Silence deafening as Rafa facing exit
Ask anyone who knows me, I can babble like a short-changed hooker with a stutter.
Yet I sat quietly throughout the Wigan game with one solitary thought echoing round my head: what’s he up to now?
One up front, five in midfield, at home to a team facing relegation. Fans that were ready to string up Sven by his overused gonads for doing that to us were shamed into silence. So not all bad news then.
It’s been a good week for hush. Having read Ferguson’s preposterous lecture to the Manc masses, it was as if we weren’t letting United outshine us. We can be just as quiet as you. Quieter! The long-awaited ‘singing section’ in the Kop hasn’t worked. They just get on with it and everybody ignores them. It doesn’t help when they sing 15-minute dirges for a manager that’s starting to seriously irritate everyone.
He’s knocking on the gate isn’t he? They’re getting ready to welcome him into Liverpool Manager Heaven, where he’ll swap tales of what might have been with Roy and Gerard.
Last Wednesday saw a contest between fans and players, all grappling with the manager’s convoluted game plan. The result ironically was a draw. No one understood.
Watching this team trying to unlock packed defences is to witness panic in its purest form. As a randy teenager I unhooked bras with more finesse.
There was a forlorn hope the wingers were supposed to get behind Wigan, but sadly an unfit Pennant and a slothful Kewell (does he know there’s no new contract coming?) weren’t up to it.
Steve Bruce has the evil eye on Rafa; he’d not lost a league game to him during his Birmingham stint either. It’s hardly a brain-wave. Stay back, run around a lot and kick as much as the ref allows.
With Steve Bennett, that meant a lot — with the added bonus of Liverpool players being penalised for every stupid thing.
None of which matters if our team struggles to help itself. It was so curiously tame and distant. Few of the crowd wanted to be there, knowing there would be precious little excitement to save us from plummeting temperatures.
Titus Bramble got his long-awaited revenge. He’s been cheered onto the pitch by Kopites before now, such was his ability to create mayhem within his own ranks, but he’s had the last laugh and you can’t begrudge him a second of it.
So all that money and an extended loan for Mascherano in order to extend our title hopes to the second day of the New Year?
Bargain! The club really should release Rafa’s next plea for funds on DVD and file it under Comedy Classics.
Given how strapped for cash we’re supposed to be Luton had a nerve asking for our half of Sunday’s gate receipts. I’ve hated them since the 80s, thanks to the plastic pitch, an away fan ban and their townsfolk’s predilection for electing far-right MP’s. Once they lost their unfair advantages they sank down the leagues and no one shed a tear.
If we’ve money to throw away use it for our own. The legendary Ray Kennedy suffers from Parkinson’s and needs all the help he can get. Some fans are organising numerous benefits and donations for the great man and I’ll return to the subject in future columns, rest assured.
In the end it was just a crass media hatchet job to fashion a ‘grudge’ match from meagre materials.
Win and we’re the robber barons. Lose or draw and Luton get their money anyway so we’re the upper class twits who got what was coming.
Liverpool have a dreadful record of PR incompetence but for once they simply had nowhere to go. Stitched up, in short. Besides, Luton could always get that alleged bung money back off the agents.
They fought hard to be fair but with confidence around our ankles we’re easy pickings for anyone lately. Where does Kuyt find the self-respect to get out of bed? Another fistful of changes and the apologista still expect cohesion. When are you going to see the blatantly obvious fact staring you in the face? This manager won’t change his ways. There’s an irony there if you look hard enough. I’ve long since passed the point of caring.
