Mind games. They’re all the rage. You
can’t park
a bus without people looking at you in a strange way and woe betide
anybody who decides to attempt such a manoeuvre at Anfield these days. Do so with a funny look in your eyes and you will
find yourself derided for playing anti-football, as the poor embattled souls of Chelsea were or, worse still, have a band of miniature scoundrels test the perspex of your own coach's windows, as a City minibus experienced two weeks ago.
We walk, some of us, on a sheer knife edge between over-confidence and self-assertiveness. Others amongst us are left to our own devices, whilst a lucky few apparently never walk alone and therefore are not afraid of the dark.
Are the fine words offered in the vortex of battle great lines of exhortation? Or are they empty rhetoric? Worse still, are they blocks of amateur psychiatry cooked up to look like a would-be champion's lunch-time snack? Do I need my tub thumping or my back patting? Am I dealing with monkeys, demons, hobgoblins or simply the memory, sharp and precise, of last week's open goal miss-kick? If I lose my head whilst all around are also losing theirs, what will that make me?
Liverpool supporters have been singing “We’re going to win
the league” in their frantic, ever-so-slightly pre-ejaculatory
giddiness for some
weeks already. Head onto YouTube and you will find it horrendously heavy
with clips of the Liverpool bus arriving at a dead slow stop pace
through red smog and electrically charged
chanting. You will see people in Liverpool Premier League Winners
T-Shirts and others reeling around from the sheer enormity of it all.
This has been going on for weeks and weeks. The old place was absolutely heaving against City and it obviously helped
the side
tear into the Blues from the off. That the same thing did not happen
against
Chelsea can be put down to a variety of factors. Firstly, the away side was
not
interested in going toe to toe, as City had done two weeks earlier at
Manuel Pellegrini's behest ("we go there to play our normal game"). For good
reason, José Mourinho chose to be pragmatic. His side is midway through a
Champions League semi final and the number crunching told him that it only required to appear from Fortress
Anfield with a point to thrust his side right back into the swarming whirlpool of
this dramatically fluctuating title race.
The there was the atmosphere. Once again the Kop was a sea of banners and scarves, the
feverish ambience lending itself to a big occasion, perhaps one bigger than this one. This of course can be a
double edged sword, as Steve Peters, Liverpool’s mind games expert and supposed champion
of all our internal monkeys will testify. What he has been teaching the players
and staff of Liverpool has obviously had an invigorating effect on the likes of Jordan Henderson and Glen Johnson, who previously found a scoreless draw at Fulham sufficiently appealing . Liverpool have
been unrecognisable this season from the slumping also-rans they had turned into over the last quarter century.
But what happens when this premature euphoria has the
opposite effect?
Logic not emotion, you could almost hear Peters whispering
under his breath,
logic not emotion. Take the sting out of the occasion before it eats you for lunch. Peters’
famous
Foundation Stones have brought athletes from many disciplines through to
the very top of their professions, making them aware of who they are, how they
best perform and where the demons lie. Here there were demons flying out of
every crack of the old stadium's red brick walls. It was emotion not logic and there was such a strong tide of it running that it was difficult not to throw down your towel and stride naked into the throng shouting "get me to the Kop on time".
But
after the initial spurt, the giant mass fell silent, the atmosphere changed
and
all the impartial observer could hear was the gentle knocking together
of
Scouse knees. Steven Gerrard heard this ominous sound too and joined in
the
fun. The pressure, as it often does, was getting to the league leaders
and
Chelsea and their boisterous fans were feeding on it lustily. For
the Londoners - and indeed
to a lesser extent, City – have been here before. In beating Bayern on
their
own ground in the final of the Champions League, Chelsea proved
beyond any
necessary doubt that they have the balls for the big occasion. In
fishing
their own first league title for 44 years out of the Manchester Ship
Canal after the world
and his dog thought that boat had already sailed, City too revealed a
mettle
that only big time athletes can produce. Whilst onlookers were wilting
with the pressure on that sunny May day v QPR, others were winding
themselves up for the kill. It took the breath away but remains as a
testament to what positive thinking and a little touch of Mario Balotelli can do for you.
Monkeys are funny creatures with long arms and cauliflower
bottoms. Inner monkeys, it seems, can be even more ridiculous. Look at the video below. How would you feel if you were inside this bus? The date is 26th March, some six weeks before the destination of the title is due to be decided..
March 26th before Liverpool - Sunderland. Yes, March.
Manchester City's Monkeys - some might want to call them gorillas - have been doing an impeccable job, for and
against the club, for a number of years. The mind drifts back to the last title
winning season's blur of tear-stained action. Last gasp winners v Chelsea and Spurs
as Samir Nasri skipped home and Balotelli banged in yet another ice cool penalty; at
Arsenal in the League Cup with that sumptuous counter by Dzeko, Johnson and
Aguero; the delicious late flurry of activity at Old Trafford; then there was that strange old
day in May to cap it all off.
By that tumultuous denouement, City had hoisted
themselves not only into first place, but also to the top of the rankings
for late match winners. More goals, in fact, scored after the 90th minute than
any other side in the division. Who would have thought we would be saying that
about City ten years ago?
Long-term masochists will well remember two games versus Birmingham City
in the
late nineties, where the club had managed to cultivate the
exact
opposite of what we see today: a deadly ability to concede when it was least needed. Dele Adebola. A name never to be forgotten. The mists of time
clear to
show us the unlikely bulk of Murtaz Shelia giving us the lead at St
Andrews in
some God-forsaken, mud-splattered second division game. It was the 88th
minute
when the lolloping Georgian netted. We went on to lose that game, rather
predictably, two-one. Birmingham's goals came in the 94th and 97th
minutes. The rot set in so
deep that the club's decline to the third tier of English football felt
in many
ways absolutely inevitable. Unstoppable until it rolled to its own halt. There were monkeys, albatrosses and vampire bats
everywhere you looked. This is why the resurrection
since then has been nothing short of breathtaking.
Liverpool – fresh from their very own Dele Adebola
moment - now
face a trip to Selhurst Park, seemingly a daunting task, but one which
City
sailed through at the weekend like a flotilla of white-slacked students
larking about on the river. If a tray of Pimms had been served to celebrate Yaya
Touré´s majestic second goal, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Palace,
on a run of 5 consecutive wins, looked like little boys who had lost the front door key. Shut out for ninety
minutes,
whilst City went about their business with a quiet efficiency, which
will have
been noted amongst the frothing denizons of the Annie Road. City
have done
this before, of course. Two years ago, a succession of unlikely
victories (six consecutive wins, to remind you)
brought a momentum that carried them to the title, but even then a
twist in the storyline of the very last game ended up ageing every City supporter by half
a lifetime in the space of ninety minutes. It is this mental strength in
adversity that now kicks in for the team that believes it can be done.
Liverpool, flowing freely for half a season, have suddenly
had the carpet removed from under their feet How does one react to that with two games
to go? Do you fold or do you come out at Palace with all guns blazing? Or do
you start taking corners a little bit like Iago Aspas did v. Chelsea? Will the fans stop singing about winning the league and will this add to or deflate the pressure? Will
Chelsea, having dented Liverpool’s title hopes, now go back to coveting that
Champions League trophy? Or will last weekend’s win fire them for two more
league successes to keep the pressure on, despite Mourinho’s insistence that
they can only finish 3rd? Can City overcome one of their bogey sides on one of
the club's least successful grounds to set up a two-home-game run-in towards an
unlikely but successful finish? Will the City fans' innate sense of foreboding have a detrimental affect on their side or can the likes of Sergio Aguero manage quite nicely whilst the rest of us are all gnawing feverishly on the corner flag?
With two, and in City’s case, three games to go, having the
initiative at this stage is worth its weight in gold. City’s players, who have admitted to
watching bits of the Chelsea victory on the big screen at Selhurst Park as they
were warming up, will have been given a colossal boost for that game and, with its smooth onclusion, for
the three that follow it.
Everton away, Villa at home, West Ham at home.
That is
all that now separates City from their second league title in three seasons. Negotiate
those three games and the pot will once again be paraded around the Etihad. In Manuel
Pellegrini, City have the ideal man to keep players focussed and with feet firmly on the ground. Whilst Mourinho creates his wars and Rodgers scatters
clichés far and wide, the Chilean grunts his sweet nothings and disappears. The weather-worn face
and gravel voice lend themselves to the general air of
rien ne va plus. It is to him and to the calm authority growing from the likes of
Martin Demichelis and Javi Garcia, to the great swirling limbs of the Elephant of Bondoukou and to the unstoppable punch of City’s
inimitable forward five that one must now invest trust.
Strong minds alone will not
be enough, but they will surely now play their part.