Watching in disbelief as our train wreck of a season rolls horribly on

By Steven Kelly

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

IT’S just a blip, you know. Everyone says so. Just like coming out of a recession. I know they said it five or six times already, but they really mean it this time.

While those of us on Planet Sanity stare in melancholic disbelief at the heartbreaking heap of twisted metal, the Chauvins stare benignly at this almighty train wreck of a season with cult eyes and cult expressions.

The driver, blood everywhere, makes one excuse after another, rounding on anyone who dares criticise his Work In Progress. Last season’s title challenge is barely a memory, a gigantic overachieving miracle.

We should apparently be on our knees in gratitude for even a sniff of success at this nonentity of a club. George Orwell was 25 years out.

We finally selected the Lesser And Lesser Spotted Alberto, and the reaction was "hmmmph". Which is unfair but it’s like receiving a Christmas present in August. Once unwrapped, it would need to be the keys to Gomorrah to meet expectation.

The equaliser and winner weren’t shocks; they were greeted with resignation. The pre-match showboating about saying farewell in style, or going down swinging, came to nought; we curled into a ball. "Take the points but don’t hurt my family." We should have placards made.

So the mythologists are in full flow. Fourth is what we’re chasing, all we’ve a right to expect. The dreaded ‘Net Spend’ appears and reappears, the manager’s acolytes never ceasing to believe in this magic bullet that kills all discourse and complaint.

I joined one internet forum, only to see "95% of our fans are ****s" and log straight back out again.

Like cornered, starving rats, we are devouring each other and it is an ugly, unedifying spectacle, worse than anything in Houllier’s time.

I’m told there were fights in the Kop after Sunday. It wasn’t just the calamitous decline after so much promise last season; Saturday’s amazing results produced a flickering hope that something could still be salvaged from the debris.

A decent first-half performance followed. It was exaggerated afterwards but we got into Arsenal and their pretty patterns went nowhere.

Complain about the penalty if you wish, but I find all that a bit Everton. We went in front eventually, and what did we do? Nothing. Again.

For the record, that’s five times in the last six home games we were winning 1-0 only to concede two goals almost as quickly.

The manager will be on the lookout for new whipping boys. The effete Redknapp one week, the clueless Souness and Klinsmann the next. The resurfacing of the latter, like a U-boat with bad hair, must be especially galling, but whenever fighting talk is followed by failure — as it was back in January after the ‘rant’ — the spotlight will burn into his skull and catapult him into near-madness.

He has apparently sailed close to danger by discussing the financial limitations. There was an undercurrent that he simply didn’t care what happened to him any more, a freedom that certainly didn’t translate itself onto the pitch. The minutes post-Arshavin were as grisly and as frightening as I’ve seen at Anfield for some time. There was nothing there.

Gerrard deteriorated into a futile bundle of tumble and tantrum, whilst Torres would kill for scraps right now. Mascherano skulked off, no doubt muttering as he did, and Aquilani brought little to proceedings.

The 50th anniversary of Shankly’s arrival elicits disturbing counterpoint rather than idolatrous celebration. We are, in short, a laughing stock so some similarities exist.

I’m told Ian St John was in tears on Sunday’s TV broadcast. It’s always darkest before the dawn, so they say.

But what do they know?

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, December 16, 2009