Feeling Blue

Hello again all. I'm sure if you are a Liverpool fan anywhere in the world you'll still be feeling the disappointment over yesterdays FA Cup final defeat to Chelsea. It's really a case of what might have been which makes the defeat even worse. If the players had turned up for the whole game not just the last half hour we would have won the game easily. There were just too many of them who were not at the races in the first half which Gerrard and Suarez could not negate for them. Fair play to Chelsea, they deserved it just about, but their performance was average at best and to be honest that's all they had to be for the first hour.

I suppose one crumb of comfort to take from this game is that Andy Carroll is finally starting to look like the striker we actually bought at great expense from Newcastle. Probably angry at being left on the bench, he looked like a man possessed when he went on and suddenly Liverpool starting playing. His goal was a very good one and he continued to terrorise the Chelsea defence for the rest of the evening. And of course he was about a few millimetres and a Petr Cech hand away from becoming an immediate Kop legend. If can now reproduce that on a weekly basis from now on, there's no reason why he cannot become a influential figure in the Liverpool and a regular England international. He's only 23 so there is plenty of time.

Just to clarify on the goal line decision, I think it was over but you couldn't definitively tell either way so the linesman made the right call. The TV replays were inconclusive so if anyone says they showed clearly it went over or not either is quite frankly either blind or is just trying to stir an argument!

Returning to the bigger picture, there is no doubt that Liverpool's season has been disappointing and not good enough. 8th in the league (Shocking), Carling Cup Winners (Season highlight) and FA Cup runners up (Disappointing) is not what we should be aiming for. Some of the players (Henderson and Downing I'm looking at you especially) need to take a hard look at themselves over the summer and decide whether to bring it next season or get out. We can't be carrying passengers now. Not after this season. There is no doubt in my mind that new players are desperately needed. Even with the players that are not performing to their abilities, the squad is not good enough to be certain of top 4 and nowhere near ending the 22 years of not winning a league title.

At the moment a lot of other team’s fans are laughing at our seasons failings. The old Liverpool (not just in the 80s but only just this century) would quickly shut them up the next season by kicking the absolute shit out of them and go and win the major honours. I can't see this being the case at the moment with the current crop. Anfield along with the terrible form there has been reduced to just any home ground, this season it certainly hasn't exerted the passion and fear it used to. Perhaps European Football is needed to regain Anfield's sparkle and as we are in the Europa League next season because of our Carling Cup win we shall have the opportunity to do just that.

Moving to a more financial footing, but sticking with the issue of Anfield, it is clear now that we desperately need a new stadium. United, City, Arsenal and now perhaps in a few years Chelsea are making so much money simply from the fact that they have the stadium capacity to get more bums on seats. In turn, along with the money the Champions League provides, that gives them more money to spend on a variety of thing and that includes quality players. Now Liverpool is on a much more stable financial footing since FSG took over in late 2010 when administration was looming. But progress must now be made on getting a new ground built or redeveloping and enlarging Anfield, otherwise we will be left further behind than we are already.

Finally, there is something that I'm 100% certain of and that is the future of the manager. Kenny Dalglish answered our SOS in January last year when there was the real prospect of a relegation battle and he led us to 6th only a few points behind Spurs and a further few behind Man City. Of course he has made mistakes this year, nothing more clearly than his handling of the Luis Suarez affair and his signings haven't worked out but most people will admit that he at least before the terrible run at the end of the season that he got Liverpool playing performance wise reasonably well. Of course he would point out that even if half of the 30 times we have hit the woodwork this term had been goals we'd be right in the fight for top 4. He has also brought stability and unity to a club that was fractured during the end of the Benitez reign and the final days of Hicks and Gillett. Everyone knows where they stand with him and will play for him.

So now is not the time to wield the axe when he will know that this season has gone wrong and I bet that he will know where to put it right for next season. As usual there is the tendency in football these days for immediate results, and opposition fans of course are saying he should be sacked now, when if it was happening in their club they'd be moaning about constant changes of manager. John Barnes put it perfectly this morning on the radio:

"If there is a club who will support a situation it will be Liverpool. There will not be a kneejerk reaction," he told BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek.

"People are too quick to change managers and demand instant success. If a new manager comes in and says 'I need £200m to spend because this team is not good enough', and if that does not work and a new manager comes in, there has to be a point where a club says 'it has not worked but we have to stick with this until it becomes apparent that it definitely is not going to work'. One year, or six months, is not a long enough period of time".

Of course next season, getting into the top 4 is a must and if he can't achieve that then it will be time to say thank you but no thank you. For now though we Liverpool fans must stick with him and support him. We owe him too much to abandon him now. Dalglish held a whole City together at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and only a few weeks later led Liverpool to an FA Cup victory. Perhaps he is living off the brownie points he acquired in his first stint at the club, either way it doesn't matter, that is more than enough to merit a second bite at the cherry. Not many people remember that he is one of the select few managers which include Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho and Ancellotti (Possibly Mancini soon) that have actually won the Premier League.

So all in all, just to add a bit of humour to this mainly miserable article, Liverpool are a club that are "still standing" but are struggling to be "stayin' alive" at without new signings, new investment into infrastructure then we could be staring into the wilderness for some time.

Ah well could be worse. Could be a Wolves fan! ;)