Truth hurts as even United show us how
Guess what, they still haven’t! It’s called gallows humour because of the gigantic pain in the neck that inevitably follows. I’d spent most of the Bordeaux game wincing. Maybe there were impurities in the alcohol, but there was also something fundamental missing from the performance.
Passing. Where did it go? Was it outlawed overnight?
I steer clear of any argument about zonal marking because there’s always some genius talking about method in the madness, but like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, I can’t see any method at all.
Crouch’s imperviousness to insult, failure or humiliation came to our rescue again. A lesser man would have walked off the pitch after his first-half sitter. It’s a good job someone can score because we’re lost without him nowadays.
Given the awful archaic “football” we’ve been playing lately, it’s amazing to think this could be our quickest ever qualification for the knockout stages of Europe. Back in the Premiership, it’s a different story.
Old Trafford always holds the threat of humiliation, while they know we’ll slavishly protect any lead we muster. Without Danny Murphy, it seems they don’t even fear that any more.
Ferguson handles us with kid gloves nowadays; perhaps he was scarred by Houllier’s five wins on the bounce. We never count the 0-4 because it’s always known as Riley’s Revenge.
Not since the days of Evans, with Fowler and Collymore rampant, have United really been ripped to bits by a Liverpool team. Schmeichel just about kept it down to two back then.
The first goal is scored and you will see one of two things: Liverpool clinging to it for dear life or United trying to add to it.
Rivalry, especially one this malign, can often be about denying the blatant truth staring you in the face, but the bitterest Liverpool fan on earth can surely deny it no longer.
United try to play football the way it should be played. During this decade Liverpool have mostly looked for an alternative route to success. I’m sick of it. It gives Stretford propagandists the chance to say t’was ever thus. It wasn’t, and they know it.
The usual pre-match gamesmanship was wasted on us. Rumours abounded of a tabloid “sting” involving a key player’s partner on the morning of the game. It never materialised, not to say it won’t in the future.
Despite Alan Smith’s gracious interview beforehand, the myth of his besieged ambulance was still repeated in every newspaper.
I don’t know why they bother. Rafa has played eight Premiership matches at United, Chelsea and Arsenal — and lost every single one.
You can’t succeed in football without passing, speed, shooting and courage. Hand on heart, I’ve rarely seen a Reds team with such a paucity of all four qualities. Not for three years in fact.
Something has gone seriously wrong, but it doesn’t take much to knock us off balance nowadays. A goal will do.
Is it coincidence that since we appointed two managers with a claustrophobic hands-on approach, we’ve become rattled by something so basic as conceding first? The nanny-coaching has played its part in the childlike surrenders of recent times. How many “men” would you say there are in this Liverpool team? The away end, as at Bolton, knew all hope was lost and that bellowing at the prematurely vanquished was a waste of breath and decibels.
It resisted the incessant United taunts of “murderers” for an hour before replying with the usual filth. A second goal arrived with the swift brutality of a biblical plague.
God, like the newspapers, only hears what he wants to hear. It is now virtually impossible to utter the words “main threat to Chelsea” without the listener expecting a punchline.
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