Our days are numbered

They all laugh at us,
They all mock at us ,
They all say our days are numbered,
 
This extract from the terrace chant ‘The Reds are coming up the hill boys’ has somehow always seemed appropriate but perhaps never more so than during a dark November for Liverpool fans. Though October was little better with just one ray of sunshine piercing through the autumnal skies.

As many old hands will tell those newer to the fold there was a time when loyalty was paramount on the terraces and stands of Anfield. It was also exercised without exception. The team was supported in a manner which befitted fans who were considered amongst if not the very best in the game.

We were certainly tagged as the most knowledgeable not just by those within our own club but those outside. Players, managers and our opposite numbers would go out of their way to heap on the praise.

It was very much part of the Liverpool Way that nobody connected with Liverpool ever walked alone and as many can testify it has remained the case. In thick or thin. Triumph or disaster. It has always been so.

Rafael Benitez took quotes from the club anthem and distributed them liberally in a press conference prior to the Lyon match. Some suggested it was with an air of desperation and little more than lip service to mutinous fans calling his position into question. Even the most loyal they posited where doing just that.

Unfortunately it seems a man born in Madrid who only joined the club a little over four years ago understands what it is to be a Liverpool fan better than most who claim to have spent their entire lives as dyed in the wool Reds.

Websites, newspapers, radio and even TV stations are busy running polls as to whether Rafa has lost the plot, possibly the dressing room and certainly whether he should lose his job.

Some of these plebiscites are perhaps predictably showing majorities in favour of someone else taking the helm but the actual malcontents who would see Rafa head back to Spain with a P45 are almost certainly in a minority as far as the Liverpool supporting population is concerned.

That they can tip the scales in such votes or at least what appear to be open phone-ins is down to selective editing of programmes and screening in the latter case.

Polls as open as they can often seem are couched to produce the desired result and the outcome will often depend on matters such as timing - there is no better time than now say compared to the end of last season - or the site they are linked to.

What they never do is address the aftermath or examine the path nor reasons as to why Liverpool’s season has so far been disappointing.

The resulting unscientific and almost certainly unrepresentative findings are then presented as fact and the majority opinion. However, any level of research amongst the multitude of fans sites and forums rather than just the assumptions which are being made from a vociferous minority would reveal an inconvenient truth.

It’s difficult for any manager the reader might care to name to actually manage a club in the febrile atmosphere created by the media storm further whipped up by reporting the solely malcontents who ignore that Arsene Wenger is without a trophy win in five seasons and may well not break that run by May.

Nor that Alex Ferguson took seven years to win a title and when he did it was largely by rolling over a meek opposition for most of the 1990s and some part of the early 21st century.

The internet exacerbates things as now it isn’t just pockets of Walton or Fazackerly airing its gripes or playing at being a club manger despite realising so little of what the job involves its now voices in places as diverse as Waltham Forest and Fiji.

Unfortunately much of what pours out though voluminous is at best misguided and fickle to an extent only the internet and the immediate interactivity our digital age can conjure up. It simply amplifies a knee-jerk reaction to events which takes no account of the need to build a successful club from the bottom up in a atmosphere created by greed and the need for instant gratification and a taste of glory.

All too often a chalice won on the quick fix - which isn’t even available given the financial position at Anfield - can be dashed from the lips while the drink has yet to pass the tonsils. Over in a relative instant while the deeper and by far sweeter taste comes from proper foundations. Dragging the analogy a little further a good grape hewn from the best soil.

Many forget that Manchester United built their recent dominance on that kind of groundwork and the 1960s was the bedrock of a Liverpool dynasty which stretched from the mid-1970s to 1990.

However, little of the Reds’ journey was easy.

From lifting the league title in 1966 until doing so again in 1973 Bill Shankly could only land one cup final spot and second place in the league. Often the football wasn’t great and some players were effectively allowed to go out to grass at Anfield rather than the lesser stage they might have expected as their powers waned. There were players bought who failed to produce the goods so were shipped out to various destinations and those with burgeoning reputations prior to their arrival left with no small measure of tarnish on their career.

Not claiming silverware was crushing for those who had experienced the FA Cup being held aloft for the first time followed by a championship win in successive seasons but team which had achieved promotion then added more needed to be broken up in order for a rise during the next decade.

Only when new players blended into a team virtually built from scratch was another era of glory, though one which dwarfed that which had gone before, established.

That second great team took a relatively short space of time to assemble and like so many it integrated superstars with grafters but the playing field was more level at that time.

There were no multi-billionaires looking at owning clubs and certainly no one who would ever considering lending against a one they wished to purchase. It was strictly a field for pork butchers and local magnates.

Bridging the gap was by consequence made an easier task than the one facing any modern day manager.

Compared to those days the current Liverpool team is far more star studded. More costly even accounting for well over three decades of inflation and as a rule has more talented individuals in the first XI and the much bigger squad needed for 2010.

Back in the days when Shanks bestrode the club’s corridors his decisions were looked at and debated but ultimately trusted. Despite errors along the way those decisions were in time not only proved to be correct but laden with foresight.

Those who accepted and trusted them were not by people who sat in armchairs nodding at the pundits’ offerings or at computer keyboards venting their spleen but those who attended games and despite seeing the rough edges knew just who they were plus their part in proceedings. They were supporters and would roar their team on. Not doing would only see the club go into reverse.

It’s a feature no DVD highlights, the club’s own channel nor any writing with the benefit hindsight will offer. The focus will naturally be on the genius and glory.

Little was diferent for Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan. So too Kenny Dalglish whose tenure coincided with the change towards a globalised and all encompassing media.

Liverpool were still reaping the fruit of those years when Dalglish resigned but back-pedalled under Graeme Souness and were playing catch up along with some nice but ultimately fruitless football under Roy Evans while Alex Ferguson put walls and a roof on his solid base made the gap grow.

Gerard Houllier’s reign threatened to narrow the chasm which had opened up by the dawn of a new millennium but only really flattered to deceive. Never more than the 2001-02 season when a platform on which a challenge could well have been mounted crumbled after some poor signings over the summer which followed. The club careered further backwards and by the summer of 2004 a change was not just inevitable it was essential.

Rafa Benitez’s achievement in winning the European and FA Cups in his first two terms along with the fractious ownership situation is according to some observers in the media all that keeps him in a job. They cite those polls, radio phone-ins, texts and emails from the saturated coverage as their evidence of little backing from the fans and seem surprised when the opposite view is ventured.

As a view it is almost certainly one eyed and ultimately detrimental to the club as it gives the appearance of a crisis torn rabble tearing itself to bits. Meanwhile the man at the helm refuses to panic and steers the ship along its course as best he can while those aboard the armada at least every second week follow - not blindly as decisions are debated and weaknesses are poured over but in the right forums and context. Those discussions are certainly diligent and with any thoughts and fears considered opinion rather than impetuous judgment.

Managers who lose dressing rooms do not get players performing as they did against not only Lyon on Wednesday but also - albeit that one rose between a host of thorns - the win over Manchester United.

Liverpool have performed woefully at stages but also put in performances which have not earned a just reward. Even the Carling Cup a competition Rafa has been slated for not having the merest concern about was exited in the right spirit. On a good performance and with a full contribution to a fine match.

Nor would those players selected for duty act in the manner that they have - knowing their thousands of pounds a week are safe even if their win bonuses are not they would as so many do simply wave white flags.

Banners and flags still festoon stadia across the continent extolling the virtues of players plus Rafael Benitez. There is no doubt about the disappointment so many supporters feel at that start of this campaign following a very good showing last term. However, though there is a gap between Liverpool and those clubs at the domestic summit there remains everything to play for. Even the top prize itself.

The Reds will need to be virtually flawless but most people expect this particular season to be unlike many that have gone before. The eventual champions could lose as many as half a dozen games if not more with teams who have previously seen imperious performing badly and haemorrhaging points.

Progressing in Europe unless it is in the Europa League will be harder and requires a heavier reliance on the efforts of others and not making the last 16 will be a blow but the same one Manchester United suffered in 2006 when they finished bottom of their group. Even if the worst happens events at Old Trafford prove the situation is not irretrievable.

Rafa makes mistakes he is after all human but in football any error is magnified and currently examined in minute detail but to believe his errs outweigh his strengths and contribution to Liverpool Football Club is woefully flawed.

With very few exceptions outside fan literature the good done is largely ignored. Why? Simply because it doesn’t make good copy - it is a story readers would not necessarily want to have examined when the other angle is so more noteworthy.

Not only that so would the house of cards some thoughts and hastily cobbled together theories are based on.

Often they are using their own understandings and old data but worse than that are the statistics which often get repeated ad nausea are not just flawed but inexplicably wrong yet are paraded as fact. For some reason figures brandished in the hands of some old pro rather than those who meticulously research in order to provide articles or blogs are believed.

Even those who should know better after years of training and practice informing them that all sources and facts should be checked - journalists - are in the current climate which prevails at newspapers and broadcast media basing their pieces on the same principles. They seemingly eschew hard evidence and the importance of detail being behind every word they write. Instead they are prepared to pass off the same supposition, half-truth and lies.

As they are held to be independent with no axe to grind not to mention trusted and educated sources rather than just the basic newsmen which previously filled back pages their commentaries not only become part of the myth they exacerbate it.

Achievements such as the come backs against AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final are put down to luck and the spirit of just a few players. For the 2006 FA Cup win Benitez of course had no one other than Steven Gerrard to be grateful towards who he, as has been related countless times, approached to examine some of the errors he made during the 90 minutes at the post game celebration.

It may have been an unusual time for most to raise such issues as the trophy sat still doused in champagne but rooting out and correcting problems is part of a manager’s job. For an obsessive like Rafael Benitez the timing is immaterial and along with his decision to join fans in a Cologne bar is just one reason why many Liverpool fans are happy to have a man so dedicated to improving the lot of a team they love in charge.

Focussing on that particular night in Istanbul the decision to pick Harry Kewell as a starter has been criticised during the past week without so much as a consideration as to whether it was tactically right given that PSV Eindhoven had stretched the Italians in the semi-final and exposed a weakness to pace from someone operating in the hole.

There were few available to the manager able to perform in such a role. That he was withdrawn due to injury had little impact on events and certainly didn’t change the pattern of the game. It was the reorganisation made at half-time which won the game and regardless of the enforced nature it was not as a BBC panel which further perpetuated the myths about net spend and squad size suggested down to circumstance rather than any form of managerial wisdom.

A right back was taken off and replaced with a central midfielder who helped change the complexion of the game but contrary to opinion often expressed a man obsessed with caution and numbers put three men at the back. They were protected by Dietmar Hamann whose introduction was crucial in giving Gerrard and Xabi Alonso license to roam a little more and the six minutes in which the deficit was pulled back were amongst the most remarkable ever witnessed on a football field but owed much to a manager who managed to pull the situation back.

It is alas a sad indictment of the current mindset in the media and there seems to be evidence of an anti-Benitez agenda when those who previously extolled the virtues of the manager are prepared to stick a knife in and edit facts to suit the angle taken. Their narrow-mindedness all the more galling considering these same names, without exception, have a free hand based on their reputations as columnists but appear content to take a line based on editorial influence.

Liverpool have rarely if ever received a sufficient amount of media acclaim for either past achievements or the more barren years which have followed heady decades. Knocking the club on top is perhaps always part of the media agenda - or at least that could be claimed if Alex Ferguson was not held in either awe or fear by a number of reporters who shy away from asking the pertinent questions.

The triumphs of yesteryear are now only given any precedence in order to beat the incumbent manager over the head with and suggest Bill Shankly or Bob Paisley would never have ruled over a run of one win in eight games. Both did have similar if not worse runs of results not to mention form - which even if a few other things are missing has been shown at times this season and even during the current lean period.

An unfortunate side affect is that some ex-players have jumped to the beat and unfortunately made critiques which inevitably get compared to their more glorious days in a red shirt.

Critics suggest cup wins and a fine 2008-09 season have contributed to papering over the cracks.

Maybe they should consider that Rafa has not so much covered cracks as a huge number of chasms in the wall and somehow stopped the whole house from falling down around our ears.

Just like most of the road to Istanbul Liverpool have been punching above their weight for a succession o campaigns and may continue to do so this term. Courtesy of some good guidance the Reds have worked their way up from prize fighter to somewhere like genuine title contenders even if the shot does not come until 2011.

Rafael Benitez who has not only delivered progress season after season but secured trophies and has Liverpool on the cusp of being a genuine force in the league will be following that back and white patent in a time when there is no black and white just shades of grey.

Rafa is somehow managing an unmanageable club. If he was to leave for whatever reason the Reds’ ability to build any sort of challenge before another new decade starts would be set back. Those who may have called for it may if they get their wish could only realise just what we had when he has gone.