Bring on next season.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun….does it?

Any Liverpool fan would be hard pressed to describe the 2011/2012 season as ‘fun’. Even our most successful accomplishment was filled with pain and anguish which came close to eclipsing the glory and the fact we finished proudly victorious. I’ve not felt tension like it at a football match before. Unbearable.

We started as we meant to go on, although I hardly think 6 wins from 19 at home was the Kings plan. You could feel the excitement from that first game at Anfield against Sunderland. New owners, new signings and most exciting? New found ambition and expectation. Carroll, Adam, Downing, Enrique and Henderson been named in the 11 the starter’s gun had fired. It was  a game which ended up being the perfect metaphor to describe our season. The Telegraph described the game as, “A swashbuckling, exhilarating start. And the inevitable, inexorable come-down. This was the Kop’s experience of the last 20 years, boiled down into one dispiriting afternoon.” It boiled down to one dispiriting season.

So what happened? Well Luis Suarez missed a penalty, Stewart Downing hit the bar, Suarez was brought down for what was a certain penalty and some great thinking from Luis gave us the lead. The second half was nervy and we conceded while the opposition goalkeeper excelled. Don’t worry I won’t be doing this for every game!

We flourished under pressure and suffered when 3 points seemed routine. Win’s against United, City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton and Newcastle have shown that we’re capable but losses to Wigan, QPR, Swansea and Stoke have been the issues of our frustration. The wins though came with a bitter after taste, ‘You’re just a cup team’, we were told by our rivals, friends, pundits and fact. Our cup form was sparkling, and this made everything so much more confusing. I’m split by the opinion that we’re a cup team, unquestionably this season that’s all we’ve been but is the tag something to be proud of? Like I say, I’m split, I want to win trophies but I want to see us challenging for the top prize and this season we look as if we sacrificed one for the other.

I could quite easily have written about how we’ve under achieved and been so inconsistent, how Kenny has got his tactics wrong on occasion, Jordan Henderson isn’t a right winger, that we handled the Suarez fiasco incorrectly, Lucas Leiva has been a big miss, Steven Gerrards fitness is an issue and that Andy Carroll needs to start scoring goals more regularly. But I won’t, because what’s been said has been said 1000 times this season and I don’t know about you, but the 2011/2012 Premier League season needs to quickly be forgotten and eradicated from our minds.

I think what I’ll do now is try to put a positive light on next season without being ridiculous. We won’t be winning the title nor will the summer bring big name players from around the world. Speaking of nonsense statements actually, I’ve grown a little tired this year of being embarrassed by a certain section of Liverpool fans, you know the ones, they’ve got a great Football Manager CV and a degree in being reactionary, bloody twitter. Can we all try and be a little more objective and self aware, it’s all I ask.

SO BRING ON THE LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB 2012/2013 SEASON

Lets take a look at what we’ve got to look forward to:

Liverpool are back in Europe!

Lucas and Gerrard are likely to be fit for the start of the season!

The players we’ve bought have had a year to gel and are all improving!

We’ve got owners that seem to know what they’re doing, just look at our new kit sponsorship deal!

Players like Raheem Sterling, Jonjo Shelvey and Martin Kelly will get to show that our academy is breeding quality!

Stadium news will be good news one way or another!

Many lessons have been learnt on and off the field that will stand us in good steed.

And if none of that has convinced you that next year will be positive… well it can’t get any worse than this season! Can it?

Enjoy the summer Reds and try not to get to carried away with the possibility of us signing Lionel Messi amongst others.

 

YNWA

Ben Carr

@DoctorBenjy to follow me on twitter

 

@EOTKtv: #MONSTER | Luis Suarez | via @kLFCreds

Redmen TV : Swansea 1-0 Liverpool: Graham Goal Stuns the Reds

A Danny Graham goal was all that separated the sides as Swansea beat Liverpool 1-0 in the final game of the 2011/12 Season. In a game that Liverpool largely dominated they may feel aggrieved to have left the Liberty Stadium empty handed.

Crack the whip!

All Liverpool fans will look back at the 2011/12 season with mixed feelings. While Kenny seems content with what was achieved when he stated that “it was not a bad season”, adding more recently that “the transfer market always brings up surprises but what the surprises are going to be I can’t help you because I’m not clairvoyant. But what I can say is that we are not actively looking to move anyone out”, meaning that he is ultimately happy with the squad he helped forge last summer.

Recent events seem to portray a slightly different view coming from the ownership! Fenway Sports Group have shown their dismay by cracking the whip three times in the space of a few weeks, the highest profile casualty being Damien Comolli followed by Peter Brukner (Head of Sports Science), and more recently Ian Cotton, who was Director of Communications and had been with the Club for over 15 years! There persons which held very important posts. Whether the whip cracking will continue remains to be seen but there is no doubt that when heads start to roll it means that things are not right, if anything in the minds of those holding the whip!

Let’s face it: we won a domestic cup winning on penalties against a Championship side, which produced another piece of silverware for the cabinet and got us back into European football ‘through the back door’. Mind you, we ALL aspired for Champions League football. We all hoped last summer’s overhaul would give us the right impetus to get back amongst the Premier League’s elite, but it was not to be.

Question is: if we were so average at best this season, what’s going to happen next season when we will have to add Europa League football in the equation?

Our biggest flaw, in a nutshell, was our alarming inconsistency, made more evident by our inherent inability to convert the massive amount of chances. We imprecated luck because we hit the woodwork so many times, but then we were also ridiculously clumsy with all the penalties that came our way (Carling Cup final included) and which we so frustratingly did not convert.

The fact that we were ‘just not throwing it in the net’ was immediately evident and it was mind boggling to see that the Club did nothing to rectify the issue in the January window! Things went from bad to worse and post January we endured our worst league run in decades!

Kenny seems to be ‘safe’ from the whip, but the availability of the likes of Benitez, Capello and more recently Guardiola might be haunting his thoughts in the back of his mind. If Kenny is convinced that he has what it takes to move the Club forward the majority of fans would want him to stay, but if that is not the case then most of us would find it more elegant for him to make the first move because as much as this Club has unparalleled history and consideration, the owners see all this as an investment and as much as they might accept a slow progression, I am sure they will not accept any backward movement.

The question now is: have we remained stable, moved forward, or gone backward? We ALL know that the net spend on players has not been what the media proclaims it to be. In that respect, Fenway have been shrewd and balanced the expenditure with cunning. We have been very disappointing in the Premier League, but we have added silverware and we are back in Europe, so as much as we expected better, we have in fact, progressed, crawling at times, but progress we did!

Liverpool Football Club remains a dream club to play for, and will always attract top players, even though we need to come to terms with the fact that top players will want CL football. The Reds are already linked with a plethora of budding and established starts, and there are rumours that some players will effectively leave. Kenny said only Fabio Aurelio is on the way out but we all saw Maxi waving at Anfield. I suspect a few others will follow suit. My take on this is that a few players will opt to leave, and some will definitely be shipped out on loan, which would only mean that we will see new faces. With Europa League football on the cards, we need to add depth, quality and options, across the board!

Crack the whip Mr Henry!

p.s. Written before final defeat to Swansea this afternoon…….!

Liverpool lineup vs Swansea

Liverpool will be without Stevie G and Martin Skrtel today, they are injured. Pepe Reina has the day off.

Carra skippers the final game of the season.

Starting XI :Doni, Kelly, Carra, Agger, Johnson, Shelvey, Henderson, Downing, Maxi, Suarez, Carroll

Subs : Jones, Enrique, Coates, Kuyt, Spearing, Sterling, Belllamy

Follow the game live on Twitter @empireofthekop 

Liverpool Forever

Liverpool Forever

The anthem we sing upon the Kop

The Redmen we cheer year in year out

The joy they bring us the passion we show them

The trophies they have won us

The history they bring us is second to none

Great European nights

We have terrified the foreigners

5 European Cups

No other British team can match

Legends galore

From Liddell to Kenny to Stevie G

The list is endless

Great managers too, Shanks and Paisley

The boot room boys

All part of the tapestry that made Liverpool great

There have been dark times too

Heysel and Hillsborough our darkest days

Never to be forgotten

Made Liverpool stronger

The ups and the downs make Liverpool unique

We stick together through the tough times

As we showed to get those Cowboys out

And we celebrate the good times

Like when Shankley’s Red army brought back our first FA Cup in 65

And Sir Bob had us ruling Europe

King Kenny won the double

And Rafa made a nightmare into a dream come true in Istanbul

King Kenny is back now

And in true Liverpool fashion he has gave us many ups and downs

What a rollercoaster of a season

Poor in the league but 2 cup finals

And a trophy in the cabinet

Our first for a while

But with Kenny in charge

The future is Red

Liverpool forever