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Hindsight: The Football Fan’s Favourite Tool

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Liverpool loaneeIF we could just rewind time and start all over again, things would be different. We’d have full knowledge of the previous version of future events and would be able to change things, to tweak them a little in order to make the outcome more to our liking, in the future and all be betting experts!

We’re all wise once something has actually occurred, we all know what needed to have happened to prevent the outcome that we’ve been left with but boy, do football fans love to act wise after the fact more than most.

The last couple of weeks have seen this lead to hypocrisy abound, as Liverpool fans have come out with lines such as ‘I knew we should’ve kept Assaidi…’ or ‘I always said bringing in Victor Moses was an expensive mistake…’; such wisdom, now that we know how things are actually turning out.

Of course, if they’d known that from the start we’d have all appreciated them letting the manager know beforehand so that we could save ourselves some money and valuable time.

In the cases of Victor Moses and our very own Fabio Borini and Oussama Assaidi we’ve seen a very impressive turnaround in the attitudes from many of our fans.

When Moses was signed on loan from Chelsea it was seen as something of a coup. Here was a talented young winger/striker, on the back of a 10 goal season for Chelsea. I’m sure we all thought we’d got the better end of that deal.

What we’ve actually got is a totally disinterested player who is just going through the motions until he returns to his club to probably be sold in the summer. It was widely believed that he’d add a different dimension to our attack and perhaps he has – some kind of 5th or 6th dimension that we’re just not capable of perceiving in our primitive states but whatever it is he’s been doing it hasn’t contributed anything to our current league standings.

In the cases of Borini and Assaidi, here were two players brought in last season that either struggled greatly with injury or were just, inexplicably, never played. Neither player looked particularly bad when they did play, they often just seemed a little off the pace; lots of running and effort but not quite able to grasp the pace of the league yet. Isn’t that to be expected?

Much like with Aspas this season, both were written off and subsequently loaned out. But after a number of goals (often winners) against some of our higher league rivals, views appear to be changing slightly and there have even been questions as to whether we had the sense to put recall clauses in their contracts.

Some have even gone as far as to state that they just knew these players had more to offer, and why were we loaning them out when we had such a thing squad. Again, hindsight is a wonderful gift but unfortunately it is ultimately useless as once something has happened there is very little we can do to change it.

On Tuesday evening Twitter went beserk again in support of Borini as he scored the penalty winner for Sunderland in the first leg of their Capital One Cup tie against Manchester United. I don’t think he got as much support in his whole first season at the club last year as he’s received from Liverpool fans in the past few weeks.

It would be great if we could bring these two back (and possibly send Moses home), not to mention recall the young Spaniard Suso from his homeland to give ourselves more options but all of this is highly unlikely, as I believe most of these are season-long loans.

So rather administering a generous dose of hypocrisy and claiming that we always knew better, it might be more wise to put hindsight to good use for a change and realize that sometimes, first impressions aren’t always the right impressions and just because a player struggles initially, it doesn’t mean he is going to struggle.

If we do call Suso or Assaidi or Borini (or any others), on their return next season, try to remember what you were saying over the last few weeks and the next time they’re in a Red shirt give them the full backing they need and they may be scoring the winners against Chelsea, United and Everton for us instead!

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I'm a 32 year old Liverpool fan, living in the heart of the City Centre. I've supported the club since the day I was born and have been writing articles for L4L for over 3 years, writing close over 350 articles in that time. My favorite player of the past generation is Sami Hyypia.

I am the current editor for L4L, with my day job being in R&D for the NHS.

4 comments

  • tino says:

    Moses to me is, either Mourinho told him not to play with his heart 4 us or that he fell apart with Brendan that’s why he looks so disinterested in games but either way I don’t want to see him at lfc cum Feb 1st and can someone tell me what is holding the Salah deal or Rakitic.

    • rafiki says:

      what you have to realize is that recalling them brings a halt to their playing regular football. Let them have a full season under their belt . This would help much in the long term as there is no dire need for them right now. We can just about make the prem top4 without them. Allowing them more playing time at their respective loan clubs will help next term more than recalling them now to play a bit part role for us right now.

  • Patrick says:

    Moses is /was a really really good player before he came here.

    Either he is not trying or Rodgers is misusing him

    Sahin is a top player too . The only good player we signed summer 12

  • Sunnysunshine says:

    I do not know

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