Horse 2724 - When To Write Off Liverpool's Season

Officially, today; as League Champion!

I have never before written that in a blog post because I haven't been able to.
The last time that Liverpool won the league was back in 1990. In 1990, I was 11 years old, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK, the first Gulf War hadn't happened, virtually nobody had the internet, and Rupert Murdoch and Alan Sugar hadn't yet bought football's soul before selling back the husk to the fans for millions of pounds.

If there ever was an object lesson in patience, then Liverpool fans are it. We have seen many false dawns, I have written many annual pieces on when to write off the league, and even when Liverpool had stretched out a 25 point margin that still wasn't enough to make anything sure at all. Having previously been on track to win the league on the earliest date in a league season, the arrival of COVID-19 meant that all of that could have come to naught but instead with football being resumed, Liverpool now have the honour of winning the league on the latest date ever.

I think that it is fair to say that although this particular Liverpool side has some very good players, it is still not made up of the absolute stellar tier. There are better strikers than Mo Salah, there are better midfielders than Jordan Henderson, and there are better defenders than Virgil van Dijk. A great deal of the reason why this team has won the league is because of Jurgen Klopp who has somehow managed to capture lightning in a bottle.
Jurgen Klopp isn't like previous managers who have won the league for Liverpool like Kenny Dalgleish, Joe Fagan or Bob Paisley, but rather he is more of the ilk of Shankly. Klopp gives the impression in interviews that he does the job, not because he necessarily wants to win titles but because he genuinely loves watching football. Even during this week when asked what he thought about Manchester City playing Chelsea he said: "I like to watch them play because they play attractive football. We aren't them and we don't play like them but they are fun to watch." I know that it is very easy to make those kinds of statements when you are winning but he has been at Liverpool for five years and even when the team has failed on the pitch, he still gives the impression that he thinks that he has one of the best jobs in the world because he is up close to watch football.

Earlier in the week, Liverpool comprehensively beat Crystal Palace 4-0, in a match in which they displayed why they are now league champion. Each of the four goals was like finding a new way to tear apart a Christmas present; and the third goal by Fabinho was as if he had fired a rocket.
The final drop of water which broke the dam was a sending off of Fernandinho in the 77th minute of the Chelsea v Manchester City game. Willian converted the subsequent penalty and as the referee blew for full time, it then became mathematically impossible for Manchester City to win the league. Such is often the way with a league, the results which actually close out a result happen somewhere else.
Having said that though, Liverpool have to date this season won 28 games and might be still on track to set two new league records: both for the number of wins in a season and the number of points.
Maybe there is another drop of irony that when Liverpool travel to the City of Manchester Stadium against City which is the next fixture for them, it will be behind closed doors due to COVID-19 and so there isn't really a way for the fans to celebrate in person.

Of course, the final word probably should go to the architect of all of this, Jurgen Klopp:

"Knowing how much Kenny supported us, you've had to wait another 30 years for your club to win it. It's also for Stevie"

Jurgen Klopp in tears as Liverpool are crowned champions... 🥲#LFC pic.twitter.com/hGObnOOhgA

— The Sack Race (@thesackrace) June 25, 2020

I hope I don't have to wait another 30 years for another league title.

On the base of the statue of Bill Shankly which stands out the front of Anfield there is a statement "He made the people happy." I think that's about the highest complement that you can pay a manager and the players and today, Jurgen Klopp has again done that; with the help of a team of reds.

Horse 2541 - When To Write Off Liverpool's Season

One of the infrequently annual pieces in this blog and the two homes which it previously occupied, was me lamenting having to write off yet another league season. Liverpool last won the league title back in 1990; which means that it is not beyond the realms of mathematical impossibility for me to have been a grandfather in that time frame.
The last time that Liverpool last won the league title, Lord Sugar, Rupert Murdoch, et al. hadn't yet met to organise the Premier League. Margaret Thatcher was still the Prime Minister. Everyone still thought that Compact Discs were pretty neat things. Eternal September¹ wasn't yet a thing and the internet as we know it didn't exist, much less streaming services. Liverpool was still banned from European football after what had happened at Heysel in 1985. People thought that Jimmy Saville was just a leery and creepy old man, and people thought that Steve Wright was actually funny. It is a world which is now hard to understand. It is as if the past is an entirely different country.

The reason for my timing for when to write off a league season has been identical. Since there is a very hard barrier of 10 points from which if a team falls behind, it is virtually impossible to claw back, then that is the date of that season's existential despair. This season though, 2018/19, that simply hasn't happened and now I find myself with the rather nasty possibility that Liverpool could in theory win the league title on the very last day but the chances of that are so exceptionally remote that any hope is virtually false. I think that I would have preferred to have all hope dashed several months ago, than still be left hanging by a thread.

As it currently stands, everyone has played 37 games with one gane remaining.  Manchester City is on 95 points and Liverpool is on 94 points. Manchester City travel to the Falmer Stadium to play Brighton & Hove Albion; while Liverpool are hosting Wolverhampton at Anfield. For Brighton & Hove Albion this is a dead rubber as even if they were to lose 100-nil and Cardiff City won by an equally absurb amount, they are still safe in 17th. Likewise, Wolverhampton is also effectively playing a dead rubber because they will finish 7th regardless.

The mathemagic is this:
If Liverpool lose, then Man City wins the league. (94 - 95+)
If Liverpool draw, then Man City wins the league. (95 - 95+)
If Man City win, then Man City wins the league. (97 - 98 at best)
If Man City draw or lose, and Liverpool wins, then Liverpool wins the league. (97 - 96 or 95)

The problem with all of this mathemagic and playing with abacuses, is that Manchester City is playing Brighton & Hove Albion on the last day of the league. Expecting Brighton & Hove Albion to put up any resistance at all, is the height of stupidity. Satan has a higher chance of scoring a goal in the Stanley Cup Final which has been moved to the Gehenna and Hades Ice Arena. There is a greater chance of Porcine Airways flight number BKN33 landing at Heathrow after a 12 hour long haul flight from Ham Island. I think that there's a greater chance that President Donald Trump will refer himself to the House Committe bee for his own impeachment, than there is of Brighton & Hove Albion scoring one point against Manchester City, let alone all three. Unless there is a unanimous strike of gastro or some equally widespread and equally infuriating disease upon each and every Manchester City player, this will be a walk in the park for an equally infuriatingly deserved champions-elect, to make this a mere formality.
In any other season, scoring more than 90 points would probably win you a league title. I think that this year's point tally will be a record haul for Liverpool but even then, it is simply not good enough. The thing is, that that is utterly insane. The only club which Liverpool as actually lost to in 37 fixtures, is Manchester City. They have played out 7 draws to Man City's 2 but the rewards for winning outweigh the penalty for losing; which is in my opinion just and fair. Manchester City have the extraordinary record of winning 31 times this year. Not even Arsenal in their insane undefeated season in 2003-04 was this good and they won only 26 times. Liverpool have already won 29 times and are still not top of the league.

One of the things that I quite enjoy about the internet when it comes to people's alliances surrounding football teams, is that there will be sets of rival fans off in the ethersphere, taunting each other. That would normally mean that I should expect to receive all kinds of delicious invective but the lack of a league title has happened for so long that any and all taunting is almost redundant. It's actually kind of strangely hillarious being a Liverpool fan. There is a weird combination of complete delusion that this season will be the one and it never is. It kind of can't anymore either because of money from Saudi, Qatari, Abu Dhabi and Russian oil.
Being a Liverpool fan is a lot like being an England fan. England won the World Cup in the days of Black And White television and have won diddly-squat since. Being an England fan is to expect perpetual failure. Being a Liverpool fan is almost to expect perpetual failure but this is tempered with the occasional piece of mostly pointless bit of silverware.

This is why I was rather confused when Liverpool beat Barcelona 4-0 to win 4-3 on aggregate in the European Champions' League Semi-final². In my estimation, the European Champions' League is only the third most important bit of silverware in the season. I will get up early in the morning to watch the Liverpool-Tottenham final but it still will not be a league title. Having said that, if Liverpool win the Champions' League, I will not be complaining about that at all. Silverware is still silverware and crowing about it has really only ever been the only point of football in general; which after all is said and done is just 22 players with numbers on their backs, kicking balls around. Sport is an inherently frivolous pursuit and any meaning that it has only exists because we choose to give it any.

However, should the impossible happen and Manchester City implode, Brighton & Hove Albion win 1-0, and Liverpool win their match and the league title to boot, there will be so much joy that ANSTO will have to declare my house a national place of interest. Should the incredibly London-to-a-Brick likely probability happen, then the season will be written off instantly. When Manchester City score that first goal, that's when I am writing off the season. My bet is at about 38 minutes into the match; which is just 52 minutes before the season ends; which is still not even close to the very last moment that I wrote off a season³.

I am afraid that Emily Dickinson was in fact wrong when she wrote:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words.
And never stops - at all.

Hope does stop. Hope stops when a club goes ten points down, or when the maths simply makes it impossible to survive. There are only so many feathers that you can pluck off before the tune without the words stops.


¹Today is 9383rd September 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September 
²despite what the media say, this is not the greatest comeback in football history. That honour goes to AFC Wimbledon when on 21 May 2011, Seb Brown saved two penalties against Luten Town to send AFC Wimbledon to the League.
³which remains just 38 seconds before the season ended on 26 May 1989.

Horse 1674 - When To Write Off Liverpool's Season - Hope and Expectation

http://rollo75.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/horse-1354-when-to-write-off-liverpools.html
My blog has for a very long time been marked on a sort of annual basis with lamentory posts marking the end a of Liverpool's season, or rather the point when I write off the title as unwinnable yet again.
- Horse 1354, 24th Aug, 2012

http://rollo75.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/horse-1611-10-points-to-oblivion-and.html
Long time readers will note that I write Liverpool's season off as a non-event once they fall behind 10 points of the league leaders. The earliest that I've written the season off is in September and the latest that I ever wrote the season off was in the 91st minute of the very last game of the year.
- Horse 1611, 4th Feb 2014

Well... that was disappointing for the 24th consecutive time. Sunday night (Monday morning) though was one of the more difficult write-offs because it actually did get down to the last half hour of the season.
As stated above, I'd usually write-off a season once Liverpool fall 10 points behind the leaders but for season 2013-14 that never actually happened. Mathematically Liverpool could have still won the title yesterday but two conditions had to be met:
- West Ham United HAD to have beaten Manchester City, which was always going to be a monumental task.
- Liverpool HAD to have beaten Newcastle United, which wasn't from the outset that difficult.

When Martin Skrtel stuck his leg out to try and stop a Yoan Gouffran cross from finding Shola Ameobi in the 20th minute, it would have been a brilliant goal... at the other end. At that point the pendulum swung further away from Liverpool and you could see them all go flat. At that single moment, it was as though the title hopes evaporated (which it would later do that afternoon anyway). This was made even worse when the Kop went silent just before half time, as news filtered in that Manchester City had scored.
Not long after the half time break, news of Vincent Kompany's goal at the City of Manchester ground, pretty much broke the spirits of Liverpool and it wasn't until Daniel Agger gained a yard of pace on Mathieu Debuchy and scored an equaliser. Daniel Sturridge doubled the score less than two minutes later from a dead ball in an almost identical spot.

At what point did I finally write off Liverpool's season? When Kompany scored? Well not really. I think that it was probably about the 81st minute that I finally reached that point; holding on to the little hope that West Ham might score 3 goals but those never came.
When Manchester City went 2-0 up yesterday, Liverpool's hope in winning the Premier League was trampled; destroyed; gone. I probably have been a Liverpool fan for the best part of three and a half decades but even I know that the reasonable expectation of winning a league title is only a temporary thing, as it can only ever be.

All of this serves to illustrate something quite important about an important but often fleeting concept, hope. Hope is defined by the OED as the expectation of an event or a thing happening. Also note that hope doesn't have to be blind but may be placed in something entirely reasonable. I for instance have a fairly reasonable hope that I'll be paid on Friday. My hope is backed up with action, in that I keep on turning up and doing work; even if the actual work itself might be at times, incredibly difficult or at the other extreme, mentally dull.
The idea of hope often finds it's way into everyday life, even though we're probably either too tired, too angry or too apathetic to even notice it hiding underneath the wallpaper of existence. Even looking at the news bulletin, you'll find the concept of hope, trapped underneath the frenzied details of something else.
Before an election, political parties will hold out the hope that they will somehow make things better through governmental policy. Advertisers hold out all sorts of hope when they try and sell us goods and services; with promises of happiness and fulfilment. Advertisers hold out hope with the absolutely naked desire that people will buy what they are selling.
Of course the opposite is equally true. People without hope, or who perceive that they have no hope, often plunge into the very dark depths of pointlessness and futility, and might even find themselves in depression or ennui.

Hope it seems is an equally difficult concept in the bible to pin down. Although it is written about, it isn't always obvious as to why hope is important:
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
- Philippians 1:19-20

Ignore this if you like but even if you think that Christianity and the entire of organised religion is a waste of time, hear me out. Hope is the expectation of an event or a thing. As a result of an expectation, people make plans and investments of money, time and effort; that's equally true in the financial sector as it is the rest of life. I don't want to destroy any mystery which you might purport to have but that's all hope is, and it is true for every single context.
Some people might put their hope in their job, or their family, or Christ, or happiness, whatever it might be. Hope creates a mindset, that mindset underpins people's intentions and defines people's responses to life itself.
Actually it's really curious: hope in a Christian context usually frames a set of responses to life in which people aren't as preoccupied with being anxious about the future. Without the mindset of constantly requiring to look out for number one, there is a great deal more self-sacrifice amongst Christian communities. Hope frees people from seeing the obstacles in front of us as insurmountable and Christians themselves are less engaged in self-preservation and self-enhancement.
The expectation that God himself isn't angry at you because the offence that you have caused him has been dealt with in the person of Jesus, has certainly changed people's mindset and even the course of history.

Set that aside though, and you can even see people's hopes manifest themselves as the stock market fluctuates and fortunes are made and dissolved in minutes:
Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.
- John Maynard Keynes, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936)

This might sound crazy but the level of investment, sometimes expressed through things like the Investor Confidence Index or even private spending which is measured with the Consumer Confidence Index are in effect nothing more than numerical indicators of precisely the same concept - hope. Investors obviously expect to gain rewards for placing their investments and they act accordingly. Consumers also act according upon the basis of their hopes and generally we find that in times where economic hope is less abundant, they pull back their spending on luxury items.

For the 24th consecutive time my hopes that Liverpool would again win the league title were dashed to pieces like pottery. My whinge is that the phrase "there's always next season" is qualified by the unstated "there's never this season". Hope though, always holds itself out, with the expectation of things to come.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734)

Horse 1611 - 10 Points to Oblivion And The Six-Point Fixture In The Same Match!

WARNING: Maths Ahead!

Long time readers will note that I write Liverpool's season off as a non-event once they fall behind 10 points of the league leaders. The earliest that I've written the season off is in September and the latest that I ever wrote the season off was in the 91st minute of the very last game of the year*; in that match Liverpool hosted Arsenal and it's fitting that to write off the 2013/14 season (or not) should also occur when these two sides meet.
To explain why a particular fixture is called a "six-pointer" when there are only 3 points on offer for a league match, requires some maths.

The league currently stands thus:
1. Arsenal - 55
2. Man City - 53
3. Chelsea - 53
4. Liverpool - 47
All have played 24 matches and I'm going to discard Man City and Chelsea as irrelevant to this discussion, and disregard goal difference as well.

Assuming Arsenal wins. They pick up 3 points and Liverpool do not. The league table after 25 matches reads:
1. Arsenal - 58
4. Liverpool - 47
Arsenal would then be 11 points clear of Liverpool, and Liverpool's season is as good as dead for the 24th year in succession.

If Liverpool wins though, they pick up 3 points and Arsenal do not.  The league table after 25 matches reads:
1. Arsenal - 55
4. Liverpool - 50
Instead of Arsenal being 11 points clear of Liverpool, they would only be 5 points clear. Since 11 - 5 = 6, then it becomes obvious as to why such things are called six-point fixtures.

A draw of course means that relative to each other, the gap remains fixed. If either Man City or Chelsea or even both win in such a scenario, then we'd have a new league leader and Liverpool would be 9 points behind them; which is still dire but not quite so dire to write the season off entirely... yet.

Of course Liverpool would probably still be fighting for a European Champions League or Europa League spot but in all honesty, I don't really care about those. I would rather see Liverpool win the league and those things come as an added bonus.

I really hope that Arsenal implode here. The problem is that Özil keeps on supplying Giroud and Ramsey with goal fodder. I'm willing to bet that it's not Lionel Messi but Mesut Özil who is actually the best player in the world at the moment and that he'll be instrumental in bringing the World Cup back to Germany. Hopefully, Touré and Johnson can cancel them out.

*This single fixture I regard as the most important in the history of league football in England; even though Liverpool lost the league with it.
This single match unlocked the potential of television, brought football back into the civilised world after the events of Hillsborough and was probably instrumental in the creation of the Premier League.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_0%E2%80%932_Arsenal_(26_May_1989)

Horse 1354 - When To Write Off Liverpool's Season

My blog has for a very long time been marked on a sort of annual basis with lamentory posts marking the end a of Liverpool's season, or rather the point when I write off the title as unwinnable yet again. That point is usually when they go 10 points behind the league leaders because history has shown that only one club in the history of English football has ever come back to win it; lamentably the club that suffered the idiotic indignancy of giving up 10 points was none other than Liverpool. Season 2012/13 will be different because a different set of fixtures apply.

Having already fallen 3-0 to West Bromwich Albion on the opening day, in an abysmal display in which Agger was red carded, Liverpool played with ten men and no heart. Since Chelsea have already come out firing and potentiallly could be 9 points ahead in a mere 8 days, the first three home fixtures will be utterly critical. The first three home fixtures are against title defenders Manchester City, one of the old foes Manchester United and once pretender Arsenal. Quite frankly if Liverpool score anything less than 7 points from these three fixtures (being 2 wins and a draw) then you can guarantee that the quality to last the season just does not exist.

Liverpool sides during the 1970s and 80s would win the season on points tallies in the mid 70s. Manchester United and last season City have raised the stakes such that if sides want to win titles then they can't afford much more than half a dozen losses per season. Ending on 70+ points will certainly win a European Champions League berth but you cam not expect to win the title on anything less than 80 in the 21st Century.

In seasons past, Liverpool could rely on strikers scoring 20 goals in a season. Luis Suárez, could only muster a paltry 11 goals and in an age of proper proper professionals, that simply is inadequate.

A bright note is that last year they had a defensive record only bettered by Manchester City but (and this is telling) still finished a hopeless and lackluster 8th. Having gained a place in the Europa League by virtue of being in the FA Cup Final last season (and failing there too), there is a pull on the squad for mid-week games, and the temptation for new manager Brendan Rogers will be to play a stronger side in the Europa League and in the process weaken the side for regular league fixtures. The problem with this is that if the season ends as badly as it did last year then only Cup wins will guarantee spots in Europe because eighth is oblivion. Even there the season looks to be starting badly. Liverpool's first Europa League journey was to Edinburgh and Tynecastle to play Hearts. The scoreboard shows 1-0 to Liverpool and they walk away with an away goal but Hearts scored it for them with Andy Webster's shin deflected for an own goal. Really as far as building a season goes it should be treated as a scoreless match because they looked dour and toothless.

So even more than usual, the first three home fixtures will be the litmus test, the test by fire, to see if this Liverpool side is worth anything. Anything less than 7 points from those three matches and I'm going to write the season off before the end of September, which is something I haven't done... ever.

Gerrard is now in the tail end of his career and as far as I can see there isn't really anyone else who will step up and fill that talismanic role. I expect that if Carrol can be convinced to stay then he will rip sides to pieces and maybe if Suarez learns to keep his fool mouth shut, then he'll also do well but apart from Skrtel and Johnson, the current Liverpool squad is as good as any in the top 6 but not better. Football in the top flight is mostly made up of players who are really quite good but to win a title you really do need more than a few who are absolutely stellar and I just don't see that. It is scary to see a side fielded with kit numbers in the mid 40s on the park. Either that says that there is loads of depth in the squad or more likely that first team players are injured.

On Sunday they face Man City at Anfield and I think that that will be the opening display of their firepower or complete lack thereof.