Amazing how a good run can perk up the spirits on a blog. Last Wednesday, business prevented me from watching the Sunderland match and I started to read the comments on the blog around midnight needing to find out how we played. It seems we did OK.
Chiefy even provided a link to the video highlights and I am indebted to him. Keef was so buoyed by the win that he abandoned his sulk and dropped in for a chat. Bless him.
If you want match analysis then it has to be Damo’s or Doc’s or JPA’s or ak's or kohoutek’s or other notables bloggers who publish their thoughts here. I’m only any good if you want some sly invective on the frailties of the personalities involved in the circus that football’s become, so, beyond saying that our win over a very determined Stoke was extremely heartening, I’ll leave the football to my betters.
So what am I doing here?
It’s the Waiter. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.. He spends and spends and nothing changes. He’s brought a full back who can’t defend and a midfielder who can’t get fit. And he keeps losing matches. And the plot. I hope God forgives me for even thinking such thoughts but watching a football manager go insane in slow motion, in public, is blinding entertainment.
"I can guarantee we will finish in the top four." Did he really say that? I’ve touched on this topic before and I’m probably becoming boring, but I can’t leave it alone. This is tragedy in the Shakespearean idiom. Great men and great institutions brought to ruin by a human flaw. Between them, Hicks, Gillett and Benitez will demolish Liverpool FC. As if one wasn’t enough, that’s three human flaws.
What’s the Waiter’s flaw? Paranoia. Last season he began to demonstrate the mental infirmity that now characterises his daily life: He gave us a fairly regular diatribe against the football gods, the football match officials, the football authorities and the football manager “Meeester Ferguson”. It was all a vast conspiracy designed to rob him of his destiny.
After the Portsmouth defeat, Rafa threw a complete wobbler. It was hypnotic. It was always going to be a difficult interview and if he’d had any brains he’d have swerved it, but the Waiter was on a mission – he needed to tell the world about the conspiracies. Benitez shuffled in the corner in that peculiar fashion of his, waiting to reveal his terrible secret. You just knew it was going to be funny. The questions were irrelevant; Rafa was ready to indict the guilty and tell to the world the details of the great conspiracy.
'The referee was “perfect”, Mascherano never fouled anyone, and our season starts with the next match.' The words tumbled out and it was clear his sanity was on the edge – the manager of a Sky 4 club was coming unglued as we watched.
At least, last year, when everyone could see he was crackers, he could have been dismissed cheaply. Now, reportedly, it will cost £20 million. You have to question the sanity of Gillett and Hicks for giving the Waiter his new contract. This medieval Elizabethan drama is almost better than the football.
Sublime, absolutely sublime – I make no apologies for delighting in this. Liverpool Football Club is destined for receivership since only Champions League football can sustain the wage bill.
And now we’ve lost Sparky. The great and the good in football’s media world have come out in sympathy and it’s turned my stomach. Some of the clowns have even opined that young potential managers will be deterred from coming into management because of the need to achieve results when spending £200 million of the owner’s money. These armchair pundits are utterly clueless – if the Sparkys’ of this world aren’t sacked, how are others ever going to get a chance? If you supported Man City, who would you rather have, Hughes or Mancini?
The management merry-go-round is all part of the circus, anyway. Feed ‘em to the lions, I say. Actually, if you fed The Special One to the lions my money would be on Mourinho. But then, I love the bloke - brass balls and charismatic. Forget the football, make him the Prince of Wales.
Scratch that – make him King of England. What do we do with the Windsors? Take them to the Coliseum and give the lions a light lunch. Not Prince Harry, of course. Harry’s a geezer and a proper person. Come to think of it, he’d probably make a great football manager. That’s it then: Churchill’s Liverpool solution – sack the Waiter and appoint Henry Windsor. He’d then be called ‘Arry Windsor. Job done.
I digress.
The footballing Gods destroyed Leeds because, under Don Revie, Leeds tried to destroy football. Now they amuse themselves with Liverpool. Their greatness will become a memory and their achievements will be surpassed by Manchester United. How terribly sad.