Erase and Rewind

What did you hear me say?

We’ve been talking about the lack of confidence in the Reds ranks for many weeks now in this column. If you needed a striking example of the damage it can cause – even beyond the fact that Liverpool’s overall performance in the last eleven games, with nine points total, is so dismal, it would have them headed into the second division – you can replay this game and observe.

Mane could have scored, more than once. Salah, in better times, would have dragged the ball around Pickford to then finish with his weaker foot, but instead simply made Pickford look more excellent than he actually was. And let’s not talk about Bobby’s finishing, or lack thereof. Hendo and Trent got closest to actually scoring, and that summarizes the whole thing from the Liverpool side.

Yes, I said it’s fine before

Up to this point, it was possible, as a fan of going on fifty years, to perhaps take it all a bit philosophically. But I find that losing to the Toffees at Anfield… is impossibly hard to stomach.

But I don’t think so no more

I’m trying really hard to come up with something positive to say, and the best that springs to mind is this: forty points is enough to stay up, and this is the first time in god knows how long that we have played a pair of actual centerbacks in the backline. Of course, the only reason that happened is that we lost the team’s talisman, and our primary hope of getting over the confidence slump. Jordan Henderson’s reactions on the pitch tell me he’s probably out for the season. Without him, it’s going to get a lot harder to find the spark that’s needed to get the engine turning again.

I’ve changed my mind

As such, your humble servant has decided that until such time as we win again, I am going to avoid giving anyone a man-of-match award. I just can’t bring myself to award one to someone from over there at Goodison, and our lads aren’t worth it, either.

But Everton, the team, did do pretty well, if only because Liverpool afforded them the opportunity to do so. Kudos to them, then, for a good performance, even as one has to painfully remember that it was them who started us down the path of horrendous injuries this season, and it was their keeper who played so well today that nearly (and possibly had) destroyed Van Dijk’s footballing career in the last outing.

I take it back

There are, of course, no takebacks in football, but I find myself desperately looking for the “quit” and “reload” buttons. The great randomizer in the sky has been throwing up a lot of critical misses in a row, and it isn’t a lot of fun to play anymore. Liverpool’s medical bay is so full of senior players one could be forgiven for mistaking it for the first-eleven in just about any game. The Reds had just played their seventeenth central defensive pairing, and I will lay odds it’s not the last, either. The Toffees just clinched a victory at Anfield.

So, with my thanks to the Cardigans… can we please just erase and rewind?