Away form will make or break season

WHEN Fernando Torres glided past 12,000 Kopites to celebrate with family in the Main Stand instead, the odd grouchy old coot (who, me?) might have been tempted to frown upon such ignorance.

I believe my exact words were “you know what, son, you do whatever the hell you want”.

Genius is never expected to pay the same toll mere mortals do. Anyone with a shred of leftist tendency will balk at such Nietzschean musings, but I’m afraid that’s the way of the world. Especially when that incomparable talent has been so sorely missed.

Footballers in general do tend to get away with murder anyway.

You think not? Let me just utter the words ‘John’ and ‘Terry’ and leave you to cogitate at your leisure.

There have apparently been private meetings with young Nando and his captain, assuring the delicate whelps that money will be spent on transfers this summer.

Two-man team? Ssssssshhhh. The hideous stuck-pig squeals that emanated from supporters whenever some piss-pot pundit volunteered similar views has been rather muted of late. I can’t think why…

It is of course more than likely that Reina and Mascherano were given similar assurances during their protracted contract negotiations.

The latter provided further evidence of his profession’s Fantasy Bubble lifestyle by claiming he never wanted to leave last summer, any such talk resulting from the machinations of the evil press.

Oh really? Normally it would take the strength of Hercules to summon the effrontery necessary to utter such a barefaced remark, but that’s footballers for you. They’ll get away with it too.

I’ve heard it said on numerous occasions lately that it would be “understandable” if Torres wanted to leave. What absolute twaddle. Some of our followers have begun to regard this club as nothing at all.

There are Rafa fanatics, money obsessives and the merely jaded who splutter frenetically about what we deserve and what we’ve a right to expect – ignoring decades of watching teams in red look right into the eyes of Adversity and stare him down, exposing him for the bully that he truly is.

Some say ‘only’ signing two €20m-rated players was enough to destabilise our entire season. If it were up to me I’d have you all shot at dawn for dereliction of duty.

Injuries, now that’s another matter. Had Torres stayed fit and scored even 10 more goals Spurs and City would have been the tiniest of irritants.

If Gerrard had come close to his own Olympian level the resultant goals and inspiration would have triggered a fissure even in Ferguson’s cock-sure countenance.

But the land of Whatif is overpopulated as it is, and we must deal with facts. No? I was more than pleased when Everton beat City but confess to a small panic attack once it became possible for a fourth team to overtake us in the bargain basement race.

The fearful shellacking Villa took at the Bridge and our first half performance on Sunday – the best of the season by a considerable distance – calmed the nerves a little, but Tottenham and our away form are consternations that won’t go away.

The visitors came armed with a ton of beach ball witticisms but were soon left deflated by some excellent attacking play.

I’ll repeat that for the sceptical: excellent attacking play.

Even though Torres had wasted another chance, having already hit the post, there was a full minute’s standing ovation for the kind of attitude that has sadly been all too rare this season.

One can grumble from habit about Agger’s head and how many chances it’s missed this season (he should be vying for top scorer by now), whilst Kuyt remains the opposition’s best defender, but this was marvellous stuff that deserved even richer rewards.

It evaporated somewhat during the second half, a recurring theme for the last six months as opposed to the tardy miracles of our title tilt.

Fitness has become a major problem for us over the last two years, and I often wonder if it has anything to with the departure of Pako Ayesteran.

You only have to count the occasions where we have magically transformed winning situations into losing ones, and games where we have slunk further and further back as the minutes ticked away. There is still time for away day cowardice to rear its ugly head and the next two games will determine if anything can be salvaged from the season, but for the third game running Liverpool attacked the Kop end rather than faced it.

From small acorns…