The TAA Conundrum: Jeers, cheers and historical significance… Or just a bit… Meh?

There are very few clubs in the world that can boast a global fan base that even comes close to rivalling Liverpool football club. For those of us born outwith the city itself, we all have an origin story of how our love for the club came about, be that through a family connection, a particular player perhaps – think how many Egyptians will have started following Liverpool for no other reason than Salah but having been drawn in, will continue supporting the club long after Salah has hung up his boots. There’s something intoxicating about LFC and once it takes hold, you just can’t let it go.

For me personally, I fell in love with Liverpool when Robbie Fowler was busy being God on Merseyside. The Premier League as it had become was in its infancy and most people I knew around my age were adopting United as their ‘English team’ and it was understandable at the time. Ryan Giggs had become the poster boy of the league and the class of ‘92, as they would ultimately be named, were starting to make waves. Cantona was at his enigmatic best, displaying both genius and lunacy in equal measure and the Fergie train was building what would unfortunately become unstoppable momentum. They were fashionable, successful and played great football. There was a lot to like about them for fans detached from any local or historic rivalries, so it was understandable why they were attracting so many new fans and I myself enjoyed watching them at the time.

I clearly remember the day I became Liverpool though. It was a game against United, the game itself a little blurry in the old memory banks but we either won 2-0 or 2-1. Fowler scored both and I’m sure they were both free kicks, one definitely was. I loved Fowler as a player but it was more than that. It was the fans, the passion, goosebumps listening to YNWA… Like I said above, it was intoxicating and I was hooked. A love affair had begun and I took more interest in the club. The more I learned about the club, the more I was drawn to it. The tireless and unwavering quest for justice for the 96 as it was then (97 now). The way the city stood up to an establishment that had literally tried to kill them off under Thatcher, with the now infamous phrase, talking of a “managed decline” of the city. SCOUSE NOT ENGLISH!!! resonated with not just me but Scots (and I imagine Irish) in general. A love affair had become a marriage, vows silently taken and a bond created that could never be fully broken again.

A constant from those days on however, was local lads coming through the academy and lighting up the Kop. Fowler and McManaman (the latter I’ll come back to), followed by Owen and Carragher and saving the best for last, a certain Steven Gerrard. These players ensured that the identity and heartbeat of the fans and city itself, pulsed through the club. One of their own always in the team, players who KNEW what it meant to wear that shirt, KNEW what the club meant to a fanbase still reeling from Hillsborough and the absolute scandal that followed the disaster itself. To borrow another great club’s (Barcelona) motto for a moment, we were and are “Mes que un club” – More than a club. Still true today but in the aftermath of hillsborough, that phrase epitomised Liverpool more than it ever had Barca.

Fowler was forced out in favour of Owen. It broke his heart, my heart and the hearts of countless others. He was never the same player elsewhere, he’d have never left Liverpool and the fact Owen bailed (Madrid again) for a ludicrously low fee not long after, just compounded that heartbreak so many fans felt when we sold Fowler. The arrogance of the man who, by his own admission, thought he could go to Madrid for a couple of years for a fraction of what his market value should have been, fully expecting LFC to buy him back a couple of years later for twice the price. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he then went on to sign for United. The snake had shown his true colours and then some and will be forever viewed with disdain by LFC fans. He’s still arrogant enough to feel hard done by with that too.

McManaman was another local lad who left for Los Blancos but his situation was slightly different. The club had stalled on offering him an improved contract, probably making the assumption that a local lad wouldn’t want to leave. He was the best player in the team though, a generational talent but by all accounts was one of the lowest earners at that time. When finally offered improved terms, he was said to have become disillusioned and angry with the club. I don’t know the details but it was also said he felt lowballed by the contract he was offered and when Madrid came calling he was off, his decision vindicated by winning two champions league titles among other honours and scoring some iconic goals, even if not the first name on their team sheet the way he had been with us.

The years that followed the ‘Spice boys’ era was a mixed bag of being nearly men in the league at times but still winning cups and brought with it the next generation of local heroes breaking into the first team. Carragher established himself first with Gerrard not far behind and in regards the latter, it didn’t take long for fans to start to see that this lad while raw, had something really special and could be the best of the lot, although few will have predicted just how special he would go on to be.

Of all the local lads of the PL era, Gerrard got the raw deal. Sure he had his iconic moments, THE iconic moment in Istanbul, that FA cup final against West Ham that went on to be known as the “Gerrard final” and countless others we all remember. He probably only played in one truly competitive team in the PL though and that was 08/09. My favourite LFC song at the time “The greatest midfield in the world” was true, with Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano the perfect blend of grit, guile and dynamism and a peak Torres who was just unplayable but it was far too short lived. We’d been garbage leading up to Istanbul and we’d be back being garbage all too soon after, as the wheels came off under Hicks and Gillett.

It was no secret Gerrard had options to leave and considered it. Mourinho has been ok record a number of times saying he tried to sign Gerrard when he was manager at Chelsea, Madrid and Inter. It would’ve hurt on Fowler levels had Gerrard left and if he’d gone to Chelsea, it would’ve left a lasting bad taste in the mouth but had he chosen to go to Madrid or the treble winning Inter side, when we had Hodgson at the helm, a dreadful team, no money and no hope, could we really have blamed him? In the years that passed, the hurt would’ve faded and we’d have understood his decision. Gerrard could have earned and won ten times what he did in his career had he opted to leave. The fact he didn’t and pretty much single-handedly kept us relevant and still spoken about as a big club is what sets Gerrard apart from our other legends in my opinion but that’s an article for another day.

That, in what I must admit has been a very roundabout and long winded way, brings us to Trent. The latest of our local lads to receive overtures from the Spanish giants. Trent’s situation is very different to those who went before him however.

This whole personal history lesson I’ve just written wasn’t planned. I initially was simply going to begin my following sentence with “In my 30 odd years supporting the club” but being 42 years old, I felt compelled to provide context to that number and this article has grown arms and legs since then so apologies for that and Kudos to those who have read this far! I shall begin my next paragraph with what WAS going to be the first sentence of this article…

In my 30 odd years supporting LFC, I’m struggling to think of a player who polarised the fan base more than Trent has, although mostly that’s not been his fault. Trent was and probably SHOULD have been a midfielder. Through various age groups in the academy, he played in midfield and he has the skillset and characteristics you would normally associate with a deep lying playmaker. Fate/fortune or whatever you want to call it, had other plans however. A long term injury to Nathaniel Clyne opened the door to the first team for Trent and like Gerrard and Carragher before him, he made his first forays into the first team at RB.

Fate and fortune weren’t finished there however, as the perennially injured Ox and Keita forced Klopp into a tactical rethink. A solid functional midfield to provide a platform for our fullbacks to provide our creativity. I doubt Jurgen himself however, could have imagined how successful that tactical change would become, with Robbo and Trent rewriting the rules on what was possible for fullbacks in a creative sense. Both players put very impressive attacking numbers on the board but Trent in particular in terms of assists. His numbers were nothing short of incredible, while displaying an outrageous range of passing the likes we’d never seen from a RB, certainly in this country.

For all his passing and attacking brilliance however, Trent was and still is a brilliant but flawed RB. So many times over the years when discussing Trent and Robbo, I’ve said that Trent is a better footballer but Robbo is a better fullback and that’s as true today as it was the best part of a decade ago when they first lined up together. Peak Robbo was the complete player for the fullback position. Equally adept at defending as he was attacking. Aggressive and tenacious in the tackle, excellent positional sense when defending and the defending instincts that comes from playing that position from a young age. Trent never had that and it’s showed itself time and again. The natural defensive instinct just isn’t there and he’s been targeted by teams as our weak link defensively for almost as long as he’s been in the team. That’s the part I don’t blame him for. He had to learn that part of playing RB ‘on the job’ as it were. It was never going to come naturally to him. What I DO blame him for is the amount of times we’ve seen a total lack of appetite to defend, passively watching players just run past him with little or no effort to stop them. Not always but anyone who claims that’s not been something the creeps into his game at times is being disingenuous but that attacking brilliance vs defensive deficiencies is what has polarised the fan base throughout his career and been the topic of many a debate amongst fans. It appears though that he’s not just polarising fans ON the pitch but now off it as well, namely in his exit from the club.

The unique position of Trent, compared to the previous local lads I’ve mentioned who either joined, or considered joining Madrid is stark however. For a start, we’re a better side than Madrid at this moment in time. We played them off the pitch in the CL this season, the 2-0 defeat we inflicted on them very much flattering them on the night. Unlike Gerrard, he’s consistently been winning the biggest trophies throughout his LFC career and ALWAYS been competing for them, aside from the season we lost all our CB’s to injury and then Klopp’s penultimate season where our entire midfield got old overnight. Those seasons were anomalies in Trent’s career however. Three CL finals winning one, half a dozen ‘last day of the season’ title races, winning two. Numerous domestic cup wins, CL football every season bar one… As a player you can’t ask for much more.

On top of that, if the so called ‘in the knows’ are to be believed, we offered him a massive contract that would have made him the highest paid fullback in PL history and put him in the top 10% of earners in the entire league and apparently more than he’ll be making at Madrid. These reasons are why I believe the fans are struggling with his exit. Why, as a Liverpool fan, would you want to leave right now? The club is in rude health, you’re winning trophies and the financials are there in terms of wages so what more do you want? Others understand it, you’ve won everything there is to win at Liverpool and at the end of the day, it IS Real Madrid. The biggest club in the world who almost nobody turns down. Then there’s the lifestyle of living in Madrid – the food, the climate etc. Many (myself included) can understand why he’d fancy that for a few years… And so, the fans are polarised over Trent once more.

I was surprised and a little disappointed to hear the boos ring around Anfield when he came on yesterday. I’ve never been in the camp of blindly following players/managers, never criticising no matter what. To some, that’s what supporting the club is all about and I respect that but I prefer to call things as I see them and criticise where I feel it’s justified. There’s no right or wrong way in my opinion, it’s a personal thing and so I’m not going to tell people how they should feel about Trent’s departure. I do feel that booing a player while playing for us is counterproductive though and not something I understand but as Slot said, we’re lucky living in Europe that we’re all entitled to our opinion and so if a section of the fan base want to boo him then that’s their prerogative, whether I agree with it or not.

In regards Trent leaving, I really don’t have THAT strong feelings about it one way or another. I think it’s criminal we’re losing him on a free but that’s on the club, not the player. I’m sorry to lose a world class player just as he hits his peak, of course I am but out of Mo, Virgil and Trent I was in no doubt that losing Trent would be the least damaging, even given the ages of them three respectively. Now don’t get me wrong, all three have a unique ability it would be extremely difficult to replace and whoever comes in as Trent’s replacement will almost definitely NOT be as talented a footballer as Trent is. They may be a more effective fullback however. Trent has been the difference for us many times, his passing ability and shooting from distance has won in plenty games but it’s also true that he’s been an absolute liability in defence at his worst and always suspect in that regard, even this best. He’s won us plenty games but he’s cost us plenty as well and his attitude stinks at times, something we don’t really see (nor would tolerate) from anyone else in the team.

To that end, I guess I just feel a bit… Meh… about his exit. I thank him for his contributions and wish him well but I don’t feel hurt the way I have with others and neither does his exit fill me with any kind of dread, the way it would if we were trying to replace the imperious Van Dijk or the goals of Salah. That being said, I do think we need to sign a quality replacement. Bradley is a very capable player but I see him as the Tsimikas of the right flank – excellent on his day and a brilliant backup option but not quite good enough to be first choice. Not yet anyway, he’s still young and developing but to that end, a new first choice RB is required for next season.

In the meantime however, it’s over to Curtis to take on the mantle of being the Scouser in the team. On a personal level though, having relived all those memories in the article, I can’t wait for the next one! Walk on!!