If nothing else, last night seems to have made everyone care again.
It's been a bit of a dismal start to the season so far with us looking fairly shit and looking like losing every game. Easy to create a "fuck it" atmosphere.
Coming up against Real Madrid on the European stage and getting outclassed on the other hand... it's a sharp reminder of how things have been over the last few years. Sucks.
It does yeah, I think that's about the size of it.
We've come from the dregs of Rafa's legacy, the depths of Hodgson's brief farce, through the stable and then off the rails Dalglish era, to letting a young man have a shot at it. We had a season in 2012/2013 that started as catastrophic as the previous two, only for stability to then kick in and a gradual upturn in form, culminating in an unexpected whirlwind finale to last season. A season that many expected to be about bedding in players and getting back in Europe. Instead we raised the bar and catipulted ourselves to a title challenge, with the whole of Europe (it seemed) in awe at our style.
This is what really fucking grates me, and yes I know I can be the greatest sentimentalist on here, but people are quick enough to use our famous mantle, YNWA, but any sign of the shit hitting the fan and we suddenly resort to cut throat, knee jerk responses.
This is the guys "first" stint at the CL. He's not a weathered manager who's rubbed shoulders with the top European managers in the game, he's a rooky who's working his way in. Like with young players, like Sterling, you can allow some slack as part of the learning curve, or he's never going to
learn.
We've just faced THE form team in Europe at the moment. Regardless of what happened in yester-years, when we faced those big Spanish sides, they weren't as strong a side in terms of style and execution as this Madrid side, regardless of personnel, it was pre Barca hitting their stride and dominating consistently, Ronaldinho was on the wain, etc. Madrid were dire when we played them back then. It's not a slight on Rafa, they were great results and he knew how to grind out wins in Europe, experience got him to that stage along with the nous for knowing when to shut up shop.
We need to achieve that under Rodgers, but by the same token, Rafa's sides rarely hit the levels that we did last season in terms of attacking flair (and Rodgers got there in his second season). And when Rafa did, he had a "peak" Gerrard and Torres at his disposal. He struggled to do it with other players before that. And yeah I know we won the CL but we struggled in the qualifier as badly as we have performed this season and we were humiliated against Milan in the first half as much as we were in the first half yesterday - not to mention our league form, which was pants. Like I said, it's a learning curve, Rafa came from a continental background and had experience at the highest level by that stage, Rodgers is getting there and deserves the time to get it right. We can't blindly ignore his faults, but I'm not going to crucify him or rewrite history because he's struggling to hit the heights in his first shot at it.
You could reel off a dozen 50-70 year old managers who
could have got closer to grinding something out last night, but it's all ifs and buts. Would we have done better with Rafa? Maybe, but what's the point in mulling over it? We would have still have had to deal with his myriad of other idiosyncrasies that became as predictable as his ability on the European stage.
As for Modo, he went off on on recently and said he was going to stop posting because he'd fucked people off that much. He's back again, trolling, quoting himself, acting like a prick and then when he knows he's fucked people off, he cares to explain himself in a rational way, once the damage is done. I'm loathed to sit here watching the usual curve of behaviour culminate again in him ruining every thread with the same irritating agenda driven shit. So I'll stop replying and just ignore his bollocks. Enjoy him, the next time he fucks off half the forum, someone else can sort it out.
Andy Heaton @Andrew_Heaton
