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SOTN – Becoming An Irrelevence

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We’ve talked too much about Rooney on here. Bored of it all now.

The other official most boring transfer saga of the summer (no, not Bale) is the nonsense going on for Luis Suarez at The Vermin.

Anyone who’s ever spent more than six minutes in my company knows there are Suarez fans in this world and I’m absolutely not one of them. I despise the man, and for all his gifts as a player, I still think much of them stem from his personality. He’s one of the most unpleasant players I’ve ever seen play. He’s the worst diver and cheat the Premiership has ever seen for one thing. We’ve had some divers in the past in Cole, Robben, Drogba and a couple of others but Suarez is different league cynical to them. Lets not even mention the fact that he’s a confirmed and proven racist and that he likes to bite people when he isn’t rolling around on the floor feigning injury to get players sent off. Frankly its amazing he has time to score any goals at all.

I have always felt it was a little bit of a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes about Suarez. He’s a decent player, good on the ball and a great finisher. Creative, decisive, intelligent (despite it all) and can score goals out of nothing. Fine. I accept that. But the media seem to have whipped his status up from decent international level with a touch of world class at times, to Messi/Ronaldo sort of level. I just cant see it. My fellow Chels on Twitter keep trying to tell me he is that good, and I just can’t for the life of me make that leap. I accept he is world class on his day, and a talented boy if you look past the ‘other stuff’. (IE: he’s a total twatpiece.)

But I’m not here to talk about Suarez today.

I’m compelled this morning to talk about his current employers.

Liverpool fans bleat about loyalty and respect, as they are facing yet another instance of their top players leaving to go play Champions League football.

Their massive fanbase is being forced, Clockwork Orange style, to accept the reality that they are fast becoming a left-behind footballing irrelevance. They are a mid-table bunch of also-rans who have no more or less chance of playing Europa League football as Everton, Norwich, Swansea etc. And basically no chance of playing Champions League football any time in the near future.

So their fans revert to type and start on about ‘big club values’ and using all sorts of excuses to themselves and us why they are hard against Suarez leaving. Anything to avoid having to admit the truth.

The fact is, Liverpool are in serious danger of fading away completely as footballing force. Look at the dwindling number of Liverpool mouthpieces in the media – they are becoming an irrelevance and their ludicrous Liverpool bias is no longer relevant. Ask Mark Lawrenson.

They have nowhere near the level of financial strength the likes of United, City, us, Arsenal or Sp*rs have now. They have a smaller ground like us and Sp*rs, but unlike us and Sp*rs they have no hope whatsoever of affording to replace it. Matchday revenue is not enough, and financially they have been left behind. The signings of Carroll, Downing, Henderson, Shelvey and the others during the second Dalgish reign were damaging at the time but it is only now that the true catastrophic nature of these buys becomes clear. If they’d have bought well then, they would be in the top four now.

But they didn’t.

They have only two genuine world class players. Gerrard is a fading force and not the player he was. Much as they hate to admit it, like our own Super Frankie Lampard, Gerrard cannot carry their team across 60 games a season any more. Suarez will go and they’ll probably not get any more than forty million for him now that the FA are involved in his contract dispute. You cant blame him for wanting to go – I wouldn’t want to be a footballing irrelevance either. they’ve slipped so far that Suarez is desperate for a move to Arsenal. To Arsenal! This is the same Arsenal that like us, The Vermin have always considered themselves bigger than, more successful than, etc. Dose of reality there.

Things are sparse at Anfield right now. Coutinho is hailed on Merseyside as literally the best player in the Premiership in his position (surprise surprise) and Sturridge is half decent as we know. Raheem Sterling is regarded as as literally the best young player in the Premiership in his position, and Simon Mignolet is regarded as literally the best player in the Premiership in his position and a huge upgrade on previous best keeper in the world ever, Pepe Reina. You get the idea. The fact is they are very average. I’d contend not a single one of their players (barring Suarez) would get anywhere near our squad, let alone the starting 11. Probably the same for United, Real, Juve, Barca, PSG, Arsenal, Dortmund, Bayern and both the Milan teams.

But the rub of it is Suarez wants to win trophies and to play in the Champions League (and be paid Champions League 200k/week sort of wages) and he is extremely unlikely to get that at Liverpool in the next six or seven years. He knows this. That’s why he wants to leave. It will take that long to rebuild and restructure, to add grass roots players in enough numbers to allow them to develop into a group of world class players – because that’s the only way they can get back now, short of being bought by the very same kind of hugely benevolent foreign billionaire they have always ridiculed us for having.

Not laughing now, are you, Mickey Mousers?

The fact is the bar has been raised and the price for competing at the top level for the top trophies is not something Liverpool can pay any more. Their fans are horrified that their history alone does not give them the divine right to be regarded as a top club any more. It is not a ticket to sit with the big boys any longer.

The mantra, which always sounded hysterical and quasi-religious to our ears now, for the first time since the 60s sounds to Liverpudlian ears as a bit hollow. We are Liverpool. We are the biggest. We are the best. Nobody else is bigger than us. We are the most successful. We are right. You are wrong. Etc. The sheen is coming off. The kids are not kicking balls round council estates in Brentford, Barnsley, Bristol and Bournemouth wearing Liverpool shirts any more. They are Chelsea, City or Barcelona fans now.

They bleat about showing loyalty to Brendan Rodgers and allowing him the time and resources to get them back into the top four, but they can afford to – the fact is none of the top managers would go there now. Why would they accept a huge wage cut and the prospect of winning nothing, not playing Champions League ever, and be burdened by unrealistic expectations every season?

The world has moved on since the 80s and the only people not to realise it are the Liverpool fans.

Imagine being so obsessed with your own history that you do not realise you are becoming history? Becoming a footballing irrelevance as far as the top teams are concerned. No longer a massive crunch game every season but a tough place to go to in the same way Stoke, Villa or Everton is a tough place to go.

It is tempting to sneer. I hate them. Its really tempting. But lets be clear here – we could very easily be in their position and may well be on the terminal decline as they are now, one day. But instead of ladening the end of this article with faux-pathos about that, how about we give thanks again to Roman Abramovich and each other, our global Chelsea fanbase who have cemented our seat at the top table. Every day that passes our position becomes more and more solid. So while they self-flaggelate and wallow in grief and misery about being victimised by Suarez’s evil, nasty, disloyal desire to further his career and earn more money, we can watch the best manager in the world carry on assembling a powerhouse and winning trophies at the top level.

We’re making history not living in it.

CAREFREE.







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