But equally, by Liverpool Football Club standards, the last 20 years will not be remembered as a glorious period, not when you compare them to the 20 years that went before. I've had to endure Man Utd dominance for just about my entire tenure as a red. So with that in mind, just when I dare to dream and see small green shoots of something special building at the club... I can't help but assume that it will all come crashing down at any moment.
Pre-Derby at Anfield 2014 I wasn't confident at all. Everton were looking the strongest they have for years, Martinez has them playing some great football and we had an injury list longer than a Leonard Cohen song (credit to The Thick of It for that joke). But I was proven wrong... in spectacular style.
At West Brom we dropped 2 points, no doubt about that... but strangely I was surprisingly sanguine. When you think about it, dropping points off the back of a terrible individual mistake, is actually easier to take than dropping points from a terrible performance. Individual errors will happen, we are all human and therefore in many ways you have to simply accept that occasionally luck will be against us and we may be punished by an individual error. It is actually harder to take that after all the preparation that Rodgers and his team put into setting the side up for a game, for the team to capitulate or simply not perform to the level we know they can. That hurts more.
So then it was Arsenal arriving at Anfield. It hasn't felt like we've had a good record against Arsenal for some time, and if I was a stats person, which I'm not, I expect they'd back my assumption up. So again I arrived at Anfield on the morning of Saturday the 8th of February, extremely hungover and certainly a little bit apprehensive. My thinking generally is... things are going well, too well. We'll come crashing down to earth sooner or later.
20 minutes in and I thought I was dreaming. My hangover had certainly evaporated at a rate of knots. We were quite simply breathtaking. Every single player (yes even Ally C) had an absolute stormer. It was an utter joy to witness. Just before the Derby I'd chatted with my compatriot about Coutinho and how I felt he had gone off the boil slightly and was perhaps losing interested in Liverpool FC... well how wrong could I have been? He was breathtaking against Arsenal, as was Sterling... Flanno, Henderson... everyone.
One criticism that has been levelled at Rodgers' Liverpool if any, was that we hadn't managed to beat the big sides yet, well that changed didn't it?
My mild indifference to Rodgers are the beginning of his reign has been well documented, and I don't think I was alone. The sheer length of time it took the Kop to sing his name with any gusto is surely testament to that. But now I am happy to say I am an absolute Rodgers convert... I'm starting to love the man, and so too is the Kop. One of my favourite moments of the Arsenal game, and there were many, was a period before half time when we kept possession with ease and knocked it around the back. The Kop simply applauded, warmly for 30 or 40 seconds. It wasn't loud chanting or even the tribal, fast clapping we do... it was an ovation, a round of applause in absolute appreciation of what we were witnessing. What we were witnessing, we all hope, and something I have never witnessed, was the Liverpool of old.
Having said that... I expect we'll go and lose to Fulham in midweek now. This pessimistic streak is hard to shake off....
@anfieldshrine
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