There is no denying that Liverpool have declined somewhat over the past few years. It's not been as great a decline as some media outlets might have you believe, we've gone from finishing second three and a half seasons ago to playing in the Europa League and being current League Cup holders. With this slight demise, and also the increase in social networking, the voices of our fans who hark back to the days when we did come second are louder than ever.
I have no problem with people remembering the times we had under Rafael Benitez, but I think now, especially with him being Chelsea manager, things are going a little too far. A lot of our fans seem to be defending him all the time, and when he gets abused by the Chelsea fans they treat it as them abusing our manager and not their own. He's not our manager, and people need to let it go, it's getting embarrassing.
Another thing that annoys me is that, when Rafa was our manager, I found myself arguing his side all the time. He had nothing like unanimous support from our fans, I'd say it was a lot closer to 50/50. I remember hearing all the time that "winning the European cup just papered over the cracks", you don't hear anyone say that any more do you. "He doesn't take the Premier League seriously", remember that? And even in the season that we did finish second, a good portion of our fans were not happy with the manager, blaming his defensive play, inability to beat the smaller teams, and even his rant about Manchester United for us not winning the league.
Rafa papering over the cracks
The problem is, Liverpool fans have this tendency to grasp onto something nostalgically and believe it's return will make everything better. We've done it for years. Ever since Michael Owen left there's been a large section of our support who have wanted to bring him back, with a false hope that for some reason playing for Liverpool will prevent him being injured for entire seasons. We burdened Robbie Fowler and Kenny Dalglish with the roles of saviours. Since Fernando Torres left he's been terrible, even in his last season for us he wasn't great, but for some reason we think just by being back at Liverpool he'll return to the player he was in 08/09. And now the same nostalgia is present with Benitez.
Don't get me wrong, a return of Torres and indeed Benitez could bring about a change of fortunes for the club and see us miraculously catapult back to the pinnacle of European football, but is there any point in lingering onto this false bit of hope? We're turning into a group of supporters based on if's and but's, if Benitez had stayed, if Torres had stayed, if Alonso had stayed, if it hadn't been for Hicks and Gillett... Sounds a lot like a criticism we make about another set of supporters, doesn't it? Well the truth is a lot of our own supporters are just as bad if not worse these days.
A lot of these same supporters who are constantly calling for a return to Benitez, are the same supporters who refuse to give Brendan Rodgers a chance. The reason I decided to write this blog was because a photograph has surfaced of Rodgers wearing a tshirt that has The Sun newspaper on the front of it. Many Liverpool fans straight away vilified him, which is what lead me to claim on twitter that they are "embarrassing". Fans of Liverpool football club who will publicly slate our own manager whilst they continue to show unwavering support for the manager of Chelsea. Makes sense doesn't it.
Brendan Rodgers wearing a "The Sun" tshirt
Now I hate The Sun, I understand why no one connected with Liverpool football should have anything to do with the rag, but it's better to try and get the full story before making a verbal tirade against your own manager. The photo was taken in June 2011 after Brendan returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Part of a team led by Chris Kamara, the climb aimed to raise £500,000 help provide free nursing care for people in their own homes. So what's Rodgers supposed to do when he gets the call off Kamara, "hey Brendan it's Chris Kamara, will you climb Kilimanjaro with me to raise money for a charity that provides free nursing for people in their own homes." "Sure Chris, who's taking part?" "A load of ex footballers, oh and it's sponsored by The Sun." "Did you say The Sun are sponsoring it Chris? Well fuck the people who need nursing care in their own homes as they can't leave the house and can't afford private care, I'm having no part in this."
I'm not even going to use the argument that he wasn't the Liverpool manager at this time, because the response to that is that he should have morally known not to be involved with The Sun. However, how can you question a man's morals when he climbs one of the world's toughest mountains in aid of charity? When you look at the moral credentials of the manager of Liverpool, is it not more important to see that he did this charity work than the fact he wore a tshirt once? Brendan Rodgers did not make The Sun newspaper any money, and nor did he make any money himself off them. Lets not forget our own captain has made a fair bit of money in the past off exclusives for The Sun's sister paper, The News Of The World. But people are a lot quicker to forgive when it comes to the captain.
Liverpool fans seem to be in a strange place these days. I don't know whether it is to do with the current standing of the team, or whether it is just more noticeable with the increased platforms to air their views such as twitter and facebook. If we have a bad game, they're saying how poor of a manager Brendan Rodgers is, if we have a good game and get a good win he's a great manager. If Stewart Downing or Jordan Henderson have a bad game they're terrible wastes of money who need to be sold, if they have a good game we hear that they might come good. You can't back the winner after the race is over, you have to be behind it from the start. This is what is happening with Rafael Benitez now, because we haven't been back to the position we were in when he was manager, so it's easier for people to back him than it was then. But at the time I can guarantee that a lot of the same supporters did not like him.
I'm no Paul Tomkins, I'm not PR for the club, I accept that when the team are poor you can have a go at the players and the manager. I won't try and tell you that Downing did in fact make three passes with his right foot that all had 100% completion rate, which shows he is in fact a very versatile player. Criticise poor performances by all means, but keep to a certain level. If you're going to go all out on a player or manager, if you say they're never going to be good enough for the red shirt, don't then turn around and claim you backed them all along if they come good.
And for the record, I myself am completely behind Brendan Rodgers and I think Jordan Henderson is a great player, but Stewart Downing is a terrible waste of money and needs to be sold (you can hold me to them statements).
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick rant and it's given a few people something to think about.
@adamheath
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