You will all remember this season…

A wise old man was on the phone to me last night, pontificating about the fact that football is on ten months a year.

This article was written by ‘El Campeador’. It does not necessarily represent the views of LFCGlobe.com.

“Win, lose, get your arse handed to you: you always know there’s a game on once a week. Sometimes, we have 2 games a week. And if we’re really lucky, we’ve 3 matches in 8 days,” he proclaimed, as if he never wanted to get off the train, no matter how shaky the ride became.

We all know what sacrifices that ride demands of us: every day of our lives, we bay at our next enemy, arranging our lives around that ninety spellbinding minutes of royal red gliding upon glorious green.

There’s no getting off this train. Matches come, and matches go, and as Liverpool supporters, we’re blessed to win more than our fair share of them. Our history is full of legendary tales of legendary victories, stunning cup triumphs, and thumpings of our fiercest rivals. Mostly, though, our club’s seasons are remembered for the number of scalps we collect, as opposed to statistical anomalies.

Not this season, though. You will remember this season for another reason – this winless rut. Years from now, you’ll remember players being carted off (or sent off) two at a time. You’ll remember the pressure of the press screaming “One win in 6, 7, 8, 9″, as the kitchen got hotter and hotter. You’ll remember the beach ball. You’ll remember the journey from “dead hard to beat” to “can’t buy a win.” You’ll remember Alonso and Hyypia abandoning ship.

In the meantime, football will continue. Saturdays will come and go, and the more Saturdays pass, the more we will revert to our long term trend of winning matches, caning teams, and stuffing the trophy cabinet. Personally, I think this team is too good, and our luck too bad, to not see a reversal in the next few fixtures. And when that reversal comes, it would tend to be better than average – the steeper the fall, the higher the gain, to maintain our winning traditions.

When the randomness stops taking the piss, when beach balls disappear, when our players stop clattering into concussions and broken jaws, when we stop carting off 2 players a game, when we stop having to pray to Serbian witch doctors, we’ll revert back to our winning ways. It will happen, you know. This isn’t a broken organization with substandard talent. This is the most successful team in English football history. Even when we’re off, we bring back trophy hauls most clubs dare not dream of.

And when we do go back to our own statistical norm, when our potential world class left footed ball controlling centre back plays more than a few games in a row, when our captain and our most talented striker dovetail for an extended period of time, when our crowd favourite winger regains his long term form, when our right back dances down the line, when our promising centre midfielder comes into his own, when our exciting new signing is fit, we will win. As we usually do. As we have done.

You will remember this season. You will remember your own attitude towards this season. You will remember whether you called for the cutting of your own nose to spite your face. You will remember whether you examined each individual decision or took the easy route of wielding a large brush. You will remember if you backed your players or called for their heads. You will remember if you quit.

It’s not every day we look like we can’t buy a win. Never have we followed up such dominance as to put 4 goals past Madrid, United (away), Arsenal, Chelsea (away) and Villa with such a whimpering follow-up in the same calendar year. This is a statistical anomaly; it’s the odds Gods taking the piss. This isn’t explained away simplistically as faults by “the manager”.

It’s like holding Aces, flopping trips, and losing to a straight. It happens. But you don’t look at a 4th minute attacking sequence like the one against City at home, and give up, thrashing out and blaming everyone in sight. You say “good hand”, swallow your bitterness at their godforsaken luck, and play the next hand the same way, because you know you played it right the first time. Most times you’ll win. Sometimes, you won’t.

On Saturday against City, we were positive before we kicked off. Rafa sang. We attacked the Kop first to bury them before they had a chance to get in the game (which those accusing Rafa of negative tactics once again fail to note). We had a great start, delivered a great chance on goal, which Given fingered away. Some years, the spin on the ball would have favoured the right direction, it into the net, pulled like a magnet into the Kop. This year, not only did the spin bounce away, not only did we not score, the follow-up, but we lost Agger, carted off in pools of blood, in the 4th minute. And to be honest, we probably weren’t surprised. Were we?

We’re in hell, gentlemen. You will remember this season.

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