Don’t get me wrong, I think Roy Hodgson is a good manager and far superior to The Waiter, and it’s not his fault. But it’s chaos up there.
And it’s not just Liverpool. I can see this ending in tears all over the place. Andy wrote about the poor attendance at the Blackburn match. There’s no mystery – it’s a symptom of the times. Players and their agents demand their sickening salaries and careless sheiks surrender to it. The fans are hurting financially and the players and the league have their remedy, “Let them eat cake.”
Do the clubs and the Premier League suppose the fans aren’t aware of the contempt in which they’re held? This lack of respect reflects on attendances. The situation will continue to decline until the wretched bureaucrats at the Premier League submit to the inevitable: salary caps.
If Man city are doing it then the rest must follow or die in the middle reaches of the Premier League or, worse, fall out of it. Liverpool are now contemplating life as the rest of us understand it - there is no automatic right to a top four spot. Hicks and Gillet twist in the wind. They stand to lose hundreds of millions and are hated for it. How sad.
At the January fire-sales I expect Torres and, maybe, Gerrard to go. They won’t want to hang around for the inevitable lack of European football. As they leave, the club may already have entered Administration and crawled into bed with the Official Receiver. I believe in justice and I believe in Divine retribution and Liverpool had it coming.
But I pine for the Waiter, how I miss him. English football had become a conspiracy to rob him of his destiny and watching him rail against the gods was priceless entertainment. Now Roy Hodgson is charged with putting it all back together again, but this task would defeat Mourinho. The spark of life and ambition has left the club and dirty little tykes from the lower leagues turn them over at will. When Torres goes you can stick a fork in Anfield - they’re done.
But the dark clouds don’t just gather on Merseyside. Players earn more in a week than supporters do in a year and Martin O’Neill approved this message. Fortunately, his chairman spotted the danger and cancelled the gig.
The Villa will recover from O’Neill but I’m not so sanguine about Liverpool’s chances, or even Man United. Old Trafford can’t sell its accustomed volume of season tickets and they've got more debt than Greece. When Mansour tires of his plaything and takes his money somewhere else, the money that poured from Man City to the other clubs and kept them afloat will dry up.
This catastrophe will be of Biblical proportions. Future generations will read about it in Revelation.
I welcome it. It will be therapeutic. Do you think Greek Tragedy disappeared when Classical Greek civilisation declined? The human vanities that so engaged Hubris and Nemesis are eternal and the fates will always work their will. It’s the cycle of birth and growth and maturity and decay and death and rebirth.
Liverpool has passed through maturity and has encountered decay. Liverpool and decay have shaken hands and introduced themselves to each other, but Scousers are too moronic to understand the consequences. Their ignorance of fate will not save them. The dénouement will be vastly enjoyable. I may even write a line or two about it.