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Club Focus - Liverpool - Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong
That loud exhaling noise you heard emerging from the north-west area of the country on Sunday afternoon was the sound of thousands of Liverpool supporters breathing sighs of relief. The 2009/10 season is over for them, a campaign of mediocrity and underachievement has finally reached its end. No trophies, no Champions League place, no answers about what kind of direction the club is headed in, at least, for now, they can forget about it. But that is easier said than done.
The club was branded ‘a sinking ship’ by Albert Riera, and it was easy to see why. This was a season where the ironic became the inevitable, and it appeared to have a cast of thousands. Beach balls, Icelandic volcanoes, endless injuries, the curse of the former player biting the hand that used to feed him, it was all there. When it’s the 85th minute in Lille and there’s someone called Hazard standing over the ball, you knew that the imminent danger would lead to a goal. Similarly it had to be Diego Forlan who would knock Liverpool out of Europe, Pepe Reina’s spot-kick save at Old Trafford had to drop perfectly back to the feet of Wayne Rooney, Reading were obviously going to get that penalty in injury-time in the FA Cup at Anfield. Any defensive mistake during the campaign would immediately be seized upon and lead to a damaging goal. It wasn’t bad luck, more a general malaise that spread over the club after the opening day defeat at Tottenham, and became a tight grip that suffocated the Reds throughout the campaign. Everyone from owners to manager to players to supporters were caught in it, and all witnessed a startling amount of low on confidence, disappointing displays that were as far away from the 2008/09 Liverpool that supporters would have been obliged to check the Trades Description Act.
Back then, the Reds’ second placed finish was hoped by many to be a stepping stone to success, but others always saw it as an overachievement from a good squad that had to be improved. They had had their fair share of luck too, frequently scoring late, dramatic winners and often seeing their rivals reduced to 10 men. This time around, only one late goal directly changed a result for the better (Fernando Torres at Aston Villa), while only two men were sent off against Liverpool, and both were late on in matches that the Reds were winning anyway. Conversely, Liverpool conceded damaging late goals in all competitions, and picked up five red cards in the league alone - more than their previous three seasons put together. Eleven times the Reds took the lead in all competitions and failed to win. They lost nineteen matches throughout the campaign.
Hopelessness often took over. There was the frequent temptation to hail any good result as the dreaded ‘turning of the corner,’ but, in truth, Liverpool have never really been on the track they wanted to be on since late September, when a Torres hat-trick helped beat Hull City 6-1 at Anfield and put them in third within three points of leaders Chelsea. Four consecutive defeats followed, and although there were hopes of a rally after a 2-0 win over Manchester United, they would prove to be just as false a dawn as anything else over the course of the campaign. Players would often declare that they were close to finding their best form, but it never materialised. By December’s loss at Portsmouth, the campaign was reaching embarrassing proportions. Youth was often turned to out of necessity and a lack of numbers. Jack Robinson - aged 16 years and 250 days - became the club’s youngest ever player at Hull on Sunday, and follows the likes of Jay Spearing, Stephen Darby, Martin Kelly, Nathan Eccleston, Daniel Ayala and Dani Pacheco in featuring for the first team this season. All promising stuff on the surface, but asking these players to help out an underperforming team often seemed to have a whiff of desperation about it.
We’ve got this far without mentioning the manager, but Rafael Benitez can’t be ignored forever. After entering the campaign looking short in many areas - the exits of Xabi Alonso, Alvaro Arbeloa and Sami Hyypia, plus the presence of Andriy Voronin, confirmed that - the Spanish boss has been attacked from all sides. He’s made mistakes, as he’d admitted, with the purchase of an unfit Alberto Aquilani looking to be his biggest error. The Italian still has time to prove himself - and there have been good signs - but his lack of fitness for the first half of the campaign would prove costly, while Benitez’ frequent failings and battles with the club’s board saw him become a target for the media amid his team’s struggles. Sometimes he was fairly targeted, often not.
In truth, the blame for the campaign lies in many areas, but the instability and crippling levels of debt imposed upon the club by their two American owners remain the biggest obstacle to any form of well-run, well-functioning unit. For 20 years, every summer since the Reds last won the league title has been described as ‘massive’, but this time it truly feels like it. Liverpool have to decide what they want to do. Sink, and slip into possibly decades of mediocrity, or swim, and attempt to rebuild a once well-run, well-respected club towards the summit of the English and European game again. What happens next is unclear, but one thing is for sure - it’s make or break time at Anfield.
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