Little did we know the full extent of the club’s
remorse: in the event, the Reebok Stadium was the backdrop to the
most sorry performance of Kenny Dalglish’s second reign in charge
as Liverpool were beaten 3-1 by Bolton Wanderers.
John W Henry and Tom Werner plan
to fly into Merseyside on Monday, expecting to see their club
progress to their first major final in five years. A glance at
the Premier League
table suggests Carling Cup progress will do little more
than apply a sticking plaster to yet another sickly campaign.
When Dalglish returned as Liverpool manager, he endangered the
infallibility he enjoyed as a club ambassador. For many of his
brethren, querying his judgment is still akin to questioning the
celibacy of the Pope. Such historical, unconditional devotion will
be tested if performances and signings continue to fail to match
expectations. There’s no Hicks, no Gillett, no Parry, no Purslow,
no Benitez and no Hodgson to blame any more, so for the time being
alternative non-provocative, populist targets are being
located.
The most expensive Liverpool players fit the bill, although if
the club continues to play like this the politically vulnerable
director of football, Damien Comolli, will be well advised to stock
up on a ready supply of tin hats.
Dalglish has accumulated over three decades of credit at
Anfield, so it will take longer than 12 months for his reign to be
subject to the same scrutiny within Merseyside’s boundaries as it
necessitates beyond it.
His break with tradition with a full-frontal rebuke of his
players in the aftermath of the 3-1 defeat surprised many, but
there was a flaw in his argument.
He bought at least six of those players, and in some cases the
dip into the abyss of abominable badness was not an especially
severe drop. For many of them, it was not a lengthy journey from
being plain mediocre to wretchedly appalling.
Luis Suárez, absent for three more games, stands alone as the
unqualified success of Liverpool’s recent investment. Anyone who
thinks he’ll hang around for more than another 18 months if
Liverpool are not back in the Champions League has learned nothing from
the final chapters of Fernando
Torres’s Anfield
story.
Liverpool’s scorer and sole contributor here, Craig Bellamy,
also underlined why of all last summer’s purchases he was the one
that made most sense.
Herein lies another irony. Liverpool have been sucked into a
world where players are judged on flip charts, statistical data and
youthfulness. Bellamy does not fit the profile of the
Moneyballderdash cult Liverpool have championed.
He is 32, he cost no transfer fee and he will be worth nothing
once his contract is up. But try telling anyone on The Kop those in
their early 20s purchased for in excess of £20 million represent
forward thinking while the pursuit of ageing, experienced, proven
talent is a retrograde step.
Liverpool’s transfer outlay has been seduced and sabotaged by
the most dangerous word in football: ‘potential’. Andy Carroll,
Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing were signed at
huge cost not because of anything extraordinary they had ever done,
but for what they might eventually do. And they are not doing
it.
Carroll is the most striking case of all, and the most
imaginative work of fiction to have been written in Liverpool
recently must surely be the scouting report valuing him at £35
million.
Various theories have now been proposed as to why he has been so
abysmal, but the most simple is surely the most convincing: he is
not a particularly good footballer. There is nothing there: no
first touch, no burst of pace, no physical presence. Milk turns
quicker than Carroll.
The contrast with David Ngog was devastating. Ngog, a former
emergency Liverpool striker of limited means, was sold to Bolton
for £4 million last summer. As a lone striker, he was everything
Carroll was not, his delicate flick in the build up to the
excellent Mark Davies’s fourth-minute goal setting the tone for a
comfortable evening for Owen Coyle’s side.
Nigel Reo-Coker and Gretar Steinsson made Bellamy’s first-half
strike irrelevant and lifted Bolton out of the bottom three.
Coyle believes the money invested from the sale of Gary Cahill
will enable Bolton to emerge from the transfer window stronger.
Exactly a year ago, Liverpool argued the same when they re-invested
the Torres fee.
They’ve collected six more points this season than this time a
year ago. Get your sabermetric calculator around that, Mr
Henry.
If everyone at Anfield believes this is a consequence of a
single poor display at the Reebok Stadium, you can add lack of
self-awareness to Liverpool’s mounting Premier League problems.
