Swansea. Southampton. Sunderland. Manchester United. Cardiff. Tottenham Hotspur. West Ham. Manchester City. Norwich. Chelsea. Crystal Palace. Newcastle.
This piece started very differently. I started writing it midway through the second half of our game against Fulham. We were 2-1 down after some very sloppy defending by Skrtel and Toure and it looked like a huge opportunity to consolidate our position in 4th was disappearing quicker than a kite on Merseyside (100mph winds tend to do that to you).
With the wind howling outside and my inner football fan howling inside I sat down to write how Liverpool had once again shot themselves in the foot. 12-bore-shotgun straight to the metatarsal. And then, literally as I finished the opening paragraph, including the shotgun reference that was just too good to waste, Coutinho scored. Damn you, Philippe Coutinho, you beautiful little bastard with your twinkle toes and your through-balls and your goal.
And so I went back and edited the opening paragraph and downgraded the shotgun to a pistol. Not a terminal wound, but one that’s going to leave us limping down the home stretch. Drawing a game against the bottom of the league team was exactly what we had ridiculed Manchester United for only a few days earlier, it may not have been fatal but it was definitely going to leave a bad taste in the mouth.
And then up steps Stevie G, cooler than a naked Eskimo’s nut-sack, slots his penalty away and sends Liverpool fans delirious and sent me cursing back to the keyboard, this time to consign the piece to the great blog in the sky and to write a very different piece. We tried to shoot ourselves in the foot, but like a Kolo Toure clearance, we missed, and instead of looking behind cussing like a sailor, we can look ahead and dream like child, all bright colours and trophies.
It was Gerard Houllier back in 2002 who said Liverpool who sounded the rallying cry about being 10 games from greatness. Now we are nearly there again. Look at those names at the top of the article. Every Liverpool fan has been looking at those teams ever since it became apparent that Liverpool had a chance this season of doing more than merely existing. We’ve rehearsed where we can pick up points and where we might lose them. We know exactly when Chelsea and City visit and when we go to Old Trafford.
As I said in my last post, this has already been a great season. It’s been a lot of fun. Demolishing Tottenham, Everton and Arsenal like a nasty man kicks over a kids sandcastle on the beach was fun, but we’re not the sort of club that releases a DVD of because we beat a team who were quite good, we have bigger fish to fry, or at least we like to think we do.
With every win and every point that we edge closer to the top you can’t help but think that maybe we can do it? And I’m finding it very hard to be reasonable about this. My head is telling me to keep calm and carry on. To look below us to Spurs and Everton and United. Count the points difference and look to 4th and the Champions League and enjoy the gradual and constant improvement, like a 2% pay rise. It’s not life changing but it’s something.
But do you care about your 2% pay rise when you’re sat with a lottery ticket clutched in your sweaty palms as your numbers drop out of the machine, one by one and you can feel yourself shaking… and dreaming.
We have a 12-number lottery ticket and we’re waiting for our numbers to drop. And if we get all 12? If we win all 12 of our cup finals? Well what would you do if you won the lottery?
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