TOMKINS REFLECTS ON CHELSEA WIN
Paul Tomkins 27 October 2008

So, when do you start believing? Perhaps it's best to use the victory at Stamford Bridge as a metaphor for the season as a whole.
When Xabi Alonso's shot was deflected past Petr Cech, I was obviously pleased – but I didn't feel victory was in the bag. What the goal did do, however, was give the Reds a chance. And in the past 19 years at Stamford Bridge, that's been a rare pleasure. But after about 65 minutes, with Ryan Babel on to use his pace and skill, after Robbie Keane had run his socks off, and with the Reds clearly on top (with Gerrard having his best game against the Blues), I finally felt victory was possible. And it was then, at the point of truly believing, that I got really nervous. And bizarrely, it was Alonso's superb free-kick that cannoned back off the post a few minutes later that made me rethink, and worry that it might yet be Chelsea's day. So, as a season, it should be the two-thirds mark when we really know if our belief is not misplaced, and that the Reds can hang in there. But what this start has clearly done, as with Alonso's goal, is give Liverpool a chance. I often don't seem as disappointed as some fans after a defeat because I've been less optimistic beforehand. I obviously want the Reds to win every game, but sometimes I sense defeat looming. Anything then is a bonus. An away game at Chelsea, with their 86 home game unbeaten record, and I'm already expecting the worst. Of course, I'd never want the players or manager to have this outlook; they are the ones who can control the moods of us all, the ones who need to have belief, with our collective destiny in their hands. Thankfully they had belief in spades yesterday. I've spent the past three years on this website trying to boost morale at this point of the season. My worry now is that some fans will get carried away –– and I'm trying my best to not join them. Total elation when you're winning can be as misplaced as total doom when you're not. And from such a high, you can experience a bigger fall when the inevitable bad result or two comes along. What I will say is that people need to enjoy the present moment, and the football we've seen this season. Right now, things are nigh-on perfect. We need to appreciate that fact. But that doesn't mean one or two bad results won't see the ‘moodometer' swing 180º in the opposite direction. It does depress me when people focus on the negatives, as I experienced before this game. In a number of instances I experienced comments along the lines of Dirk Kuyt's goals being ‘lucky' because the keeper got some kind of touch on them, and that the recent 3-2 victories ultimately meant that we'll definitely end up losing games. Clearly you can't keep conceding goals and needing to comeback to win. But what was ever to say that Liverpool would keep going behind, or conceding two goals in games? The key thing for me was that when the Reds did concede goals – and all teams do, one way or another, at sometime or another – there was the ability to play football and win from difficult positions. The sendings off may have helped in those victories, but no-one asked the opposition to make dangerous tackles on Xabi Alonso. And while the victories against last season's top two have come with the aid of own goals/deflections, it must be acknowledged that the pressure Liverpool put teams under forced these mistakes. So I don't buy that Liverpool have had a surplus of luck. The Stoke game was drawn because the officials disallowed a perfectly good goal, and none of the sendings off were unjust. Before Antonio Valencia's first booking, the Wigan wall, of which he was part, refused to retreat for almost two minutes. And his second booking was a straight red in my eyes. Add the niggling injuries to Torres, in particular, as well as those to Gerrard and Babel in the early weeks, followed by the loss of Martin Skrtel to a serious knee problem, and you can't say that it's been handed to Liverpool on a plate. Then there was the issue of three players lost to Olympics, more than any other club. And when talking of luck, the fixture list hasn't exactly been kind, either: the away derby, Man United and Chelsea in the first nine games, plus Aston Villa and Manchester City away – two of the obvious favourites for 5th spot. Also, five of the nine games so far have been away, so those 23 points have been hard-earned. By contrast, Arsenal haven't even played anyone of distinction yet: West Brom, Fulham, Newcastle, Blackburn, Bolton, Hull, Sunderland, Everton and West Ham. Hull are flying high, but it's still a game you'd expect Arsenal to win at home. And many of Benítez's hoodoos are being broken. There was the Steve Bruce league jinx, and the long-awaited home and away victories against Manchester United and Chelsea. These are perennial bogey fixtures – but not this season. Not only have Liverpool beaten both United and Chelsea, but they've both been fully deserved. I hate to use the 'V'-word, but there is a look to this Liverpool team that brings to mind Rafa's Valencia. It's nowhere near identical, because it's an entirely different collection of individuals, but the style of play is growing ever closer in most senses. Valencia used to grind teams down: the 'Crushing Machine' was their nickname. But Valencia also played the best football I've ever seen in the flesh from a visiting team at Anfield. Not the fanciest football, with tricks and flicks, but the most complete display of a team moving from defence to attack, and then back again, as if telepathic. I think we all expected the same to happen at Liverpool, but it's taken its time. We've seen hints of it before, but it was always a slightly watered down version. Now I see a team that looks capable of matching Benítez's achievements at Valencia. I do hate this patronising notion that Rafa finally 'understands' English football; as if a man with his football intelligence didn't ‘get it' in four years here. His league win rate with the Reds going into this campaign was already ahead of some of his legendary forebears, but the bar had been raised, particularly by Chelsea's über-squad and Alex Ferguson's best-ever team. It seems there is a little less rotation from Rafa this time, but it only appears like a sea-change if you work from the incorrect notion that he rotated far more than his rivals to start with; in the previous two league seasons combined, it was 235 total changes to United's league line-ups to 244 to Liverpool's, while Chelsea made 222. So not much in it. By contrast, Arsenal made only 171, and yet they didn't end either season in style. If anything, Liverpool's remarkable overachievement in Europe under Benítez has worked against him in home-soil perceptions. I have never felt that the manager has prioritised Europe over the Premiership –– unless it's been at the stage of the season when the former has become the only realistic target. Much was made of a couple of Benítez's league line-ups early last season, but he has always fielded fringe players in the Champions League qualifiers, and his team that lost to Marseilles was far from the strongest available. But as that was doesn't fit the argument, it tends to be overlooked. Also, Torres has missed games with injury this season and the Reds have won, which kind of disproves the ‘Torres or bust' theories. I've defended rotation, but I've never said it is foolproof, or indeed that it is the only way to succeed –– my point has always been that it's impossible to conclusively prove either way, and as such, is an easy thing to blame when things aren't working out. Liverpool weren't winning the league, therefore it must have been Benítez's tinkering. However, could it not have been that the teams that did win the league cost far more money? –– in the same way that teams who spend far less than Liverpool tend to finish far lower. What confuses me is that other clubs who have spent similar amounts to Liverpool in the last three or four years –– such as Spurs and Newcastle –– are not expected to do anywhere near as well as the Reds. These are teams with lots of £10m+ players, yet look at the sorry state they've got themselves into. I've counted seven £10m+ players representing Spurs this season. By contrast, Liverpool have just five on the books: the only five Benítez has bought (with Dirk Kuyt a fraction under £10m). Go to the other end of the spectrum, and in the last 12 months Chelsea have fielded 14 stars who cost £10m+, and have eleven on the books at present. United currently have nine players in this price bracket. So for me, maybe the fact that Chelsea and United have that many more £10m-£30m players helped give them the edge. I'm not pleading poverty for Liverpool, as Rafa has clearly had some money to spend; I'm merely trying to show that, pound for pound, Benítez has done an excellent job when compared with his rivals. And what we're now seeing is in keeping with a point I've been arguing for some years: that if you give a top-class manager the time to build the squad he wants, he can achieve his ambitions. Those ambitions haven't yet been fulfilled, but it's moving in the right direction. However, nothing I can say in the hope of a strong summation can top what the manager himself said after a landmark victory: “We have belief, we have quality and we have character. But we need three points in our next game against Portsmouth if we are going to keep this mentality.” Amen to that.

TOMKINS: ENGLAND'S LOSS, LIVERPOOL'S GAIN
Paul Tomkins 13 October 2008

I have to shake my head in disbelief at the criticism that has come Steven Gerrard's way in the past week, from fans and media alike.
Of course, it all stems from England's matches; although this has led fans of other clubs, somewhat laughably, to expand it to include talk about how overrated he is in general. (By the way, isn't ‘overrated' the most tiresomely overused word in football? I can't think of one player it hasn't been levelled against.) It was even mooted by one United fan that Michael Carrick is a far better player – a fact ‘proven' by him having won a greater number of the medals that matter most. By this logic, dear old Djimi Traoré is as good as Michael Owen, Matt Le Tissier and Alan Shearer combined, on account of total career medals garnered, which includes the European Cup. Clearly it doesn't work this way. Carrick better than Gerrard? Yes, the debate has got that surreal. Football is about opinions, but let's keep some reality; I'm not about to argue that Bernard Diomede was a better winger than Cristiano Ronaldo just because I'm a Liverpool fan. And Michael Robinson, who admitted to being woefully out of his depth at Anfield in 1984, won as many medals as George Best, but I won't take that train of thought any further. The issue of Gerrard's quality is not to be confused with team balance, something that England often lack in the centre of midfield when Gerrard and Lampard are paired together, given their similar desire to get forward. At Liverpool, Mascherano and Alonso don't clash with their captain's instincts. For England, Gerrard has to think a lot harder, because before making a move he has to check whether his midfield partner has already bombed forward. One national newspaper's blog even spoke of Gerrard's (and Lampard's) “limited technical ability and incessant mediocrity at international level”. It makes me laugh that this is suggested after a game against the calibre of opposition that wouldn't even make the Uefa Cup; and yet over the past five seasons we've seen Gerrard impress hugely in leading Liverpool to the latter stages of the Champions League, and inspiring the Reds to overcome the mighty AC Milan from a 3-0 disadvantage. (And let's face it, Lampard has hardly been found wanting in European football, has he?) Suddenly Gerrard doesn't posses the adequate technique for international football? What is the Champions League then? – an English pub league? I'm sorry, but aside from the top few national teams in the world, the knockout stages of the Champions League has a greater proliferation of world-class talent than the general international arena. And the group stages involve more talent than a World Cup qualifying campaign; Marseilles and PSV Eindhoven, propping up Liverpool's group, are far better sides than Kazakhstan, while teams like Andorra wouldn't even make the Inter Toto Cup. Big European teams have the cream of the world's crop, gathered in tight clusters. Liverpool themselves have a collection of the best players from England, Argentina, Spain and Holland, four of the globe's traditional superpowers, and emerging internationals from two further major nations, Italy and Brazil. You can say something similar of all the top Champions League sides. Only last month Gerrard scored the kind of goal against Marseilles that 99.9% of players from any country could only dream about: wrapping his foot around the ball for a shot in such a difficult and unnatural body position – so that he looked almost double-jointed in its execution – but making it look effortless in the process. The goalkeeper didn't move a muscle. If Ronaldinho had produced this piece of skill we'd have heard about how only the Latinos of this world can conjure such otherworldly perfection. And someone is telling me that Gerrard lacks technique beyond the confines of the hurly-burly of the Premiership? (Which, itself, is now a far more technical league than in the past.) The problem is not one of technique or calibre of opposition, but of context. At Liverpool, Gerrard is respected, treasured and a go-to man. For England, he has much less of a support network. For England, like others, he is just another potential scapegoat. For a start, any player representing England has to put up with the numbskulls who boo their own players mercilessly after a mistake. Far be it from me to want to defend Ashley Cole (and I'm more likely to be asked to become the sixth member of Girls Aloud than to make a habit of it), but a baying home arena does not help players, no matter how much they earn. Why would anyone want to destroy the confidence of one of their own players with 20 minutes remaining? Yes, you pay your money, but you're only likely to make players more nervous; if not just this time, then when contemplating the next game. Thankfully Anfield still remains the most cultured crowd. You only have to look at how quickly the passionate Newcastle fans have turned on their own players and managers in recent seasons (and how it only made things worse) to see that patience and intelligence are also key attributes of a club's support – not just raw emotion, dedication and passion. I've only been to see England play once as an adult, back in 1996, when Robbie Fowler made his debut against Croatia. By contrast I've been to see Liverpool a few hundred times. Therefore, like a lot of fans, I care about my club first and foremost. However, if I did care enough about England to pay money and travel to the game (and therefore, presumably, desperately wanted them to win), I don't see the point of then booing a player I don't like. Why don't these fans ask themselves why their team plays better away from home, when they're not playing with fear? The media treatment of England is also generally appalling. Again, the players are well-paid professionals at the top of their sport who don't need mollycoddling, but equally they should not feel like they are battling their own nation. It's easy to look on at the Olympic spirit seen this summer by our heroic gold medal athletes, but they didn't have thousands of fans barracking their every move from the sidelines and journalists praying that they fail, because it makes better copy. There's also this new ‘Hollywood' accusation regarding Gerrard's passing. Suddenly it's a bad thing to be able to pass 60 yards with incredible vision. Sure, they don't always come off; nor do Xabi Alonso's. But at times you have to try and mix it up, and if one out of every three or four dissects the opposition like a hot knife through butter, then it's a job well done. I'm sure you could put together a stunning montage of Gerrard's long-range assists over the past decade to justify his decision to look ambitiously long every now and then. Having said all this, like every other top-class player, Gerrard is not without his faults. He seems to burn too much nervous energy ahead of big games, but then he does carry an enormous burden of expectation and responsibility; even cool, calm and collected Alan Hansen said that the older he got the more he became a bag of nerves before big matches, as a lot was expected of him as a senior figure in the team. But even if Gerrard can look nervous early on in big games, he tends to come good and deliver when it really matters. His record proves that. Of course he will struggle to regularly dominate games against Chelsea or Man United to the degree he does others, because these are fixtures in which no-one really dominates proceedings, such is the spread of talent and the tactical battle at the heart of the pitch. Often centre-backs are the ones who get noticed most. Sometimes it frustrates me when Gerrard gets Man of the Match for Liverpool almost on his reputation alone; on occasions you can pick out someone less-heralded who underpinned the victory. And as we saw against Man United recently, Liverpool are not lost without him, even though you'd want him in the side whenever possible. There seems to be this usual black/white reporting that he saves ‘one-man' Liverpool's bacon time and time again, yet when he has a bad game for England he is rubbish and technically incompetent. To me, it's like Liverpool get insulted by the media in club debates as having only one great player (a nonsense, even before Torres arrived), but with England, it is then Liverpool's player that gets insulted. I admit my bias, but I don't recall Wayne Rooney getting so heavily doubted after four mostly uninspiring years for his country. But despite one or two inevitable flaws, I still think that Gerrard is the most complete player to represent Liverpool (and England); at least in my lifetime. He can pass, shoot, tackle, beat a man, but what marks him out is that he has both the pace and the stature to make him a dominant physical presence, too. To score 100 club goals from midfield is a remarkable achievement, particularly as he was not on penalty duty for much of his career. Hopefully he will feel far more comfortable, appreciated and understood once he returns to Melwood at the end of the week. And, once back in the fold, he can instantly begin work on his next century of goals.