Being a Premier League Liverpool FC Fan - the horror, the horror
10/22/2017
It was 1990 when Liverpool last won the Premier League title, and it might as well have been 1890. For all the immense highs of what has occasionally happened since - such as winning the Champions League in 2005 and the famous treble under Gerard Houllier - disappointment has greeted many of the fans living through the seasons since the Premier League was founded. And today, after Spurs trounced us 4-1 at the hitherto less-than-fortress like Wembley, our sieve-like defence is under the microscope once again. It was a miserable face-off against a 'top 6' opponent, though at least we avoided the unwanted statistic of being hammered twice in such fixtures this season (the other was against Man City) by dint of us now actually slipping down to 9th.
Why do we not seem to know how to shut up shop? Why do we believe that 'attack breaking down followed by swift counter-attack leading to opposition goal is the best form of defence'? The Premier League is awash with money, yet ours seems to get spent on the areas that largely don't need improving. The coveted 4th position in the Premier League (the final Champions League qualification spot) is often mooted as the Holy Grail for a good-but-no-longer-great team like LFC. Yet the apparent attraction to world class players and spending power it supposedly provides doesn't quite seem to be happening. Perhaps this is oddly correct - I never quite understood how finishing 4th in a league could lead to high-fives from fans and yet winning 3 trophies plus a Charity Shield, as Houllier did, could be deemed a "plastic" achievement, though it doesn't make the dashing of newly-raised hopes any easier.
What hopes are there for the rest of the season? Knocked out of one cup, capable of winning 7-0 away in another before failing to put away their chances in another and having a run of 1 win in 8 games. Were there days like this back in the club's heyday of the 1970s and 1980s in particular? Of course. But the game's enormous financial revenue seems to have transformed it into a production in which, unlike the Manchester Cities, Uniteds and Chelseas, the likes of Liverpool only get the odd cameo. Then again Leicester City made their time in the spotlight count when they won the league at a canter 2 years ago, though at least they had a defence that you couldn't drain pasta with, Italian manager or not!
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