The Impatience Of Liverpool fans

Washout

Got sent this great article that appeared in the liverpool Post

07 January 2003 : by Chris Bascombe, Liverpool Echo
The Chris Bascombe column

WHY did 7,000 Liverpool fans sing Gerard Houllier's name with such passion at
Maine Road last Sunday? Do these people know nothing about how to handle a
crisis? Haven't they learned a trick from all those clubs who sack their
manager at the first scent of trouble? Those magnificent teams with a conveyor
belt systems of management who win the title every year. Newcastle, Leeds
United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Everton... Clubs who have a
period of instability at least once every three years and come roaring back to
win the title and conquer Europe. That's what happens when you sack the
manager isn't it? Everything becomes perfect instantly. It never gets worse. Ask
Terry Venables, even he knows that. Liverpool should get Martin O'Neill now.
He'll build a team around Emile Heskey like he did at Leicester, buy a quality
creative, centre midfielder like Neil Lennon, or bring Steve Guppy to play on
the wing. Then he'll make sure all those rubbish foreigners Houllier has signed
like Sami Hyypia, Stephane Henchoz, John Arne Riise and Milan Baros don't play
anymore. Great. Or here's a thought. Maybe things would get much, much worse
again before they got better and if the manager was changed it would take at
least three years for his ideas to be put in place? Still, everyone will he
happy to wait until 2006 for the next title challenge won't they? The fans at
Maine Road obviously disagree. Their defiant support of the current regime was
as significant as the result. Houllier made a cracking comment when asked
about the reaction from Liverpool's hardcore, die-hard supporters at City.
"It's those fans I listen to, not the ones on the radio phone-ins," he said.
When you need a barometer of public opinion, and whether you're a journalist or
supporter you always need one from time to time, the reaction of Liverpool's
travelling army has become the most accurate source of information. They're so
shrewd, so vocal, so inspiring and so clued up about the realities of following
your football team, they have become the oracles of Liverpool's fanbase.
They're an aristocracy. Wise one's who others should seek out in search of
greater knowledge. Indeed, the Happy Als coaches on the M62 are like a royal
motorcade of Kopite wisdom. The Liverpool players would feel invincible at home
if the capacity was limited to this lot. So, to return to the first question,
why did they sing Houllier's name? They were simply following a fundamental
Liverpool rule. When the team, or the manager, is struggling most, that's when
you get behind them even more. You don't do what every other club would do and
desert them. God help Bill Shankly if he were the manager today. Would he have
survived in 1971 after his fifth year without a trophy? It's not blind faith,
or blind loyalty, or blind stupid. It's a commendable human quality which many
Liverpool fans possess and always will. They do not call for the manager to be
sacked. They just don't. Even if they think it, they believe nature will take
its course and changes will be made sensitively and at the right time. This is
so not the right time. A discussion about the manager seems futile. Three cups
to play for and a Champions' League place are up for grabs. The title, sadly,
won't be here come May, but since it hasn't been here for 13 years that's hardly
a shock. Even Liverpool at their very best would have struggled to catch
Arsenal. True, Liverpool are not good enough. But they're better than they've
been showing. Changes will have to be made to some of the personnel and they'll
probably happen in the summer, but the manager is here to stay until the day he
decides he's had enough. The best advice he can take if results don't
radically improve is to ignore everything that's said or written during the bad
times and listen to that cluster of supporters stuck in the corner of an away
ground near you. And at least after Manchester City, he knows which fans he'd
rather be walking alongside in a storm. One suspects a few out there would
have willingly let him walk alone at the first threat of a drizzle.

smuckers

Not a fan but there will be a big exodus in the summer, the sooner they get rid of Traore the better.