authenticguccishoes

Great Expectations

There is a part of me that shies away a little from the madness and furore of the close season, where expectations are raised and hopes flown like kites - only to be dashed, for most of the footballing community by Christmas. Or October if you are a Liverpool fan. I find this part of the whole pantomime a bit pointless. A bit shallow. And most of all a bit unsettling. I cannot help but think that the aforementioned Red Mickeys are to a large extent responsible for their own (not very) sad demise every season, by heaping expectation and pressure on a lot of average players, creating a mental problem for the team, because the fans demand that Liverpool go out, win every game and climb the long road back to being England's best team. We all know United took that mantle back when The Smiths and Joy Division were in the charts, however depressing that fact may be, but for the scousers it is a festering sore that cannot be left alone. That United are also the most successful in terms of trophies now, domestic at least, is just the icing on the cake. The natives are restless and cannot stand being sixth or seventh best team in the league and for their history to mean very little because using their very myopic definition of what history is, someone else has more of it. So they demand that Liverpool win things - it creates problems and I think they do themselves a lot of harm by inflicting this on their team and their city. We are at risk of being the same, and although our fans are much more realistic (and employable) and it is perhaps the media and the owner who provide the pressure, though our own fans, spoilt on recent successes are by no means blameless.

In the close season it makes me wonder why expectations are set so high. I used to long for a successful fight against relegation and if we got a decent cup run, then that was just blinding. Football seemed more fun back then I think.

So what does this mean for today?

Maybe we could all do with a break. I'm not suggesting taking up watching the egg-chasing, taking up gardening, amateur guinea pig show breeding or even microbrewing in our kitchens (although....) - I'm talking about giving ourselves a break from ourselves.

Let me explain. Imagine, if you will the following scenario.

We spend our summer weeding out the old guard - the Drogbas, Ferrieras, Hilarios, Anelkas, (maybe Cole as well?) of the squad and selling them on, plus the ones that are not old, just not very good or unhappy, so the likes of Zhirkov, Bosingwa, Kalou, Mikel, Turnbull and such.

We buy ONE attacking midfielder - Modric.

We bring in some quality but raw youngsters - the likes of De Bruyne, Lukaku, Courtois, etc. We welcome back Sturridge, Van Aanholt, Kakuta and Raijkovic.

We do NOT send Bertrand, Kalac, the new Barca kid, Piazon, Delac, Lalkovic, Mellis, McEachran, Kakuta, Sturridge, Chalobah and the others out on loan, but bring them into the first team squad.

We make it clear to the likes of Terry, Lampard, Drogba and Cech that their role is to lead and to teach, not just to do it all on their own.

We start the season lining up as:

Cech, Courtois, Bertrand, Ivanovic, Alex, Luiz, Raikovic, Chalobah, Van Aanholt, Terry, Sturridge, De Bruyne, Ramires, Mellis, Modric, Lampard, McEachran, Benayoun, Piazon, Kakuta, Malouda, Torres, Lukaku, Lalkovic.

We then begin the season with the sole aim of establishing the kids and moving the squad through into its next phase. We say from the outset that we are not pinning the season on winning silverware, but that we're going to fight for everything as a group. Fourth is good enough - as long as we get into the CL next season, that's fine.