the year, the World Club Cup. That will make this season more challenging than last season in that it’s three additional “competitions” (no matter how brief and relatively unimportant they are in the grand scheme of things), and yet this is a team that I believe will improve due to time spent together, and the way it can mature from one of the youngest teams in the Premier League last season to a mid-spectrum average age this time around. Long-term, the future looks incredibly bright; short-term there may be some bumps in the road, just because the road ahead is full of potholes.

(Where it can get easier is in not facing teams as good as PSG and Napoli in the Champions League group, but a kind draw isn’t guaranteed. Longer domestic cup runs could then counter that, but these can be used as “reserve team” games. And I’m still in the “glorified friendly” camp on the Community Shield, but pretty much all foreign coaches see it as a proper trophy.)

Had the African Nations Cup not been put back from the winter of 2018/19 to this summer, Liverpool may have gone out to Bayern Munich in the Champions League (with players away or just returning, or injured on duty), and/or dropped more league points. We cannot now turn around and say that it’s unfair, because it worked in the club’s favour in securing a 6th European crown.

However, the decision by Guinea to call up an injured Naby Keita was reckless, and it sucks that Sadio Mané made it all the way to the final only to return with nothing. (Yet, of course, this is still an education for even players as old as 27. It can serve him well, long term, but he will need a long rest this summer, or, if he is to bypass that to some degree, rest has to be worked in at some point before the league’s first midwinter break. For instance, he could be excused the World Club Cup.)

The only Liverpool players who looked good – or “fit” – against Napoli were those who were at Melwood at the beginning of preseason: James Milner, Fabinho, Harry Wilson and a raft of kids who had no heavy international commitments.

That cannot be coincidental. Indeed, some of these kids look incredible every time I see them, with 17-year-old Ki-Jana Hoever, at full-back, having more tricks and turns than most top-class wingers (also, look at the goal he scored for the Dutch U17 side this summer for more outrageous skill, although that tournament is not gruelling like the others), and so many of these teenagers will only benefit from the social multiplier effect (training intensely against better players, with utter dedication and focus – as dictated by the manager but echoed by the non-stop professionalism of the senior pros – improves you like nothing else).

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, two very promising dribbles aside, looked below par, but is playing with a calf injury; while the midfield thrust of Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri – important in the absence of the ultra-cutting edge of the front three – are out injured (both from international duty). It all made for a bit of a lumpen XI, but take out so many excellent players and any team will look more prosaic. One or two can usually be mitigated for; six or seven, and any team will see a drop in quality.

Keita, Shaqiri and Oxlade-Chamberlain are the midfield “injectors”, and yet none is fully fit. And yet, of course, they offer Liverpool a lot of depth with that type of player – but when all three are out or impeded at once, it’s misleading to say there’s an issue with depth. If your 4th-choice goalkeeper isn’t very good (he’ll certainly be no Alisson Becker) or is just inexperienced, but you have the first three out injured, that’s just life; you can only build in so much insurance without having a 70-man squad. Probably only one of those attacking midfielders would start for the Reds in an ideal world, but none is “ready” right now. Shaqiri hasn’t even been able to reprise his role on the wing; he’s missed all preseason – although both he and Keita are at least now back in training.

And Adam Lallana, who seems to have an increasingly severe form of Cruyff-turn Tourette’s, is a handy midfield option to have, even if it’s well down the pecking order these days.

So even if there’s often a correlation between preseason form and the actual season form, I don’t think this summer can be counted, with first-XI players Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jordan Henderson, Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Mo Salah all at international tournaments, having had to extend their club seasons by three weeks, and with Keita and Shaqiri, who also played for their countries in the summer, totally absent. We have essentially been watching Liverpool’s B-team, often playing strong European opposition (after the two easier domestic matches). Even Van Dijk, Wijnaldum and Alexander-Arnold are only just back, and looking rusty.

Also, Liverpool do double and triple training sessions in preseason, designed to provide stamina for the campaign ahead, not to win preseason games; indeed, the club often trains on the day of a game in preseason, something no club would do before a meaningful match, as it’s counterproductive for the performance (as it saps vital energy). But this is not about performances, it’s about fitness. If you are building foundations, you cannot care if those foundations are pretty to look at or not – they have to serve the purpose for the long run. You could construct a building on shoddy foundations and it stay upright for a short while; but it will cause problems further down the line. The foundations are not to be seen, but are there to prop the whole thing up in the future.

Add in the travelling across time zones (jet-lag), the searing heat of previous games, and just the fact that pretty much every player – several of whom are yet to even feature – is at a totally different stage of fitness (and that Jürgen Klopp rarely picks his best XI at any one time in preseason before the final game/s), and you cannot read much into this preseason. It’s a freakish set of circumstances.

If someone looks electric, as Rhian Brewster has, then great, that’s a big bonus; but if they don’t, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. In this case it probably meant that the kids, including the prodigious new arrival Harvey Elliott, are just unburdened by busy summers.

Indeed, Elliott, along with Sepp van den Berg, was wanted by a ton of Europe’s elite clubs. Elliott, from a family of Liverpool fans, was at Real Madrid’s training ground over the summer, but chose his beloved Reds instead. On hearing the news that he was Anfield-Bound, Zinedine Zidane made a last-ditch effort to try and tempt him to the Spanish capital. But it – along with the offer of more money – failed, clearly.

I’ve no idea if Elliott is ready for the first team right away, aged just 16, but he certainly has the ability and the confidence, as well as being a quiet and respectful young man off the pitch, lest anyone think that his haircut is indicative of some kind of rebellious streak. This is a player with immense skill to beat players in one-on-one situations and the eye to spot the kind of passes you usually only see from someone like David Silva. He is part of the new breed of young English player who has a great awareness of space, receives the ball on the half-turn and has sumptuous technique. But he will need to work hard (in games and in training), remain humble and avoid the bad luck of injuries. He may get games early on, but few players become regulars at big clubs before the age of 18 these days, and even then, it can be 20-21 for many of them. But equally, he doesn’t look like any ordinary 16-year-old. If he keeps his humility then the world is at his feet.

He is joining the perfect setup at Liverpool, with the “no dickheads” policy employed by the club in the Klopp era reaping dividends, which means everyone can get lifted up by the collective attitude. If you don’t train hard enough you’re gone, no matter how gifted. And there are no senior players arsing about to undermine the ethic; young players have supreme role models.

That said, some of the squad may still be adjusting to becoming European champions. Most athletes say that you can get a comedown after the elation of winning something incredible. They often talk of being depressed once they’ve achieved their aims, as something is then missing. But this can be overcome, and Liverpool have something big and as-yet unachieved to aim for – the Premier League title, and a first domestic crown since 1990; so it’s not like all their ambitions have been met. However, this season it seems that everything is set up to make that difficult; and the league must not become an all-or-nothing obsession.

And there’s the psychological resetting process, that can take time. Anyone who has played a video game for days, weeks or months (not in one sitting!) to continually progress, only to then die (within the game, unless you are indeed trying it in one sitting) knows how depressing it feels to start from scratch again, all previous progress lost. Liverpool won 97 points last season as well as the Champions League, but it’s all reset to zero now.

And of course, a little of the buzz from the glorious night in Madrid has gone, with the past four preseason results, but the confidence gained from digging in all last season long has to be drilled deeper into the core now.

Part of the issue is that clubs and television companies now seek to monetise preseason, when the games remain glorified training sessions, but the players have to be flown all over the world. It’s a great chance for fans on other continents to see the players in the flesh, but they cannot expect those players to be ready; they are watching the rehearsals, not the final production. In this case it’s not even the rehearsals with the main stars – it’s a run-through with the understudies.

People paying to view these games on TV cannot expect to be entertained. Yes, it’s lovely if it’s all beautiful football, but you cannot demand it.

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil Van Dijk, Andy Robertson, et al, have been back for little or no time, and a Liverpool side without its world-class goalkeeper and all three of its world-class attacking triumvirate is going to be a weaker team, fitness or no fitness. That’s just indisputable.

To have the same kind of quality in reserve is nice in theory, but in practice it’s difficult to achieve, not least because someone is going to be very unhappy at not playing enough football, and that can affect the mood of the camp; while signing someone as good as the front three (which once at this level cannot be easy) is made harder by not being able to guarantee that new signing a starting position.

Adding players also means a further spike to the wage bill which is already increasing all the time (in line with increased revenues), in order to keep the team together (in contrast to 2009 and 2014, when key players left, and in 2009, the club was mired in an internal war).

Liverpool, it seems, will not offer higher wages to any new signing, because – based on my reading of it – the highest earners have to be those who have already proved their worth to Liverpool. That avoids the Alexis Sanchez shitshow at Man United. As soon as you go against a meritocratic wage structure you are planting a time bomb. But Liverpool’s younger players who have done well are getting new contracts, as are those who are becoming superstars.

And fans can only “improve” a team in their minds by adding players. They cannot coach or develop talent, or offer ways to make the team more unified, because they have no idea to do any of those things. Just add “better players” and it solves all issues.

Fans have no idea what the chemistry would be like, or how to make that side of the game work, or if signing those players would destroy the wage structure and therefore undermine the group ethic. They don’t know if players they crave are actually “dickheads”, whom Klopp and co. refuse to sign. (See my new book for far greater detail on all of this.)

And when some of the understudies are also out, or hampered by niggles, then it’s going to be hard to look good, and impossible to look “ready”. Some kind of compromise and “muddling through” the opening weeks of the season seems unavoidable.

Liverpool cannot bypass the late return of players, nor can they alter the fixture schedule. Signing someone to cover this temporary shortfall does not mean much if that player then takes six months to settle; and then, when everyone is back, there’s an excess of players when everyone is fit, and the problems that can cause (even if it’s lovely in theory). Liverpool also have players returning from loan (Wilson), and have promoted several world-class (in their age group) youngsters to the first team squad.

Another problem is that the league campaign now feels like you cannot afford to even draw a game; it has to be 38 wins, week after week after week, or panic will set in. But that’s not healthy. Liverpool cannot be expected to be at peak condition from August to May with such an insane summer that fell beyond their control, after a season that lasted 3 weeks longer than that of their man rival.

Go back to the last time Liverpool won the Champions League, in 2005, and by the August of that year I had just started writing my Wednesday column for the official Liverpool website. I was inundated with emails telling me that Rafa Benítez didn’t know what he was doing and had to go, after a start that saw Liverpool languishing in 12th in November. Indeed, the emails started raining in well before then (and to be frank, they didn’t stop for the next five years). Winning things just raises expectations (aka the hedonic treadmill), and so many people can never be satisfied. You don’t want your club to rest on its laurels, but equally, it cannot deliver relentless success, especially when the playing field isn’t exactly fair.

The Reds ended up finishing 3rd with 82 points in 2005/06, then the club’s highest of the Premier League era, and won the FA Cup after a tough run to the final. It improved greatly, overall, from the much weaker XI and squad that won in Istanbul.

The team was then at its best in 2009, after years of tweaking and development. It won nothing, but it would beat the 2005 side eight or nine times out of ten.

Because you don’t always get what you deserve, and you can’t always control the circumstances. You can only try your best.

Mentality Monsters: How Jürgen Klopp Took Liverpool FC From Also-Rans To Champions of Europe is available now via Amazon.

Don’t Laugh At Us! Don’t Pity Us! Klopp’s Liverpool One of the Greatest Teams Ever by Paul Tomkins

https://tomkinstimes.com/2019/05/dont-laugh-at-us-dont-pity-us-klopps-liverpool-one-of-the-greatest-teams-ever/

By Paul Tomkins

May 13, 2019

No one will ever forget this Liverpool side. I mean, ever. To quote Outkast, I mean ever ever ever ever.

And it feels like nothing is gonna stop this Liverpool side. You can only delay it. 

I left Anfield yesterday not in regret or sadness but suffused with a Reds-red glow of pride in the
glorious Merseyside sunshine – at the team, the manager, the backroom staff and executives, and at the
Liverpool fans, who were just majestic throughout the game, as they have been on my five recent trips. 

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(Unlike the Wolves fans, who were typical of the “let’s all laugh at you fucking it up, apparently, when
ur own team fucked up a 2-0 lead in the only semi-final we’ve been to in years, despite spending tons
more than the team that came back to beat us”, and “let’s just sing about your team, not ours”. This is
an increasing trend in visiting teams: singing about Liverpool. Come on, people – sort your own lives
out. Support your own team.)

No English team has ever got 97 points – or even close – and reached a European Cup/Champions
League final; and even pro-rata with the old points system, I can’t even see that it’s been done with 40
or 42 games. While the number of points top teams can get may vary from season to season, this is the
first time any country has had all four European finalists. So this is not a weak league. This is Liverpool
 being exceptional at a time when English football is arguably at its most exceptional. This is Liverpool
 being one of the two best teams in the world right now.

Liverpool got 98 points in 1979, but after exiting Europe early; winning the European Cup in 1977 and
1978, and in 1981 and 1984. The Reds got 90 points in 1988, but with no European football.

In 1999, when Man United did the treble, they racked up just 79 points. They got 87 when winning the
Champions League in 2008, and an impressive 90 when reaching the final in 2009, when the Reds
managed 86 and made the quarter-finals (the previous best season for the club in the Premier League
era). The last time United made the final, in 2011, they racked up just 80 points. Chelsea got just 64
points when Champions of Europe in 2012, and as my research has shown, on average a team reaching
the final loses seven points compared against its previous season and its subsequent season; a club on
Liverpool’s budget (so Liverpool and Arsenal, on four previous occasions) loses an average of 11 points. 

We can see what has happened to Spurs’ league form, and they must have lost an absolutely staggering
20 games across all competitions this season. (But they are a still a threat in a one-off game.)

Only two teams have bettered 97 points (or the equivalent pro rata) in the history of English football,
and they are both Man City. Yet they never progressed further than the quarter-finals of the Champions
League in either campaign. And this year they didn’t even face that many good teams: this season, they
played the 8th and the 15th-best teams in Germany, the 4th best team in England, the 3rd-best team in
France, plus Shakhtar Donetsk. Of all those teams, only Spurs look imposing.  

By contrast, Liverpool racked up 97 points whilst also facing, and beating, PSG, Napoli, Bayern, Porto
and Barcelona; the best teams, as things stand, in France, Germany and Spain, and the 2nd-best team in
Italy and Portugal (but Porto can still finish top). Liverpool have had an absolutely punishing European
schedule. With a smaller squad than City. 

City had far more domestic cup games, admittedly, but again, almost all against very weak opposition. However, Liverpool just added 22 points to their league season whilst also reaching the Champions League final for the second year running, having faced even better teams this season. 

That is insane. 

Liverpool also beat Spurs, Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea this season.

And maybe the only reason Liverpool didn’t beat Man City was because a referee from Manchester didn’t send the Manchester City captain off in the game in Manchester between Liverpool and Manchester City. (Spot the theme.) Keith Hackett, FIFA referee from 1981-1991, tweeted:
“The turning point in the Premier League title was decided in the Man City v Liverpool game. 31st minute when Kompany went in from distance with two feet off the ground on Mo Salah. Anthony Taylor failed to red card the offence! City won 2-1”

That cost Liverpool the title; a 10-point gap could have opened up, instead of it being narrowed to four by two in-off-the-post goals. Kompany is a great player but he has escaped red cards like no other player on the basis that he’s a good bloke. 

And none of this is to take away from what City have done; the financial doping aside, which makes it hard to say “fair play” (when it may not indeed be financial fair play), there is little more that any manager could do than what Pep Guardiola has achieved. He has done an immense job, and they play
some amazing football. 

Until they were rivals I loved watching them. But is their squad unfairly bolstered by iffy financing? Der Spiegel certainly seem to suggest the evidence is there, from the masses of Football Leaks documents. We shall see if anything comes from the four major investigations into their spending. If it’s  proven to be shady, then maybe this achievement will be severely tarnished. To have spent money they were not allowed to spend would be a form of cheating; not just financial doping but financial juicing.

Liverpool spent big last summer by selling big the winter before; Jürgen Klopp making a very good play er look like an excellent player, and the Reds pocketing £142m in the process. With Kloppian fitness and preparation, Philippe Coutinho was an instant hit in Barcelona, arriving mid-season. But in his second
season, without Kloppian fitness, he has bombed and been booed. Meanwhile, players bought by Liverpool from clubs like Southampton, Hoffenheim, Charlton, Lille, Schalke, Stoke (when relegated),Newcastle (when relegated) and Hull City (when relegated), and rejects from bigger clubs – flops who
would never make it in England – are at the pinnacle of the European game. Coutinho has his medals, and the Spanish sun; but Coutinho has no joy. Would you rather be Mo Salah or Sadio Mané right now, or Philippe Coutinho? 

If you can’t see that the coaching, attention to tactical detail, astonishing fitness work and man-management/motivation isn’t a big reason why these players look so good at Liverpool,then you’re missing something. 

Look at the supposedly better players – at the time of their transfers – that have rocked up at Man United the past few years. Look at the fees and wages paid, to try and corner the market on proven big names at ripe old ages.  

And if any Man United fans think they can laugh at us – you just had to beat relegated Huddersfield who were losing every single week, but drew, and then lost 2-0 at home to relegated Cardiff. That is fucking shameful. I’d take 2nd, with 97 points and a Champions League final, over not being able to
beat two of the worst teams you’ll ever see, when attempting to finish higher than 6th. If it’s hard to give City full credit given the way they may have financed their success, at least they’ve spent the money infinitely better than United, with brains rather than braggadocio. Seriously, if you think you
can laugh at Liverpool right now, think again. If you think we’re crying, think again. 

Jürgen Klopp is the antidote to the modern football fan muppet, and the financially rigged clubs. He could go to Bayern, steal the best players from anyone who comes close, and get silverware. Where’s the fun in that? I’m sure he’s actually probably already said “where’s the fucking fun in that?”.
Coutinho can go to Barcelona and get trophies, but where’s the fucking fun in that?

The love inside Anfield for the 30 minutes after the match will stay with me forever. I wasn’t at the Barcelona game, but I can imagine the love in the stadium that night. The scenes around Anfield before the game was like a carnival, even if we all knew City would beat Brighton. Win, lose or draw, it was
gonna be a party. Because football should be fun.

As such, I think Klopp is the first Liverpool manager to enter into the club’s pantheon of great managers without winning a trophy. Three seasons in Europe, three finals. That is up there with the best achievements in football. Three full seasons in the Premier League, and 97 points in his third full campaign. That is
an historically significant landmark. No trophy – but clear, indisputable greatness, particularly when combined with the way the Reds have reached the Champions League final. 

Now, that final is a mere 50-50 shot, with Liverpool’s superiority counting for nothing against underdogs as dangerous as Spurs. If Liverpool fail to win it then it will be a great shame, but equally, Spurs have done amazingly well to get to the final, and if you add the national derby element, form goes out the
window. 

As it was, Liverpool were outplayed in 2005, but won. They were then the better team in 2007, but AC Milan won. They were the better team for 30 minutes against Real Madrid, until Sergio Ramos set about trying to maim everyone, and sent Mo Salah to the hospital. Finals aren’t always about who is the better
 team, or who wants it more; it can be random, just like Liverpool at Man City, where Kompany should have been sent off with 60 minutes to play, and the ball was 11mm from a goal for the Reds, and went the Reds also hit the post – as did City’s two goals. That’s how it rolls, sometimes.  

Trophies are great. But thousand separate little joys, added up, can be the equal of, or even better than, trophies. Famous nights are all part of the experience, and this season Liverpool have beaten PSG, Napoli, Bayern, Porto, Barcelona, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Man United. 

Equally, if Spurs lose to Liverpool in the final, then that won’t undermine the amazing work Mauricio Pochettino has done. Because trophies can be random; and the minor trophies (domestic cups, Europa League) are not so hotly contested anyway. Pochettino has done more this season than any League Cup
silverware could replicate. 

Seven days ago, but what now feels like a lifetime, I tweeted that whatever happened this season, it had been a success. At the time I thought the Reds were going out of the Champions League, and it looked like City were gonna win the league.

In response I saw the familiar: no one remembers who came 2nd in the league and who reached the Champions League semi-finals or lose the Champions League final. No one remembers the runners-up.

Bullshit. 

This is such a reductionist argument. This is the argument for those who only experience joy of football through the honours list on a club’s Wikipedia page; those who just want to trade “we’ve won more than you” barbs on social media, rather than think about “what do you remember?” We remember things that
 capture the imagination and stir the heart; trophies, or not. You get dull trophy-winners and you get fantastic runners-up.  

In terms of only remembering the winners, there are hundreds of winners in football that I cannot call to mind. I’d have to go look them up to tell you who they were.

I can call on more than just my usual response of Holland 1974 and 1978, Hungary 1954 and Brazil 1982 , who were amongst the greatest an most influential football nations ever – and add South Korea in 2002, and clubs like Monaco of 2004 and 2017; Atlético Madrid in 2014 and 2016, and Klopp’s Dortmund in
2013; Leeds in 2001, and yes, Ajax and (if the Reds win in Madrid) Spurs this year. There are many others.

I vividly remember Arsenal in 2006, losing narrowly to Barcelona, more than any of the Gunners’ late-Wenger trophies, some of which I didn’t even bother to watch, as domestic cups are only treated seriously by about one-third of the clubs who enter. I will always remember Sarri’s Napoli last season, with the great
 football they played, and the staggering achievement of finishing 2nd with … 91 points.   

And Napoli didn’t also reach a Champions League semi-final in the very same season, beating Bayern, PSG and, of course, that very team Napoli along the way. (Obviously Napoli couldn’t beat themselves.) 

I don’t remember the Reds’ 2003 League Cup at all fondly, other than beating Man United in the final – because the team was so dreadful in the league that season – but I do think far more fondly about the 2002 team that came 2nd in the league with 80 points and went to the Champions League quarter-finals. 

I don’t think particularly fondly of the 2012 League Cup success, when Kenny Dalglish won the Reds’most recent trophy, but I loved every minute of the second half of 2010/11, when Roy Hodgson was finally sent packing and King Kenny put the smiles back on our faces with some free-flowing football. (A League Cup/FA Cup double in 2012 would have been more memorable, but the margins were super-fine in that other final, against Chelsea.) I don’t think as fondly of Roy Evans’ 1995 team, which won the League Cup, as the 1996 team, which won nothing – but was a much better team.

But so many things about this season, including the win in Bayern, and the 4-0 thumping of Barcelona after being (unfairly) 3-0 down in the first leg, will stay with me forever. And in my last eight visits toAnfield I’ve seen the Reds score well over 20 goals and not concede once. I may not be a regular anymore,
but I’ve seen some special performances from a special team.

You remember great teams. It’s as simple as that. You remember Herculean efforts, and when sport becomes this outstanding and elite – when the air gets so rarified that you’re almost 30 points aheadof the nearest other competitors – then people remember the vanquished as well as the victor. This
Liverpool team broke the scoring record in the Champions League last season, with so many goals that shitloads is not adequate to describe the quantity, and has now racked up 97 points in the leaguethis season, with another Champions League final to come.

And if people forget this Liverpool team, that’s their problem, isn’t it?

This is the fatal modern psychological flaw of “compare and despair”. Nothing is ever good enough if you cannot find satisfaction in being great because someone else was great too. This is just likeMark Manson’s example of how the guy who formed Megadeth, who sold millions and millions of records, but is never happy because he was kicked out of Metallica, who sold even more records. 

No, we are happy, and we are proud. And this is just the start.

Indeed, I have been writing what must be my 8th or 9th book on a Liverpool season, although this one is more about the evolution under Klopp since 2015 than just 2018/19. Many of those books ended with  no silverware, and Man United and Everton fans flooded book sites with mocking reviews, but if you
chronicle a season you don’t know where it will end; just as, in late 2004, I did not know my first book would end with me sprawled on a piece of cardboard outside the airport in Istanbul at 7am, having just had probably the greatest night of my life. (Apologies to any ex-girlfriends reading this, and also,
apologies for everything else. I now accept that screaming Jerzy Dudek! during sex is not such a good thing.)

But this book (initially available only to TTT subscribers, in a special boxed edition complete with a second book written by our contributors on the matches they were at) has been the hardest to write. Because, there’s just so much to cover. So much keeps happening; too many great moments to document  in one book without making it 15,000 pages long. I have to keep rewriting sections, as so much keeps getting better than I ever thought possible. The sections on the really good games have to be edited down, as there are so many fucking awesome games. And this season has been the hardest on my health, as it’s
just been non-stop must-win games for 10 months.

The book will be finished this summer, and will be released on the back of a Champions League trophy,
or on the back of an amazing, amazing season with no silverware. 

The book will end, because you have to draw a line and tie things up – just as the season will end, one
way or another, on June 1st. But again, for Liverpool and Klopp, this is only the start…

Paul Tomkins

The creator of this website; author of several books on Liverpool FC, and of one novel.
Co-creator of The Transfer Price Index (TPI). Columnist on the official Liverpool FC
website between 2005-2010. International man of mystery. Possibly bald.More by Paul Tomkins