31st October 2018 – There
must have been a Koppite or two watching City’s smooth progress through
Touchdown Territory on Monday and hoping for a loose divot or a parched bit
of NFL trampled turf to trip City’s aristocrats up. Instead the ludicrously
poor pitch came to City’s partial rescue, flicking a ball that Eric Lamela was
about to plant in the net for a Tottenham equaliser playfully onto the
Argentinean’s shins. The result, a ball over the bar instead of under it,
will have produced more than just the isolated groan from those of a Liverpool persuasion.
Liverpool – fans and players alike –
will have been looking to Spurs to upset the smooth progress of the league
leaders. They will have been thinking that here was a venue, a team, a
manager and now a wonderfully dilapidated pitch that could cause some serious bother.
That it did not and City sailed
serenely back to the top of the league must have an effect.
My co-writer
begged to differ after the game, but I put that down to the adverse effects
of Lemsip. In the cold light of Tuesday morning, there was nowhere for
Liverpool followers to gain succour. The highly publicised best-ever Premier
League start continues to yield "only" second place. The dailies joined in on this theme and, if they dare to read the growing statistical evidence, Liverpool supporters will see clear evidence City are improving on last seasons record-breaking totals too.
But, Liverpudlians are a stout lot. The players are strong and
positive. The fight goes on. It’s a marathon not a tea dance etc etc, but somewhere inside
these little occurances start to eat away at your self-belief and the first step in the war of minds was taken on Monday night, when all the ingredients were in place and still
the soup didn’t boil over.
City now embark on a potentially pivotal four-game home run, while Liverpool set sail for Paris, Belgrade and
Hertfordshire. You can argue that it makes little difference, but I would
disagree. It makes a difference alright and it is the little differences that will
separate the great teams come the end of the season. Nobody expects any of
the continent’s big hitters to be weakened by doubt at this stage of the
season; nobody expects them to be frozen with fear or paralysed by turns of
events so seemingly small and insignificant.
And yet the nagging thoughts persist.
What are you supposed to do? Ignore
it? Turn it into a positive? The great philosophers, the coaching gurus would
always have a bon mot to make everyone feel ok with themselves, but for all
this to have its desired effect on the brain, a kernel of truth has to be
seen. You cannot keep bashing on about doing your own work and seeing every
problem as a challenge if bloody City just keep on winning away, even in London (a
thing incidentally in this writer’s experience, they never ever used to do). Suddenly they cannot stop.
City’s numbers are beginning to look
ominous. Skysports published a graphic showing many of City’s hugely
impressive stats from last season are being improved upon this. If this continues,
it will need much more than positive thinking to keep Liverpool close on City’s
lightly stepping heels.
And then there’s the small issue of
City not actually hitting top gear yet. That’s not even worth contemplating,
is it?
A slice of Iain Dowie’s Bouncebackability might at some point be needed by Klopp's men, although the difficulty for Liverpool is there is nothing to
bounce back from. They are winning more regularly than they have ever done in
the Premier League era. The goals are flowing. It is impressively easy.
Against Cardiff, four goals were dispatched despite a low-key performance
which did not drain the players’ energy levels unduly. Neil Warnock’s
assertions that his team could never win at Anfield played true. Psychology
at work again, but in reverse Warnock gear.
Football twitter - and footballers’
twitter in particular - is full of anodyne fripperies about “going again” and “keeping
one’s chin up”, but it is what these individuals are really thinking that we
need to know. Did Herr Klopp drop finally into bed and say to his wife in the dark “Do you know, I don't think we
are ever going to get past these buggers”? We will never know, although the
image is a troubling one and now I’m stuck with it.
If Frau Klopp turned wearily over to
face his delicately lined features and whispered, “Liebling, setbacks are actually
progress in disguise,” before falling into deep and rewarding sleep, then the
power of positive thought may well still be alive and well Chez Klopp. Whether
everyone else can remain quite so buoyant as the winter closes in around us,
only time will tell.
My own frazzled mind floats off to thoughts of what that master mind-bender Bill Shankly
would have said in circumstances like this. Perhaps his most poignant quote “If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing…” might be better left unsaid in the present circumstances.
– Simon Curtis
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