Lift us up where we belong

It was 28th February 2008. I stood at the bar of the Thatch and Thistle watching the emaciated chav in the Everton shirt leaping around the bar area swinging his arm round as though it were limp. Minutes earlier he had been sitting next to his wife – who looked and dressed like his doppleganger except that she sported a classic 1980’s perm – complaining about the lack of passion he perceived was being shown by David Moyes’ team. Now he was charging around like a maniac screaming “We’re going back to fourth place where we belong!”

On noticing that I had barely flinched in reaction to Yakubu’s scruffy tap-in, he asked in a gloating manner whether I was a supporter of Man City – the team now 1-0 down at home to Everton.

“No I support Liverpool” I told him.

“Ee-ar! Ee-ar! There’s a red spy ‘ere.” He spat through rotten teeth. “Come to spy on the enemy ‘ave yer?”

Debating whether responding would simply encourage this village idiot to give me his unwanted attention, I told him: “Yes, I’ll be on the phone to Rafa later with a full match report.”

“Come in ‘ere for the derby, lad. Come in ‘ere and look fer me!”

I didn’t go in there for the derby. Largely because I wanted to watch it and it wasn’t being shown in the Thatch and Thistle. I watched the game in the Arion. Liverpool won 1-0 and went on to finish fourth where Everton apparently belonged. Everton finished fifth, 11 points behind us.

What struck me was that for us, finishing fourth represented failure. It was a backwards step when we were desperate to improve. Had Everton finished fourth, to that numpty and thousands of other Bluenoses it would have been considered a massive achievement worthy of celebration.

Who aspires to “belong” in fourth place? With eighteen first place finishes recorded before my eleventh birthday, I had followed my team for a decade and a half believing we belonged in first place. However, 20 years on from the last time we finished first, I have to question whether that belief is as out of touch with reality as that moron’s assertion that Everton belong in fourth place.

Just as I can point out that Everton have finished fourth only once and never higher in seventeen Premiership seasons - indisputable evidence that they do not ‘belong’ in fourth place – it is also true that Liverpool have never finished first in the Premiership and have only finished second twice. Based on performance over seventeen years, we probably belong in third or fourth place. Based on squad cost, wage bills, stadium size, income and disposable spending money we perhaps don’t even belong that highly anymore.

The truth is there is a big difference between where we aspire to be and where we ‘belong’. First is still where we aspire to be just as bitter Blues with all the intelligence of a retarded gnat aspire to finish above Liverpool, whether that be in fourth place or seventeenth, but neither we nor they can truly say we belong to be there.

There will never be a season in which every single team finishes where they ‘belong’ and of course, the criteria that dictates why one team should by rights finish above another is highly debatable. It would be clear cut to say that Chelsea should finish above Hull City but whether Chelsea should finish above Manchester United is a matter of opinion. One might argue that as Chelsea’s squad cost more and their wage bill is higher, they should finish above the Mancs. It might be counter-argued that because Man Ure have finished above Chelsea for the last three years and thus have more recent experience of winning titles, they should finish higher. If it were a simple mathematical equation involving the cost of squad, wage bill and perhaps form over the last three seasons, there would be no need for football managers. In reality, there are many factors which also impact on where a side ultimately finishes including form, fitness of key players, refereeing decisions, luck and varying levels of performance and overall ability of football managers and backroom staff. Every season, some teams will over-achieve while others will under-perform.

When Steven Gerrard lifted the European Cup in Istanbul, were we the best team in Europe? Was our squad containing Djimi Traore, Igor Biscan, Josemi and Antonio Nunez stronger than those of AC Milan, Chelsea or Juventus? Of course not. We miraculously and gloriously over-achieved in beating those teams to win the competition while similarly they under-achieved in losing to us. The chances of that happening are greater in a cup competition than in a League campaign which tests a squad far more and over more games. While teams can still over and under achieve over a League season, the odds on a team that ‘belongs’ outside the top three based on an assessment of its resources, profiting from the under-performance of its rivals to win the title, are longer than your average Newcastle trophy drought.

Liverpool’s inability to mount a title challenge this season is disappointing but rather than point fingers at a manager who has undoubtedly over-achieved in taking this Liverpool team to two Champions League Finals, winning one, and in challenging for the title right to the death last season; rather than questioning transfers, tactics, team selection and marking strategies, maybe we should simply be asking where should we expect to finish in this League table? Where do we belong?

As much as it pains me to say it, I think we belong pretty much where we are now, battling the likes of Aston Villa and Tottenham. History suggests we’re bigger than both but current resources suggest otherwise. Like us, Villa have a strong first team but little strength in depth beyond it. Tottenham have arguably the strongest squad (certainly the most expensive one) but in Gerrard and Torres we have two players better than anyone in their entire squad. Chelsea should finish above us. They can match Lampard and Drogba against Gerrard and Torres (who you think is the better pair is irrelevant – they’re both world class pairs) but can also throw in a further 15 or so other players whose quality we can’t trump. Man Ure should finish above us. They can hold up Rooney to our Torres and while they have no equal to Gerrard, they can offer up the sumtotal of Carrick, Hargreaves, Fletcher, Anderson, Scholes and Giggs, plus a further 10 or so other players whose quality we can’t trump.

Man City’s squad is strong. Right now, they are underachieving – not that anyone is putting Mark Hughes under pressure or saying they should be winning the title this season.

If Rafa was to win the League with this Liverpool squad, it would rank as a miracle to rival Istanbul. If we were to finish lower than sixth, undoubtedly he would be underachieving and questions regarding his position would be justifiable. So far he has kept pace with teams of greater resources and last season he finished above teams who ‘belong’ above us. Clearly he is an excellent manager and crucially, no other manager could be expected to achieve more.

We can’t say we ‘belong’ in first place and won’t be able to again until we are given significant funds to make our squad stronger than those of Man Ure, Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham or until those teams go bust and have to sell all their best players.

For now, I hope that soon we can put a few wins together and go back to fourth place where we belong. Then we can dream of over-achieving again.