The date: 13 October 2010. Somewhere in a courtroom in Texas, Tom Hicks obtains a restraining order preventing the sale of Liverpool FC to New England Sports Ventures.
For Reds fans everywhere it was just the latest twist in a saga that dragged the name of the club through legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic. The debt-heavy ownership of Hicks and George Gillett looked to continue and potentially take Liverpool Football Club into administration; which given their poor on-field displays under Roy Hodgson could have legitimately meant a relegation battle would be on the cards.
4 days later (after the sale), Liverpool would lose 2-0 to Everton which left the Reds second to bottom in the league table. Liverpool FC had not looked weaker for many a long year. Improvements over the next couple of months were rare, and there was no better example of Liverpool's plight than the 0-1 home defeat to Wolves on 29 December. Looking lost, disorganised and lacking ambition, Liverpool meekly shuffled off the Anfield turf having looked the inferior side to a club who were bottom of the league before the match.
The fans voiced their opinions, and it was this game that was the straw which broke the camel's back. Until this point I had held out hope that Hodgson, a decent manager, could turn things around. But that hope had been taking a beating, and finally it broke with this defeat. It was evident that Hodgson, even with the dark cloud of Hicks & Gillett gone, was not the man for the job at Anfield.
Fans asked questions. Where would it end? Liverpool were 12th in the table, and not looking like a team that deserved to be higher. There were nervous glances into the past, at clubs such as Leeds and Newcastle - who many said were "too big" to go out of the Premier League at the respective times. Were Liverpool next?
On 8 January 2011, everything changed.
NESV saw the decline of their new club, and acted. They removed Roy Hodgson from his post, and did not have to look far for a replacement. Kenny Dalglish, at the time a club ambassador and a former player, manager and legend at the club, was asked to step in. Dalglish was not only available, but his love for the club ensured he would take the reigns without hesitation. Indeed, he cut short a holiday to take the job.
Dalglish brought in his own staff, including Steve Clarke, and went about making changes to the team. It took a couple of games for Kenny to find his feet, but with a 3-0 win at Wolves, things started to click. There was no finer example of Kenny's impact than a win at Stamford Bridge on 6 February. Having bought Liverpool's prized striker Fernando Torres for £50m, Chelsea were huge favourites to win the match. The day belonged to the Reds though, as Raul Meireles struck and Torres sat with a muted look on his face from the bench.
Over the course of the season, Dalglish steered the Reds to a seventh-placed finish, missing out on 6th (and Europa League football) only via a final-day defeat at Aston Villa. Kenny earned himself a chance at having the job full-time which had duly been confirmed a couple of weeks earlier.
Kenny re-shaped the team over the summer of 2011, bringing in several Premier League-experienced players such as Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Jose Enrique and Craig Bellamy.
And whilst the league campaign has been hit-and-miss, Liverpool remain only 4 points outside a Champions League place. But more importantly, Kenny Dalglish has paid the domestic cup competitions a lot of respect - and is now reaping the benefits.
Tomorrow, Liverpool will play the new Wembley Stadium for the first time, against Cardiff City to contest the Carling Cup Final. They haven't done it the easy way either, having had all away ties up to the two-legged semi-final, including trips to Stoke and Chelsea. In said semi-final, the Reds knocked out Premier League leaders Manchester City.
But the fact that Liverpool are even at Wembley, contesting a trophy, is a perfect illustration of how times have changed for the better at Anfield over the past year or so.
Around 18 months ago, Liverpool fans wondered if they would even have a club to support. Think about that. Imagine if it was your club - facing an uncertain future under a diabolical ownership. If your club was having to go to the High Court just for the right to be sold.
Amongst all the talk of the trophy "kickstarting the season", or being a "distraction from other issues", the most important thing is that we as football fans still have our club intact. What the future holds we can only speculate, and it starts tomorrow with a cup final to be played.
But when Liverpool fans watch Steven Gerrard lead their team out at Wembley, I'm sure more than a couple will look back and breathe a huge sigh of relief that it didn't turn out, as it could have, so differently.
Come on, Liverpool!
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Arsenal & AC Milan - the low road and the high road
15 February 2012. AC Milan 4-0 Arsenal.
A night which saw Arsenal record their heaviest ever defeat in Europe served as a great illustration of how quickly the winds of change blow across football.
A little under 4 years ago the story at the San Siro between these two clubs was quite different. On 4 March 2008, Arsenal won 2-0 over the Rossoneri. It was a night where many pundits, journalists and so on evangelised the performance of Wenger's men, claiming it to be a direct example of the English game's superiority over the Italian.
Such arrogance could have been born out of an inferiority complex built over years of looking on in jealousy as Serie A frequently turned out world class players and fantastic teams.
The story was quite different this time around. For starters, out of the 22 players who started the game, only one (Bacary Sagna) remained from the teamsheet in 2008. Only a further two Arsenal players and four AC Milan players remained from their respective squads.
AC Milan's team in 2008 was seen as ageing and in transition, despite being the holders of the Champions League. Players such as Maldini, Pirlo, Gattuso and Inzaghi were seen as past their prime. Meanwhile Arsenal boasted the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and a still-promising Theo Walcott.
In 2012, Milan are rejuvenated. Their line is led by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a man who seems born to win titles. They have a healthy mix of experience (Seedorf, Mexes, Ambrosini), youth (El Shaarawy, Boateng) and players coming into their prime (Abate, Nocerino). And they are riding high on confidence under the guidance of Massimiliano Allegri.
2012's Arsenal, on the other hand, are a far cry from the conquerors of Milan 4 years ago. Consistently you can look across their squad and see that players who have come through simply aren't any better, or in some cases as good, as those they replaced. Arteta, a decent player, is clearly no Fabregas for example. And the Walcott of 2012 looks nothing like the exciting, pacy forward of a few years ago. He has simply failed to deliver. Arsenal were even so short of quality that they brought in Thierry Henry on a 6-week loan deal from New York Red Bulls, and the 34-year old has scored a couple of vital goals for them that the rest of the team seemed incapable of getting.
Arsenal do have some potentially great players - Ramsey, Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain to name a few - but they lack true leaders. Whereas AC Milan can look to the experience and quality of players such as Seedorf and Ibrahimovic, or the skill & trickery of Boateng, Arsenal are often accused of relying solely on their only real world-class player, Robin van Persie. That Van Persie has remained injury-free all season for a change is probably the only factor keeping the Gunners in the hunt for a top 4 place.
Thierry Henry left the field putting a brave smile on as he talked with Ibrahimovic, but inside he must have truly feared what would happen to his old club after he departs again for New York.
In 2008 it looked as though Arsenal were on the up, and AC Milan were in decline. 4 years on, their paths crossed again, yet now it seems the opposite is true.
AC Milan have rebuilt and are taking the high road to success.
Arsenal though, seem to be taking the low road - and their destination remains uncertain.
A night which saw Arsenal record their heaviest ever defeat in Europe served as a great illustration of how quickly the winds of change blow across football.
A little under 4 years ago the story at the San Siro between these two clubs was quite different. On 4 March 2008, Arsenal won 2-0 over the Rossoneri. It was a night where many pundits, journalists and so on evangelised the performance of Wenger's men, claiming it to be a direct example of the English game's superiority over the Italian.
Such arrogance could have been born out of an inferiority complex built over years of looking on in jealousy as Serie A frequently turned out world class players and fantastic teams.
The story was quite different this time around. For starters, out of the 22 players who started the game, only one (Bacary Sagna) remained from the teamsheet in 2008. Only a further two Arsenal players and four AC Milan players remained from their respective squads.
AC Milan's team in 2008 was seen as ageing and in transition, despite being the holders of the Champions League. Players such as Maldini, Pirlo, Gattuso and Inzaghi were seen as past their prime. Meanwhile Arsenal boasted the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and a still-promising Theo Walcott.
In 2012, Milan are rejuvenated. Their line is led by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a man who seems born to win titles. They have a healthy mix of experience (Seedorf, Mexes, Ambrosini), youth (El Shaarawy, Boateng) and players coming into their prime (Abate, Nocerino). And they are riding high on confidence under the guidance of Massimiliano Allegri.
2012's Arsenal, on the other hand, are a far cry from the conquerors of Milan 4 years ago. Consistently you can look across their squad and see that players who have come through simply aren't any better, or in some cases as good, as those they replaced. Arteta, a decent player, is clearly no Fabregas for example. And the Walcott of 2012 looks nothing like the exciting, pacy forward of a few years ago. He has simply failed to deliver. Arsenal were even so short of quality that they brought in Thierry Henry on a 6-week loan deal from New York Red Bulls, and the 34-year old has scored a couple of vital goals for them that the rest of the team seemed incapable of getting.
Arsenal do have some potentially great players - Ramsey, Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain to name a few - but they lack true leaders. Whereas AC Milan can look to the experience and quality of players such as Seedorf and Ibrahimovic, or the skill & trickery of Boateng, Arsenal are often accused of relying solely on their only real world-class player, Robin van Persie. That Van Persie has remained injury-free all season for a change is probably the only factor keeping the Gunners in the hunt for a top 4 place.
Thierry Henry left the field putting a brave smile on as he talked with Ibrahimovic, but inside he must have truly feared what would happen to his old club after he departs again for New York.
In 2008 it looked as though Arsenal were on the up, and AC Milan were in decline. 4 years on, their paths crossed again, yet now it seems the opposite is true.
AC Milan have rebuilt and are taking the high road to success.
Arsenal though, seem to be taking the low road - and their destination remains uncertain.
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