Commitment crumbles in Eastern Europe

There was a point in the match in St Petersburg last night where the ball was pulled back to Stewart Downing after Jordan Henderson was unable to get his shot away. The likelihood is that the shot would have probably not gone in or blocked by a Zenit player near his goal. Downing actually got to the shot and it would be fair to say got about 40-50% of the desirable contact when a ball comes out to you 6 yards from goal.

It wasn’t this that bothered me, the weak contact bit. It was the feeble attempt he made at trying to get to the ball. It was the jump he made after half striking the ball that any girl playing hopscotch or jumping over their skipping rope in the playground would be proud of.

Liverpool were 2-0 down at this point, about 85 minutes into the match on a pitch my local referee’s would deem have deemed ‘shocking’ even for a Sunday morning game. They needed that away goal to give them a chance at Anfield in the return fixture. As you may well know now, that scoreline stayed at 2-0, and now Liverpool are left with a bit of a mountain to climb, and it feels like Mount Everest with the way they played the rest of that second half after going 1-0 down.

What I’m doing in this article is something I rarely do as a fan, as I believe in trying to take the positives from any game, I believe in not letting the frustration of losing or drawing get the better of me. I often say to myself that there’s time to improve, that the team will come back the next game fighting harder than ever before to make whatever it is they’ve done wrong previously. Not today.

What I’m doing Mr Enrique, Mr Henderson, Mr Sterling, Mr Allen, Mr Johnson and Miss Downing is calling you out. I’m asking in what realm of footballing performance was that. At what point in that last half an hour warrants those 300 fans not to turn up to Melwood at some point today and ask you personally for their money back in what I imagine was a £1500 trip to a country that is essentially a freezer. A freezer they had to stand in for 2 hours, singing their hearts out about players, matches and stories of days gone by, and watch you crawl to a 2-0 defeat without even making a quarter of the effort us as Liverpool fans expect from you. Tell me, does what you earn weekly warrant the percentage of effort you put in? If that’s the case then you all need a serious reality check.



You will be wondering why I’m not calling out Gerrard or Carragher or Suarez (although he missed some INEXCUSABLE chances last night). It’s because next week, when once again our 12th man will attempt to come to your rescue and literally push you towards that Zenit goalmouth, those are the 3 players who will more likely than not be the players who make the important tackle, pass the decisive ball or clinch the goal that matters. And lets face it, Gerrard and Carragher have done enough already, you haven’t.

If by some miracle somebody sends this on to your twitter account or posts it through your door, this isn’t just I telling you this, this is thousands of frustrated fans sick of believing that Liverpool are the ‘team very much starting and growing again’, a phrase I’m frankly sick of hearing. This may well be the case, and I’m very aware we have fallen by the wayside recently, but that doesn’t mean to say when you go 2-0 down in Russia you suddenly drop your commitment levels.

I’m by no means claiming I’m an expert in all fields of football here, I don’t see you all in training, I don’t work with you everyday and see the camaraderie between you all and I most certainly don’t possess the footballing ability you have, but I am someone who, as young as I am, have supported this club for longer than you ever will and will continue to long after you’ve got your final pay check and jetted off into the sunshine.

And I, along with all the other reds, young and old, expect more. I didn’t grow up listening to all the tales of Emlyn Hughes and Graeme Souness flying into tackles and throwing everything including the kitchen sink into every single minute of every single game. And I imagine our modern Souness, Jamie Carragher, doesn’t want his career and what will be his 100th European appearance to dwindle out with a mere puff of smoke. Someone of that calibre doesn’t deserve that and I’m very anxious that this will happen.



So read your books, watch your videos, stay behind for an extra hour after training, stop talking to the media about how you’ve worked so incredibly hard to break into the team and how you’ve always loved Liverpool and its fans and actually go and do something about it. The stage is all there for you, ready and waiting. Anfield, the Kop, 45000 people, millions watching around the world, 2-0 down with 3 to get, a couple of tricky Brazilians and a hefty goal bonus. Walk on that pitch and stick your foot, head, elbow and neck into anything that tries to get past you. Sweat buckets till your 6 stone piss wet through and maybe you’ll get the adulation these fans want to give you, and maybe you’ll walk off that pitch to a standing ovation.

Liverpool stutter yet again...

Liverpool stutter yet again...

The game against West Bromwich Albion last night was a chance for Liverpool to continue on from all the positives taken from the two recent and impressive away games at Arsenal and Man City. So much was said about how Liverpool had performed maturely and in a disciplined manner at two of the toughest away grounds in the Premier League. Disappointingly, they failed to capitalise on what was a great opportunity to close the gap on Everton to 3 points and give Tottenham a worried look over their shoulder as we move into the last few months of the league.

I’d go as far to say that the chase for fourth is now over and a struggle for sixth is now on the cards. As hard as that is to accept, when games like this aren’t finished off, that is the underlining fact.

The momentum for Liverpool going into this game was brilliant. A feel good factor has been up and down around Anfield this season with our inconsistent results but it was growing again due to the week previous.

The game itself was dominated by Liverpool, but all credit must go to West Brom for their smash and grab performance which their pocketful of fans based in the Lower Anfield end delightfully took back to the midlands with those hardened Brummy smiles.
Mulumbu and Yacob for me were the pick of the bunch. They guarded the defence with great composure and used the ball well when they won it back, with the possession game of Liverpool not being as successful of late thanks to those two as well as third middle man, James Morrison.

Brendan Rodgers said after the game of the ‘setback’ this has caused and how the ‘effort was terrific, but the ball never fell for us’. I’m not one to look to criticise the major specificities on a regular basis but when that ball fell for Borini, you hit that with you left, not kick it away from goal with your right.

The chances came, there’s no doubting that and many raised the issue of Sturridge being injured as a reason for Liverpool not taking the points. Correct me if I’m wrong but prior to this 26th game of the season Liverpool were playing, we had played another 25 right? Sturridge’s impact has been fantastic and the new system with him up top and Suarez behind in the free role is beginning to have an impact but when one player gets injured that doesn’t mean we can’t play the other systems that have gotten the reds within touching distance of the Champions League places.

This wasn’t a result because one player was missing, this was the score line it was because the players who are expected to deliver the quality expected for a game like this, did not do that. Jonjo Shelvey has found himself out of the frame since a couple of disappointing performances over the Christmas period and he had his chance last night. He almost looked like he wasn’t sure where he was playing and his touch seemed a little jaded in the early stages which set the tone for the rest of his night.

Furthermore, Johnson and Enrique produced their most disappointing showing all season. The flowing pass and move sequences they have created down their sides of the field, particularly Johnson, seemed to stutter last night. This was partly due to West Brom’s resolute defending but with Enrique’s strength and speed as well as Johnson’s persistence in going forward, I would have expected more from them last night.

Without Sturridge, Liverpool were previously successful at winning at home, with wins against Fulham and Sunderland respectively in the past few weeks. You’d go as far to argue that at the time Sunderland arrived at Anfield they were on the up, and after a tough Christmas. They’d beaten Man City at home, came out of a tricky test away at Southampton with a 1-0 victory thanks in part to in form Steven Fletcher and been narrowly beaten by a top quality Tottenham display at the Stadium of Light.

West Brom’s visit to Anfield came with their current record standing at six games without a win, five of which they has lost. They walked onto a pitch which so often in games like this has a hill, rolling steeply down towards the Kop end (metaphorically, not literally), and no matter how many teams played with 10 or 11 men behind the ball, Liverpool would always find a way through. Last night that hill made an appearance but for some reason the ball rolled the other way into Pepe Reina’s net and the red men were left to stand to rue the copious amounts of chances they potentially could have put away but never.

At the moment it feels like 2 steps forward and 2 steps back, jiggling in between that mediocre 8th and 9th position nobody wants to be in. Games like last night were once the reason Rafa Benitez’s 2008/09 Liverpool team lost the Premier League that season. They feel just as disappointing, if not more disappointing than results against Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham and often leave our heads scratching more.

It’s a tough result to take, particularly because it’s the result that almost certainly rules us out of challenging for the coveted 4th spot and it also leaves us questioning future games at home against teams like West Brom, games were a win should be the outcome.

Swansea are up next, a team arguably better than the Albion and with one of the in form strikers of the Premier League in Michu . Let’s hope Brendan Rodgers can do to his old team what Steve Clarke did to his old team last night. I’d take that smash and grab right about now, wouldn’t you?

Borussia Dortmund- Success as a club and a business

"It is a true team built from a club’s youth system with a young manager, rather than assembled hastily with the riches of one shady boardroom figure. Their rebirth has come about from financial caution, and sensible, long term planning, both on and off the field. It is difficult to imagine a similar story unfolding in the free for all world of the Premier League. There, debt is covered up with more debt."

There are certain teams that pass you by as a football fan, certain teams you admire for a game or two, when it’s their time in the limelight on a bitter January night, mid-week, for an F.A Cup replay. There are certain teams you talk about, whether that is a reason to loathe them or respect them. Certain teams you pay no attention to at all, because there is nothing different about them, nothing about them that goes against the grain of modern football.

A team who do not fall into the above paragraphs category is current Bundesliga champions, Borussia Dortmund. So impressed have I been with this club in recent times that I spent 2 and a half hours watching YouTube clips of just their fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-KNLfhsCs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZnUlEJFPjs

Dortmund’s rise to the top hasn’t been pretty, it’s only recently that they have found stability, gained respect from Europe’s elite and balanced their books so well their piggy bank cracks open a healthy profit. They are a force to be reckoned with, and a business model to be studied and adhered to.

They began life 1909 and have since gone on to win 8 German championships, three German cups and one Champions league title. Their first league title came in 1956 and then 10 years later in 1966 they became the first German club to win a European title, winning the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool at Hampden Park.

The 1970’s will be remembered as a time of financial difficulty for the club which also saw there relegation in 1972, the opening of their stadium the Westfalenstadion in 1974 and then a return to the Bundesliga in 1976. A golden period in the 1990’s followed with 2 league titles in 1995 and 1996 respectively before their 1997 Champions League final win against Juventus which saw none other than Aston Villa’s present manager Paul Lambert take an assist as well as keeping the irrepressible Zinedine Zidane quiet during a memorable 3-1 victory.

Last year Dortmund won the Bundesliga for the second time in two years, asserting their dominance in German football once more. They also asserted themselves in the record books too. They broke the point’s record in the Bundesliga by gaining 81 points in 34 league matches as well as going 28 games consecutively without losing, another record. Furthermore they have the youngest squad in the Bundesliga, a young squad that also boasts the fairest playing team in the league, and, just to add to that jar of ever growing jealousy many fans must be getting, their average attendance stands at 80 521, the highest in Germany and Europe.

Dortmund’s financial side has also improved vastly since near collapse in 2005. Their revenue has almost doubled in the last two years from £103million in 2010 to £199million in 2012. This is due to the increase in the TV pool for German teams and Dortmund have saw their revenue increase threefold from 21million Euro’s to 60 million in the last 2 years.

If we look further into their finances, in particularly their Champions League earnings for this season, Dortmund are set to earn a minimum of 41.8 Euros thanks to getting to the last 16 as well as topping their group. If they were to go on to the final and win, their potential earnings can rocket to around 80 million euros (including ticketing for home matches). This shows around an 50million Euro increase from last season when they exited at the group stage. Enough of the stats because Dortmund, basically, are in dreamland.

This further highlights the Bundesliga’s increased reputation and growing revenue. Tim Rich of The Independent said of the Bundesliga in general that it ‘enjoys the largest football economy in the world. They carry less debt, produce more profit, their stadiums are fuller and their ticket prices lower than any other major league’ (an average of £15 compared to £41 for the Premier League).

Dortmund’s morals seem also to have followed their growing success, when asked if City’s owner Sheikh Mansour, ever wanted to invest in Dortmund, the clubs managing director Hans Joachim Watzke, said he would refuse to meet him and remarked, “We want to keep our soul”. An admirable answer in front of Dortmund’s ever growing media spotlight.

The idea that another club, another set of fans, another teams way of play on the football pitch is better than the team I follow used to be absurd to me. As football fans we are often fickle and narrow minded towards our opinions. At times we waver from what is true and what is real. Growing up Liverpool was this perfect ideal, this perfect institution that everybody should bow down to, should appreciate. Reality kicks in, as does adulthood, and along with adulthood, for most anyway, comes level headedness.

Without meaning to stir some petty fan banter, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some of the best atmospheres in any stadium in Europe as a Liverpool fan. Teams often have devout fans whose inner circle of support is one to be admired and Liverpool’s falls into that category. But I can honestly say that this club and these fans are the best I’ve ever seen. To get a mix of such passionate fans coupled with one of the best teams in Europe in the most up and coming league on this planet is a rarity, and something I’ve felt compelled to write about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwcWccVrXZw

The last 16 comes next for Dortmund, something they have been rather unfamiliar of in recent times. Since their victory over Juventus for European glory in 1997 they have fell short of the high expectations a competition like the Champions League demands. With their league fortunes stuttering somewhat this season, a run in the knock out stages could well stamp their authority on Europe further.

Every team, every league and every country has their own culture, their own way of doings things when it comes to the life sentence of supporting your team. But this growing institution, this global brand whose motto “Echte Liebe” (True Love) is a statement as proud as any mother is with their children, whose 80 000+ capacity Signal Iduna stadium is so overwhelming the shivers down your spine would turn to full on cold sweats and whose fans are so passionate that I challenge anyone to rival them when it comes to stadium, fans and success. This holy trinity, is truly the definition of “Echte Liebe”.