Editor’s Column: Liverpool played badly!? Welcome to the world of every other football fan in England

Posted by

Liverpool fans have been spoilt rotten this season.

Absolutely rotten.

We score more goals than anyone else. We have more of the ball. We create more chances. We beat the big sides, home or away. We put four past Arsenal at the Emirates. Six past Watford. Five past Hull and Burton. Another four past champions Leicester, Crystal Palace and Stoke. We went to Stamford Bridge and won. We’re second in the table having enjoyed our best start to a Premier League campaign – EVER.

Follow @Jordan_AC90 on Twitter

We’re still in both cup competitions and are one good result at Anfield away from a Wembley final against (probably) Manchester United.

This campaign has been a complete joyride, in the most.

This is following a summer where we actually made money in the transfer market. We have ridiculously talented youngsters like Ben Woodburn and Trent Alexander-Arnold coming through the ranks. In Coutinho we have a 24-year-old Brazilian soon to be spoken about alongside the world’s elite. Adam Lallana is England’s best player. Sadio Mane is the signing of the season. Marcelo and David Alaba both sleep in James Milner pyjamas…

Need I go on?

Last night, we lost to Southampton in the EFL Cup semi-final and were downright horrible. We didn’t create anything going forward, looked stale in midfield and were completely outplayed by the home side. But the defeat was the first time in 25 games this season where we’ve been the worst side in a game. We lost to Burnley and Bournemouth in 2016, but spent most of the 90 minutes battering both.

So last night is the first time we’ve had to watch a team outplay Liverpool all season… Poor us!

The backlash against players and team last night was stupid. We were rubbish, but get over it. As Bill Shankly once said, ‘If you can’t support us when we lose or draw, don’t support us when we win.’

We are not entitled to fantastic performances in every game, and Klopp and our players are allowed mistakes or off nights. The reaction from some on Wednesday evening suggested the boss, Emre Can and Daniel Sturridge had conspired to personally ruin their evening and would be chuckling on the privately chartered plane home.

The odd car-crash game is the life of every other football fan in the country, even our rivals. Tottenham supporters saw their team crash miserably out of the Champions League. Manchester United broke transfer records and are in sixth. Arsenal’s ‘best team in a decade’ sits fifth. Manchester City fans (when they turn up) have to watch John Stones and Claudio Bravo gift goals for the sake of a philosophy which is more brutishly stubborn than Stoke under Tony Pulis. Chelsea fans should be pretty happy, but they came 10th last year and now have to watch the best coach in their history manage United.

Imagine what it must be like supporting West Ham, in their soulless athletics stadium with owners who keep referring to them as customers. Try supporting Hull City who came into 2016/17 with about nine contracted professionals on board. You could even support Birmingham, who’ve replaced an achieving manager in Gary Rowett with Gianfranco Zola because the board wanted a more glamorous name.

But back to Liverpool because we’re still favourites to progress to the EFL Cup final. We lost 1-0, there’s no away goals and you can be sure a feisty Anfield atmosphere and with a Liverpool side back to full strength (Jordan Henderson, Coutinho and Joel Matip should all start next time), we’ll give it a mighty good go. And if we lose? At least we’re still competing for the Premier League title, eh?

Let’s enjoy supporting this Liverpool this season. History shows campaigns like this don’t come round too often.

More Stories Arsenal Chelsea Manchester City Manchester United