ANFIELD OF DREAMS
Rodri knacked his knee. Everyone else is rubbish. Arsenal are not a serious football club. Manchester United are hopeless. Chelsea are a shambolic mess. Lads, it’s Tottenham. They got lucky with knack. They had help from the PGMOL. While we’ll leave it up to you to decide which of the above statements are true, most if not all have been mooted as the main reasons Liverpool won the Premier League this season by fans whose almost heroic begrudgery in the face of their own teams’ failure has to be commended. Of course, a more considered view is that Liverpool are the champions again because they are quite obviously the best football team in the country and have only lost two football matches throughout a campaign from which few of their own fans, no TV or radio pundits and only one particularly enlightened, erudite and prescient podcast regular predicted they would prevail before a ball was kicked. And because Arsenal are not a serious football club.
With the title up for grabs and Dr Tottenham paying a house call, the pre-match sense around Anfield was that securing the point Liverpool needed to win their 20th championship would be little more than a formality. On a hiding to nothing and with the embarrassment of being knocked out of Bigger Vase by a team from the Arctic Circle over the next fortnight to focus on, an even more below strength Spurs than usual didn’t so much threaten to poop the party as add to the general gaiety of the occasion by taking an early lead even they knew they were never, ever going to hang on to. Liverpool duly swatted them aside, with Mo Salah even taking the time out to grab a phone and take a selfie with the Kop by way of celebrating his 28th top-flight goal of the season. The moment stood in stark contrast to the last time Liverpool won a title during the pandemic, when any such photo would have featured the beaming Egyptian and countless rows of empty red plastic seats. “Liverpool have more [Big Cups] and today will equal Manchester United’s 20 League titles – the debate is over,” said Gary Neville ahead of the game, upon being asked which is England’s most successful club. “Liverpool’s success should cause pain and heartache [to United fans].” The Sky Sports co-commentator wisely opted out of joining his fellow pundits on the pitch for the post-match debrief, choosing instead to remain in the comparative safety of his perch on the gantry.
While the mawkish, omnipresent and supercilious “this means more” cobblers dreamed up by some beanbag-dwelling marketing wonk erroneously suggests Liverpool fans somehow love their club on a level their counterparts at others couldn’t possibly comprehend, winning the title clearly meant an awful lot to everyone at the game and their ticketless brethren assembled outside the ground. Many held flares aloft, a number of which sent thick clouds of blue smoke billowing into the air over Merseyside after one mischievous Everton fan had bought a job lot of them and spent the weeks building up to yesterday’s game diligently changing the labels before selling them outside Anfield. We can but hope this entrepreneurial prankster’s reach extends as far as the Vatican, so that the traditional signal that a new pope has been elected will also serve as a tribute to Everton’s imminent departure from Goodison Park. For now, Merseyside and the Premier League is red and one suspects even Arne Slot’s famously critical father might have been quietly impressed by the scenes he saw unfold at Anfield yesterday afternoon.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Somebody said the Welsh have the ‘heart of a poet and the fist of a fighter.’ That’s what I love about this place. I wish the whole world could visit Wrexham. Diolch” – co-owner Ryan Reynolds reflects on back-to-back-to-back promotions for the Hollywood club. Next stop: the Championship. Eek.
Will it be the first season where the PFA player award is going to be decided by a selfie?” – Krishna Moorthy.
Before the Copa del Rey final at the weekend, Jonathan Wilson wrote a piece looking back 15 years and said: “Real Madrid, once a club obsessed by señorío, doing things the right way, became seduced by the consolations of imagined persecution, a trait they have still not shaken off”. He certainly wasn’t wrong …” – Noble Francis.
I went to see The Flaming Lips last night for a truly joyous live show. There were inflatable killer pink robots, confetti cannons, giant weather balloons (confetti filled of course), dancing space aliens, dancing inflatable eyes, singing in a zorb and inflatable rainbows. And it was still nothing like as crazy as the race to avoid Championship relegation. Barely more than a week ago I was convinced the mighty Hatters were doomed. Now watch us bugger up the last game just as I’ve regained some belief …” – Kevin Goddard.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Kevin Goddard. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Robyn Cowen to discuss Liverpool’s title win and more.
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