Not unduly disheartened
I would be lying if I claimed that I am not bothered by Liverpool’s results in the past week, but perspective is everything for me and I have seen nothing to change my conviction that the team is headed in the right direction. Of the two results, it is the league defeat at home to Southampton that disappointed me more because I thought the Reds had shown enough steel in previous encounters to navigate through it.
What we saw was a replica of side’s last tepid performance which was, coincidentally, against the same side but away at St Mary’s. It must be put on record that this was only Liverpool’s second league defeat in 13 matches, dating back to March, and both losses have been to Mauricio Pechettino’s men. The Argentine just seems to have found a way of getting the worst out of my Liverpool.
As for Wednesday night’s Capital One Cup defeat at the hands of Manchester United, I was not surprised at all. The few people I spoke to in confidence (both Liverpool and United fans) ahead of the match would confirm that I never saw the Red Devils losing that one. The law of averages provided that David Moyes’ side would win that game, especially after the catastrophic derby defeat that preceded it.
I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed Manchester City’s dominant performance over United in the opening 60 minutes of the derby at the Eastlands. When the fourth goal went in, I really feared the worst for the defending league champions. Memories of that unforgettable 6-1 trouncing two seasons ago came racing back, but, credit to the visitors, they managed to tame their hosts and limit the damage.
Of course, the final result was still devastating and, as you would expect in such circumstances, Moyes got a lot of stick for his tactics but when it was all over and I had sobered up a bit, I realised that my Liverpool would become victims of that result. There was simply no way United, regardless of who they fielded, would allow to lose to two major rivals within days. I never saw that happening.
In that context, therefore, I am not unduly disheartened and still believe that this season will be much better than the last three for my Liverpool. Injuries to key players like Philippe Coutinho and Glen Johnson have somehow slowed down the team’s momentum at the moment but I choose to regard the last two results more as the proverbial blip than a return to the painful days of our recent past.
Last weekend’s league results mean that Everton are the only side yet to taste defeat this season and it means that no less than four teams have so far tasted top position and all the teams hoping to be part of the championship fight have already had the odd bad result. You now have that current top five sides on the log table separated by only two points and you expect the race to remain tight for some time.
The pick of this weekend’s matches, therefore, is this afternoon’s early kick-off at the White Hart Lane where the expensively assembled Tottenham Hotpsur host Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. This is clearly a top-of-table clash as number two meets number four, but there are several sub-plots as well. Andre Villas-Boas was not only Mourinho’s boy for some time but was himself sacked by the Blues. Fascinating, isn’t it?
