James Lawton: Dalglish has turned to an old Shankly trick... making Liverpool's players justify their inclusion
'What was discouraging,' says Ian St John, 'was that the same mistakes were being made byHoullier, and then Benitez and Hodgson'
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
A wild wind blew across the Mersey yesterday, scattering gulls and buffeting the river traffic, but then every gust of it seemed to bring a little more contentment. It was as though something as permanent as the Liver Building had gone missing but had now been put back in place.
This sense of restored perspective was particularly keen in the Wirral home of Ian St John, who was first in the line of heroes created by the work and the legacy of Bill Shankly. "It feels a bit like waking up from a nightmare," he said.
Most encouraging for the man who 50 years ago was whisked away from his native Motherwell in the Rolls-Royce of the Liverpool chairman Sid Reakes – and in the back seat had the words of Shankly drumming into his ears every mile of the way to Anfield – was that he saw not only a psychologically stunning victory at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, but also the clearest evidence that Kenny Dalglish had re-established a founding principle of those first great years.
"Shanks," said St John, "had a thousand sayings, and many of them were hilarious. But there wasn't a match before which he didn't say one thing with deadly seriousness. It didn't matter who you were, and what you had done in the last game, you were told, 'Justify your inclusion.' He spat it out.
"Watching Liverpool beat Chelsea on Sunday – and beating them well in so many ways, not least in that each player was more committed to what he was doing and clear about his purpose – I kept thinking, 'Kenny is halfway there already, he has done the most important thing – he has made the players responsible for their own performances, yes, he has said, 'Justify your inclusion.' Of course, it was something so much easier to say with Fernando Torres gone. Yes, you knew he was a player of great talent and that at any time he might do something remarkable – but one fact was apparent for so long. His inclusion was automatic. He didn't have to justify it and that is something that destroys the rest of the players.
"I believe Liverpool can put that behind them now. Obviously, Kenny needs more players, but in the meantime he has shown that he can get so much more out of the ones he has."
St John has been for some years now an ambivalent witness of the club he served so well for so long.
Gérard Houllier railed against his criticisms and Rafa Benitez was also angered when the old player, having paid his respects to the initial Champions League success, despaired of the team's failure to make an authentic title challenge in six years of seeping decline. "What was so discouraging," says St John, "was that the same old mistakes were happening under Houllier and then Benitez and Roy Hodgson in his own brief time. You just couldn't see anyone getting consistently better."
But on Sunday, St John noted something remarkable, more thrilling in its way even than the huge performance of the returning Jamie Carragher and the latest example of the match-winning marksmanship of Raul Meireles.
He saw Lucas look like a midfield player, a real one who involved himself in joined-up moves, who passed the ball and then found more advanced and menacing positions with something that looked like genuine conviction.
"Kenny doesn't pretend to be a coach," St John goes on. "He's gone out and got himself a top one in Steve Clarke. Kenny doesn't take training but he watches training, he sees what's happening and when I saw Lucas on Sunday I said to myself, 'Yes, he's had a word with the lad. He's told him where he isn't coming up to scratch. He's told him that there really isn't any such thing as a withdrawn midfielder because every formation anyone ever dreamt up is changed by the movement of the ball and the opposing team.'
"No, there's no withdrawn midfielder in the books of football men like Kenny. There are midfielders with responsibilities, and they include the ability to adapt to the moving game.
"For a long time I'd said that as far as I was concerned Lucas could get on the next boat to wherever he came from – but not on Sunday, the boy looked as though he could play and that he really wanted to play. Of course, he has to prove himself between now and the end of the season, but you could see things happening, enough of them to make you wonder about old judgements."
St John, who once complained that the football of Houllier had turned Anfield into an arena filled not with some of the most boisterously witty fans in the land but so many zombies, sees little point in disinterring the polemics of the Benitez departure. "It was clear enough he had run his course in that last season," says St John, "and it's a bit bizarre that he's talking about returning to his old job. You have to say that already Kenny Dalglish has reminded us of what went missing in recent years."
What precisely? Maybe more than anything the understanding that players did not have to be taught how to play but how to grow stronger in their self-belief and demands placed on themselves. They didn't have to be chivvied into minute positional changes in front of a full house. They didn't have to feel part of some endless seminar, a sensation experienced by at least some of the Liverpool players in the dog days of Benitez and Hodgson and, it is reasonable to presume, those of Internazionale in the former's last days at San Siro.
Interestingly, the Internazionale goalkeeper Julio Cesar declared after Sunday's 5-3 victory over Roma, which took them still closer to leaders Milan: "Everything feels better, brighter now." There are similar stories emerging from Liverpool's recently sombre Melwood training ground. They include reports of players entering the facility with smiles on their faces, and leaving some hours later in more or less the same condition.
Heaven knows where it will all end but then at least one Saint of impeccable antecedents believes at least a little legitimate faith has been restored
