This wretched season just rolls on and on. The month of May cannot come soon enough bringing a welcome end to the horror that is the 2009-2010 football season. Fate is shitting and pissing on us every match day and it is simply a nightmare.
We were really good in the first half and deservedly led at half-time but inexplicably we went missing in action as the second half began allowing Arsenal to take the initiative and then, typical of our luck this season, they equalised with the jammiest of own goals. The rotten luck continued when for the second season in succession the only thing Arshavin did in a Liverpool v Arsenal game was score. Of course, typically, Howard Webb refused to award us a clear penalty at 0-0 when Gallas fouled Gerrard in the box but then why should we expect the benefit of a refereeing decision this season given how few we have had. I’ve lost count of the number of penalties we should have had but didn’t this campaign.
From the point we went 2-1 down, we only had ourselves to blame for not salvaging at least a point. We were rank from back to front. Kuyt and Benayoun were useless; Torres and Gerrard were ineffective – not that they had any decent service; Aurelio made the best possible case for Insua being first choice left-back; Aquilani couldn’t get into the game after coming off the bench, and fucking Carragher, Lucas and even Glenn Johnson reverted to type knocking the ball backwards and sideways and anywhere else other than near the Arsenal goal. Why Aurelio was taking all the free-kicks despite some consistently atrocious delivery in recent weeks is a question I can’t answer. I am equally mystified as to why Rafa replaced Johnson with Degen. Perhaps Johnson was injured or just lacking the match fitness to play the full 90 but surely even Cavalieri would have made more impact than the useless Swiss.
I’m really disappointed that we deteriorated so much after half time and that we lacked any sort of goal threat after we fell behind. In the end, it was an easy 3 points for Arsenal and that is simply not good enough.
At the end of the day, players of the calibre of Lucas, Kuyt, Benayoun and Aurelio are decent players to have in your squad. Each is capable of having spells of good form and can contribute when the team is playing well but not a single one of them can dominate a game against a top opponent. We are having to rely on too many players in the ‘decent’ category because we have too few in the ‘world class’ category.
We’ve known for some time we’re not good enough to challenge for the title but the question now is what are we good enough for? If you took away the two best outfield players from each of Liverpool, Villa, City, Spurs and Arsenal, I believe our best XI would be inferior to Arsenal’s and City’s and it’s pretty debatable whether it would be better than Villa’s or Spurs’. Certainly at the moment, Villa’s players are doing a damn-sight better on the pitch.
With no money to spend, the manager needs to make some really shrewd purchases in the next few transfer windows. Forget your David Villas. If Rafa was given anything like £20m to spend, it would have to be spread out on two or three players costing between £5m-£10m. Unless every one turns out to be a transfer masterstroke, that doesn't buy you titles and, the way City have been spending, it won't even buy us Champions League football.
Right now, I'd just be happy with a team that could win a football match.
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