The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side
It’s taken a minute or two for me to wrap my head around a loss like we suffered against Plymouth Argyle. What a way to go out of the FA Cup. I won’t even entertain the arguments provided by Harvey Elliott about it not being a handball, if we had been on the other end we would have been apocalyptic if it hadn’t been given. The fact of the matter is we were wildly off the pace. Whether that comes down to the fact we fielded 10 different players than the Tottenham League Cup game, or the tiredness of a long season setting in at this point the quadruple has headed out the window. But if you think this is going to be a hammering of this side, hold your horses just a minute.
READ MORE: The Anfield Effect by T. Alex Hauber
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The Side In Pursuit
Losing sucks, this being only the third loss this season doesn’t make that easier. However, the grass is greener on the other side. Coming into this weekend our run-in with Arsenal for the League title, the one we really want besides number 7 on the Continent was advantage Arsenal. Yeah, we have three points in hand, but Everton under new management has strung together 6 successive good games. We are meeting them at a less ideal time than we would have preferred originally. The rest of our run-in is also not as kind as the Gunners. So the relative safety at the summit is built on what ifs and dreams.
With our loss, as painful as it is, we now have removed some of the congestion from our season. The immediate effect is that we even out the fixture run with Arsenal in the immediate future. That removes an advantage that Arsenal had on us and even though we aren’t playing City to the wire, we want to have any amount of a solid distance as we can. This also is a good wake-up call for the second half of the season.
Competition Prioritization
As Slot said we are in one final, into the final 16 of the Champions League and topping the table. All taken together losing an FA Cup game is ultimately less damaging than it is embarrassing to have gone out the way we did. It gives Slot the knowledge he needs to line up his players for the final run-ins, and it also highlights the need to strengthen in the Summer given we can’t just rely on fringe players and academy products to see us through tight matches. Again, grass is greener though it might have a bit of a bitter taste at the moment.
I think most Red fans will agree that if it comes down to it, a Champions League title and a Premier League title are the real goals right now for the club. The other two cups were icing on the cake. I don’t mean to insult the FA Cup or League Cup but when your appetite is up for the bigger honors, if you miss an appetizer here or there you won’t miss it too much. Now, this is all predicated on the fact we bring home one or both of the main courses. If we don’t, then the grass really wasn’t grass and we have been eating astroturf all along.
