By Marianne
(also known on twitter as @spartagius)
Where does one begin? Never in my life would I have thought I would have been sat at work refreshing twitter every minute to follow yesterdays rat race. I knew in my heart Torres would be gone , but what would anyone do about it?
I remember the reason why I became a Liverpool supporter, it’s silly but my favorite spice girl was in red, and boasted about a team named Liverpool and at the ripe age of 12 ( I am 26 now) I ate everything up and I was hooked. I dove into my research about the club 18 leagues and 5 European cups, the boot room, the legends (Rushie, the King, Clemence, Keegan, Barnes to name just a few), and the supporters. As a fan from the United States sometimes it’s hard to get that connection with a team, especially one that isn’t in your country, one that you cannot easily get in a car, a bus, or a train to see play. But I remember the first time I watched a game broadcast live on TV from Anfield and I remember thinking what was that noise? Are these supporters really this loud and proud? They are, and they should be and I wanted to be part of it, I was beginning to feel how they felt, connected as one voice. I have yet to bask in the joy of seeing our boys lift the Premiership Cup but I know I will, the feeling is different this time, the King is back and soon Liverpool will be back where they belong.
Just thinking back on the past few years, how low our club has felt with Hicks and Gillette all but truly running our club into the ground, with no money for players, no new stadium, with our only consolation were two goons that didn’t know anything about the beautiful game. But somehow we still found a fight two seasons back the closest we got to winning the Premier League only to come in second to Man United. After that season the fall finally started taking shape with Alonso gone it was a big loss. Benitez failed to find and replace a maestro in midfield, and with our performance last season, I was convinced Benitez’s time was up. I know he wasn’t given many resources, but to then buy an injured Aquillani, it didn’t seem like the right answer. The players looked unmotivated with Torres and Gerrard’s sulking the most evident, I felt there was no inspiration coming from Benitez something when you looked at those players faces, they really needed. So Benitez sacked. Roy in. Club sold. A bad run of results and then Roy out. King Kenny in.
King Kenny in my opinion was the answer, you couldn’t pick a better person, he’s been there, he’s won, he understands Liverpool, he is a TRUE Red, there could be no greater inspiration for this current set of players. A patchy start with a questionable loss to Man U thanks to Howard Webb, but things have picked up the boys are getting their confidence back. Hence the confusion when Torres handed in a transfer request, to Chelsea no less, a few days before the transfer window closed and with the club just securing Suarez’s signature. This from a man who always preached his loyalty to Liverpool, whose armband really proved that he was a Red, who was adored by the Kop, how could this be? But it wasn’t my imagination, Torres had turned his back to us, and with the ups and downs of yesterday proved he wasn’t a true Red. Torres is NOT bigger than this club, Torres doesn’t need to be here if he doesn’t want to be in a Red shirt. His comments last night in his first Chelsea interview made my heart sink, it was almost as if Liverpool didn’t exist that we weren’t “a top club” as now that he was at Chelsea he could play for one. But credit to the new owners for opening up their pockets and at the last minute we were able to get a class signing in Andy Carroll. There were laughs among Chelsea and Man U fans that we had wasted so much money on him, but I say let that be a warning, they should instead see the owners aren’t afraid to open their wallets that we will rebuild, we can move on without Fernando Torres. I’m sorry for Suarez that his arrival was overshadowed by Torres’s exit, and I hope we will be singing El Pistolero’s name on the Kop. Andy Carroll at such a young age will also hope to prove a great striker as he grows here at Anfield with King Kenny watching over him. Also overlooked was Ryan Babel’s exit, though he never did quite mold into the team, he gave us some memorable goals, and his comments on twitter said it all, that he loved the way of life here, that YNWA couldn’t have been a better anthem and that Liverpool supporters were special, that he was happy to play here and Ryan Babel you should know that even though you are playing for Hoffenheim You Will Never Walk Alone. As so this, a new chapter in Liverpool life, can only end with one quote from Bill Shankly himself “My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Napoleon had that idea. He wanted to conquer the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable, to build the club up and up until everyone would have to submit.”