by Brian Reece
twitter @oldfattoad
On the 13th August 2011 the Barclays Premiership began and so did the dreams of millions of supporters worldwide, hopes of glory and success where beaming within the Anfield faithful and the optimism has never been greater.
Will this be the year that Liverpool reclaim their place within the European upper class and finally become the challengers that we once where, or would this just be a false dawn of disenchantment and frustration.
Well for the first 45 minutes I had to say the performance was superb, the second 45 was disappointing to say the least, but in comparison to other results around the Premiership on the opening day I could not really complain a great deal, Chelsea was goalless as was Arsenals, so in the grand scale of things this result as disappointing and annoying as it was, is not the disaster that many on the social network sites had initially been reporting.
After the game had finished it was alarming to see and hear fans blaming individuals and even Dalglish for the way the match had unfolded, but in the light of day many questions must be asked by Dalglish of his players but most importantly of himself, did he make the right decisions at some pinnacle moments of the match?.
I am not hear to criticise Dalglish or any of the players who played in Saturdays match in any way, that’s for the readers to debate, but some of the choices in my opinion could and should have been better such as why play Henderson from the start and why wasn’t Maxi included in the squad? All of these issues am sure Dalglish will see and re-examine to find a proper solution.
One player who came in for abundance of mostly unfair criticism was Flanagan who in my opinion wasn’t that bad, yes he made a mistake which lead to the equaliser, but there are better and more experienced players out there who have made a mistake which has proved much more devastating and had more of an impact on his team than what Flanagan did on Saturday.
Flanagan is a fantastic young prospect who will become a brilliant player for Liverpool in a matter of time, so for some fans to ridicule the young player are simply outrageous and moronic.
Our first half performance was outstanding, it looked like the match could have been all over within the first half but for the crossbar and some luck for Sunderland, every Liverpool fan was looking forward to the second half, but when it arrived most of us wished it simply hadn’t, we didn’t play with the same conviction of the first and when you allow any team to fight back in the premiership they will.
One thing Liverpool fans must realise is that its only the first game of the season and if you look at it in an intelligent way how many times have we won the first game of the season in the last 10 years? We cannot think that just because we have Dalglish at the helm and have signed some new players that we can steamroller every team we come up against, it’s simply not going to happen, we have to walk the beaten path of the premiership and trust in the management and players we have.
We can finish in the top four and we can win silverware this year but we cannot really believe that because we have drawn our first game of the season that we can start calling for heads in the first week of the season, over the last few years Liverpool have had idiotic owners, signed overpaid players, hired a complete managerial buffoon and been the joke of European football so being in financial stability with owners who wish to spend money to enhance the team’s performance so that we are in a place to challenge and having a knowledgeable manager who understands the club and the fans sounds like an opinion I would like to keep thanks very much.
I believe Dalglish made a firm statement about some players on Saturday, the likes of Aquilani, Cole and Polusen seem surplus to requirements and the managers actions echoed by Liverpool legend David Fairclough who said that “Aquilani cannot hack it in the premiership” words I have longed to hear from someone else other than me, well I now ask all the Aquilani band to write to John Henry and Kenny Dalglish to vent your anger and question their judgement..I dare you
I honestly believe Liverpool will most certainly be better than last season simply because we have the right management team in place from owners to manager, Liverpool fans must ask questions and show their concerns on whatever they feel, otherwise how are we suppose to debate issues that affect our great club, but more importantly we must never make other fans views seem insignificant or unimportant simply on the basis that we don’t agree with them, we are lucky that we support a club that’s supported in every corner of the world, don’t lose that support though ignorance.