No excuses for failure

Jan 22 2008 by Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo

LIVERPOOL’S 2008 celebrations may already be engulfing the entire city but the only culture on display at Anfield so far this year has been one of failure.

From boardroom to pitch level, the whole club is currently in danger of being consumed by excuses, finger pointing and a shirking of responsibility which sees poor performances accepted as an inevitability and sub-standard results become almost acceptable.

It has been this way since the final week of November when simmering tensions between the club’s owners and manager Rafa Benitez bubbled to the surface and Liverpool’s progress began to stall.

In the two months that have followed, Liverpool have played ten league games but have won just four – their last Premier League victory coming courtesy of a last minute winner at Derby County almost a month ago.

It is all too apparent that events off the pitch are having a negative effect on it but for this to be used as an excuse is nothing but a cop out and Liverpool do not need diversions and distractions at the moment, they need direction.

Steven Gerrard spelled it out after the disappointing draw with Villa when he let his frustrations show by telling the viewing public that the position Liverpool currently occupy in the Premier League table is quite simply “not good enough”.

Only if similar plain speaking and honesty is embraced by everyone else at the club will the problems which Liverpool find themselves in be tackled and solved.

Whatever the myriad of failings of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, they cannot be held responsible for a failure to defend properly at set-pieces nor can they be pilloried for a chronic cutting edge in attack.

It is these failings which have undermined Liverpool more in recent weeks than any boardroom unrest and that is something everyone at the club will have to accept, otherwise they will continue to occur time and time again.

Villa followed the Wigan route to getting a point at Anfield – let Liverpool have the lion’s share of possession, make all the running and then hit them with a sucker punch or two.

Any team managed by Martin O’Neill is only ever likely to be a threat from set-pieces so for Benitez’s men to concede two goals from dead ball situations is almost unforgivable.

If being forewarned does not result in being forearmed then searching questions will have to be asked at Melwood. Again, individuals have to accept responsibility for their own failings rather than burying their head in the sand and blaming “the Americans”.

The fans have every right to question the club’s owners, of course. They put their hard earned cash and no little emotion into following Liverpool home and away, so when they see so much damage being done to a thing that they cherish above all else it is only natural that they will react.

Last night they made their feelings known and had the absentee landlords been at Anfield instead of North America they would have been left in no doubt that they are no longer welcome there.

Unfortunately, appearances by Hicks and Gillett at Anfield are almost as rare as Dirk Kuyt goals so the protests which took place on the Kop will only have had an effect if the club’s owners could find time in their busy ice hockey and baseball schedules to take in the latest performance of their “soccer franchise” on cable TV.

While the fans did what was expected of them and more – that Steve Bruce song really is starting to come in handy – the team were again failing to deliver.

And it’s not as if they didn’t have the platform. Yossi Benayoun gave Liverpool an early lead and from that point on they had more than enough possession to take the game away from Villa.

But without the necessary guile and adventure to break down a resolute and well organised Villa back line, the Reds’ dominance was rendered meaningless when first Marlon Harewood and then Olof Mellberg, via a cruel deflection, took advantage of weak defending to give the visitors the lead.

Liverpool lost their way after going behind, no doubt, like everyone else in the ground, in shock that their clear superiority had been so easily usurped.

Only a last ditch intervention by substitute Peter Crouch gave them a share of the spoils and had Villa been more ruthless on the break Liverpool could have easily found themselves on the receiving end of a defeat which would have been both ill-deserved and self-inflicted.

At least Crouch’s half volley showed that there is still some fighting spirit left at Anfield because far too often in recent weeks it has seemed as if confrontations off the pitch are taking away from the thirst for battle on it.

Maybe the example of Sami Hyypia is the one that everyone else at the club should be looking to as they try to emerge from the slump which threatens to totally derail their season.

In the twilight of his career and with question marks about his place in the side, the arrival of Martin Skrtel was supposed to signal the beginning of the end for the Finnish centre half.

But being the top class professional he is, Hyypia simply accepted the latest challenge to his position, rolled his sleeves up and got on with the job in hand.

No searching for excuses or taking the way out, Hyypia did what all good footballers should do when the chips are down – came up with the goods on the pitch.

In what might well come to be known as “the Pellegrino effect”, Hyypia produced his best performance of the season at a time when he needed it most and he was head and shoulders above everyone else in the Liverpool team on this occasion.

Being a winner means choosing not to fail and refusing to seek out excuses. That is exactly what Hyypia is doing but far too many others at Anfield are being consumed by the culture of failure.

There is only so much the club’s owners can be blamed for and with Liverpool today occupying a spot outside the top four it is time for others to stop pointing fingers and take a long, hard look at themselves.

LIVERPOOL:Reina, Arbeloa, Hyypia, Carragher, Arbeloa (Skrtel, 69), Benayoun, Gerrard, Mascherano, Kewell (Babel, 73), Kuyt (Crouch, 80), Torres.

ASTON VILLA: Taylor, Mellberg, Laursen, Davies, Bouma, Gardner (Harewood, 66), Petrov, Reo-Coker, Young, Carew (Knight, 90), Agbonlahor.

tonybarrett@liverpoolecho.co.uk