Welcome to Issue 256 of Red All Over The Land.
Circumstances meant I had to get this issue finished before the trip to Old Trafford. Therefore we can only mention the game briefly here. Easy to sum up the one-all draw. It was probably the worst we’ve played all year, but we deserved the point. VAR sadly dominated and the performance of referee Martin Atkinson was nothing short of a disgrace. Six points clear, still unbeaten.
When you get to a certain time in your life you can ignore a lot of the rubbish some of the pundits and journalists spout. Jürgen Klopp came to Liverpool a mere four years ago and we all know what’s been achieved since his arrival. For some to say we should be achieving more is almost infantile – stupid maybe? Liverpool’s past weighs heavy on the shoulders of the current regime and despite not winning the league for nigh on thirty years we’re only two behind the club with the most titles and a fair few ahead of the rest. We remain the country’s leading trophy winner.
What some experts ignore is where our club was when FSG took over just nine years ago. We were almost finished and that’s no exaggeration. There’s no point in stating the obvious, we know the club was being bled dry. FSG are learning from their mistakes. They took unpopular decisions like firing Kenny but they took a bold decision when hiring Jürgen Klopp. Since his appointment we’ve lost a final against Manchester City on penalties, a final we were not expected to win. We possibly should have done better against Sevilla in the Europa Final but losing in Kiev against still the most powerful club in the world and then pushing the games current richest club to the wire in an unprecedented league race doesn’t have even a hint of failure to me. Winning the European title last season was reward for the efforts of all connected with our Club. We’re not perfect but we weren’t perfect when Shanks, Bob, Joe, and Kenny were around either. I feel some clubs are simply investing in the present; I feel Liverpool are investing in the present and in the future.
At the time of putting the final touches of this issue together, events in Bulgaria were dominating the headlines. It’s too easy to say it shouldn’t be happening in the game because it is happening and following the war of words between the English FA and the Bulgarian FA was anybody actually surprised? It seemed as if the authorities were just waiting for it to go off and then you hear UEFA will wait for the official reports to come in before they decide what action to take – crass incompetence all round. Racism along with violence before matches doesn’t mean football has returned to the dark ages because it never left them. UEFA and FIFA are simply not fit to govern the game; that’s fact. Our own FA aren’t any different.
Well this Fanzine has relocated to Upton by Chester and it’s been a little on the frantic side but hopefully things are slowly returning to normal only don’t ask me to define normal please. This issue is scheduled to be on sale until the visit from the Sheiks of Mancunia and there’s another International break following that game. By then we may have a little more insight into how our season is really going. In the meantime just leave things to Jürgen and let’s hope we have him for another four years…at least.
JJP: Wondering if Football Pundits live on a street called sorrow?