As Andy Carroll, formerly of our parish, ‘limbed’ into Simon Mignolet on Sunday, I cried foul. No. Literally, I cried ‘foul’. And then I cried foul again when I saw Anthony Taylor saunter over to the his colleague, and after considering the car-crash he was about to condone, allowed the goal to stand. My girlfriend was sat next to me and shook her head as the replays were being played from multiple angles, and all the angles said roughly the same thing: that Liverpool had conceded a key goal in a key game, and it wasn’t the defence’s fault.
As half time was blown, and my teeth clattered against each other, I realised why I was happy that Brendan Rodgers was our manager. With the players coming off, the Redmen in white were in the ref’s ear, their wound fresh and stinging and the Sky cameras focused on two men. Rodgers in the foreground, careful not to step on to the Upton Park turf and Mr. Taylor in the backdrop, nervous, ball in hand, flanked by his linesmen- yes, linesmen, and not their official job titles. If you can’t convince your referee of what you’re waved a flag for, then you don’t deserved to claim that you’ve ‘assisted’ him. I anticipated something combustible. After all, it had been the managerial behaviour diet us football fans have been groomed on.
Would Taylor look Rodgers in the eye? Initially he avoids it, but when he sees the lack of lack-of-control in Rodgers’ eyes he engages. They talk as they go down the tunnel, Rodgers looked like an inquisitive Oliver Twist asking Taylor why he had got the proportions wrong in the porridge. A friend called me. I picked up.
“Why the **** didn’t Rodgers let Taylor know about it?”
“I dunno I said. To give him a guilt trip?”
I did not know.
Looking back, I reckon how Rodgers handled the situation speaks volumes for how the rest of the game transpired. The easier thing for him to have done would be losing his rag outside, and back in the dressing room. He could have given the lads an old-fashioned Mourinho-esque ‘us versus them’ speech, got the blood boiling and Braveheart-ed them out there for the second half.
Instead, I imagine his team talk was more about sticking to the game plan they had come to implement. After all, did they expect anything less from a hungry Andy Carroll and West Ham midfield that was never going risk the nosebleed of carpet-passing the ball into Liverpool’s final third? No. It was par for the course, and what they had to do is remind themselves of those performances away at Fulham and Stoke and Sunderland and Cardiff, where they had flirted to dropping points but had been patient and resourceful with what came their way. It will happen again, he must have stressed. And with taking Coutinho out and putting in Lucas he would have said to West Ham, “go on, batter us again!”
And batter them again they did not. Sam Allardyce’s teams are often one-trick ponies, and the only time I enjoy watching them is when they take points off the other ‘big teams’. Sure there was the thumping Andy Carroll header, but for every one of those there were two glorious Suarez attempts hit the bar. That one fully side-on that he curved with the outside of this right? How many players in the Premier League do you know that would even think of, let alone nearly execute, something like that?
As you can probably tell, this little piece has not been about the performance on the park. Ultimately, it was not very charming. It was winning ugly, beautifully. This has been more about paying homage to the little things managers do.
And Brendan Rodgers’ conduct with Anthony Taylor, his understated post-match comments and most of all the managerial discipline to plug a tactical hole in the midfield stands Liverpool Football Club in very good stead. We may or may not win the league, but we have someone at the helm who has sneaked upon us with a kind of wisdom we never picked up on when he started out.
That Being: Liverpool documentary seems a long long time ago now doesn’t it?
Nice article.