By Max Gallagher (@maxgallwrites) 

And so another World Cup is here. And I can’t remember one that was attended by less heraldry, less anticipation, less clamour for tickets, sweepstakes at work, less excitement or boozy plans for the group stages. I first got the World Cup bug in 1986, as the cameras struggled to cope with the glare of the Mexican sun reflecting off the players shiny kits. Maradona dazzled, and I was hooked for life. But it wasn’t until 1990 that I first understood the real joy of a World Cup. The buildup. The anticipation of pleasure is pleasure itself, said Jane Austen. It still strikes me as strange that she agreed to do the commentary for the BBC in 1966. But it stands out so clearly – the Qatar world cup has already partially failed because it has failed to entice.

  After the Republic of Ireland qualified for their first World Cup in 1990, for months in advance it was all we could think about or talk about in primary school. The tournament itself did not fail to deliver. Maradona was booed. Gazza cried. Pavarotti sang. And the Republic of Ireland made it all the way to the quarter finals, eventually getting knocked out in a narrow 1-0 defeat by the hosts. Legends were made. This year an even more extraordinary World Cup awaits, perhaps. The unthinkable has happened. It is FIFA’s worst nightmare. And an outcome that even the Qatari government could never have predicted when their money-greased bid for the World Cup 2022 was accepted: Nobody cares. 

 Back home, as the footballing lights go out all over Europe, there is still a war being waged in Liverpool. The club’s owners have recently gone public with their intentions to sell up shop, or at least part of it, and it has left the fan base in a frenzy, turning on each other with the ferocity of cousins at a gypsy wedding. The last occurrence on Merseyside that attracted this level of controversy was when EMI offered Pete Best a record deal on the condition that he drop his three other band mates. Currently, the only people Liverpool fans seem to hate more than supporters of Everton and Utd, are Liverpool fans themselves. Three letters divide them: F.S.G. 

Liverpool principal owner John W. Henry. Love him or hate him, you’re gonna get death threats.

Twelve years ago, Fenway Sports Group saved Liverpool FC from bankruptcy and paid off their debts. They pumped a handsome amount of money into the first team squad, even if this money was largely spent on players who would flop. The early signs seemed good. They had Luis Suarez, and the risky appointment of Brendan Rodgers seemed to pay off early. It wasn’t to be of course, and one year after almost delivering a first league title since 1990 Rodgers’ failings were exposed. Seven years of progress have followed under Jurgen Klopp, bringing among other things, four major European finals and that long-awaited league trophy. Both the stadium and commercial reach have been extended, meaning that by 2020 FSG had delivered everything that they promised. The question is: Did they achieve what they achieved by luck or by design? 

 Supporters of John Henry’s consortium will point to the overhaul not just of Liverpool’s corporate structures, but their scouting network and their youth team system that has delivered so spectacularly. Their acquisitions and their sales have been the most productive in the modern era. Barely a penny has been wasted at Liverpool – a frugal and canny approach that has put Liverpool back on their perch without having the spending clout of the super-rich clubs they compete with. They even managed to win a European Cup in an era where it has eluded even Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain. FSG have laid out a clear self-sustaining philosophy for Liverpool. They believe that in the future FIFA will clamp down harder on fair play, limiting the amount that wealthy owners can pour into football clubs.  Some would say FSG have created the perfect blueprint of a club that can operate within these future constraints. Should their financial muscle continue to grow on the same trajectory that it has been since Fenway took over, Liverpool will eventually sit alongside Man Utd and Real Madrid in an elite group of the most lucrative clubs in the world. Everything that they need will be provided for by sheer dint of their turnover. However. The reality is, at the time of writing FIFA have absolutely no power (and perhaps appetite) to police or enforce their financial fair play rules, and Liverpool’s rivals have seemingly endless resources. It has been pointed out by many that this current Liverpool squad seems to be at a turning point – most analysts agree that they have reached their peak, and almost overnight, now seem to be in quick decline.  

Last year Liverpool almost achieved the impossible. Had Aston Villa kept their knickers on for fifteen minutes they might have won a treble, and were closer to winning a quadruple than perhaps any team ever will be. The narrative seemed to be that FSG were back in control after the wobble caused by the post-pandemic slump. Liverpool’s record purchase arrived in the form of the £85m Uruguayan heavyweight Darwin Núñez at the start of the summer, and Mo Salah was granted his record-breaking contract. Then the plot all went a bit Game of Thrones. Liverpool’s on-field and off-field philosophies have suffered a crash in confidence on the scale of Kwasi Kwarteng bursting into a casino with a machine gun. Suddenly, the critics of FSG who had long been saying that their tenure at the club was over were impossible to ignore. 

 Darwin Nunez has been a non-instant instant hit on Merseyside.

Liverpool fans seem to be split almost 50-50. A tense schism has emerged that revolves around whether FSG are fit and proper owners for the club, and no one is pulling any punches. On social media, fans will attempt to virtually scratch each other’s eyes out when the subject is raised. The hashtag ‘FSGOUT’ has been trending so often this year that Elon Musk could charge $8 per month to use it and probably double his wealth. Chris Bascombe, writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2020 said that “there are only two clouds on the horizon for Liverpool at the moment. One is the brilliance of Manchester City, and the second is the negativity of some of their own fans.” But is it possible that some of this negativity justified? Fenway Sports Group have made mistakes, there is no doubt, and some fans have long memories.

 Broadly speaking, Liverpool fans are divided into two: an older group, who loosely support FSG, perhaps because of their long memories of the dull and bleak years before their arrival. These fans are conservative and calm, and are grateful for FSG’s contribution. The other, typically younger group of fans are passionate and ambitious, and argue that in elite sport resting on your laurels is not an option. FSG’s achievements are fine, but they are more concerned about the future of the club. Liverpool simply cannot continue to compete under the auspices of FSG they argue. The club has momentum, but something must change drastically if they are to continue on the same path. Put simply, FSG spend less on players than Donald Trump spends on Mexican artwork.

The disagreement sometimes feels a bit like an argument between two soldiers from different eras: the son frustrated that his father remains loyal to a general who had clearly lost his mind. 

‘But father, you don’t understand. You would send us to fight on horseback against Sheikh Mansour! You don’t know what this man is capable of. If we don’t ally with Lord Bellingham soon he will surely join forces with our foes.’ 

‘You young blades. You think you know it all! You don’t understand war. You were never at Istanbul. We were three nil down at halftime.’ 

‘We can’t rely on miracles forever. Not with the developments our enemies have made. Istanbul was a fluke.’  

‘It wasn’t a fucking fluke! It was tradition and honour and… and spirit.’ 

 ‘For fuck’s sake Father! Vladimir Smicer scored in the final. Even Igor Biscan scored in the last sixteen!’ 

Or something like that. 

FSG’s transfer policy has been miraculous, it is true. But hoping for miracles is not a safe policy when planning for the future. No one could possibly have foreseen just how brilliant Mo Salah was going to be when he was purchased from Roma, or Sadio Mané from Southampton. No one could have foreseen that these two players would lead the club to glory, remaining almost completely injury free for five years. The purchases of Roberto Firmino, Luis Diaz, and Diogo Jota all for similar fees of around £40m were equally brilliant. Was this good scouting, or good luck? The answer is, of course, a bit of both. It was phenomenal work from Liverpool to bring this group of players, and for such low prices. But a club can’t move forward expecting the scouting department to pull them out of trouble by continuing to find gems at rock bottom prices. The #FSGOUT contingent of Liverpool fans feel that the club’s woes this season are a direct result of FSG’s failure to grasp this point, and their failure to reinforce the club’s midfield in this summer’s transfer window. Rumours circulate about FSG’s problems with liquidity, but these were addressed when they recently purchased The Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey team for $800m. They are notorious for attempting to keep each of their operations financially separate from one another, and where possible, keeping each one financially self-sufficient. However, it does now seem that perhaps even FSG agree that fiscal stimulus is required at Liverpool, and quickly.  

What this actually means for the club, and for fans, is still unclear. Is the club for sale completely? Or are they seeking new investment? Which one of these routes is in the best long interests of the club? The two different groups of Liverpool fans are at odds on this topic as well. Should Liverpool sell wholesale to a megarich owner in the manner of a Newcastle, Man City or PSG? They would have limitless funding to compete on the pitch, as well as continuing to expand the stadium, the infrastructure, and even redeveloping the area surrounding Anfield. The problem of course would be that the club may end up sports-washing a murderous oil funded regime, a villainous oligarch or a dark army tech-billionaire who wants to hack into the NHS database and reprogramme your Granny’s pacemaker. Money alone does not bring success- strategy is also required. Looking around, it is not hard to find situations where rich owners have brought only chaos to a football club.  

The other option for FSG is to sell a stake of the club. Between 25% and 35% of ‘Liverpool FC and Stadiums’ could be sold, leaving FSG with the all-important majority stake. Such a sale would raise an excess of a billion dollars. Since Fenway do not take money out of Liverpool in the form of dividends, we can have some confidence that all of this money will be reinvested in the first team squad and the ongoing extension of Anfield itself. Such a huge sum would surely make Liverpool competitive in the transfer market for between five and ten years, even if some of the money was spent on infrastructure. The benefit of this model is that FSG would remain in charge, continuing the tradition of frugal, sensible, farsighted management. If his press conferences are to be believed, this is the path forward preferred by Jurgen Klopp, who seems to be quite comfortable both with the stewardship of FSG and his relationship with their man on the ground, Mike Gordon. The Athletic recently suggested that any such investment would most likely come from America. This is not for cultural or ethical reasons, but simply because most investment in European football comes, contrary to common misconception, from the west rather than the east.  

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but Liverpool fans have cause to be excited. The worst-case scenario is that nothing will happen. Even then, there is a decent squad in place that – injuries notwithstanding – are still capable of competing for major honours for the next year or two. But it seems more likely than not the change is coming. How the different groups of fans will reconcile themselves and heal the rifts between them depends on the nature of that change. A complete cessation of hostilities is about as likely as a Pride parade in the centre of Doha to coincide with the World Cup final. Passions run high, and social media will continue to fan the flames of any discontent. The camp will remain divided on this matter I believe. After all, human beings will always find reasons to hate figures of authority, even if they are most successful or benevolent. But we can hope for de-escalation, if FSG turn on the taps in some form or other. 

Jude Bellingham is just one of many Liverpool targets who will be on show at the World Cup in Qatar. And so Liverpool fans have got at least one reason to tune in to the most boring and controversial World Cup in history. By the time the January transfer window rolls around, we may know more about the future of Liverpool. It’s even possible that fans will stagger out of the trenches on Christmas Eve for a brief truce, while we look forward to the next chapter in the history of this great club. Time will tell if the Boston Tea Party is over, or just shifting gears. 

 by Paul Mc Daid (@paulthedaid)

Every so often, something strange occurs in the British press. An offensive article is published about patients who suffer from a well known chronic disease. Sometimes it is written by an esteemed researcher or physician, at other times by a respected journalist. There is no backlash or ruckus kicked up; it just happens, is accepted, and the world moves on. Heads don’t roll, regardless of any inaccuracies in the piece. If any complaints are made through the appropriate channels, a worryingly large section of the establishment rapidly closes ranks around the writer. The perpetrator of what is effectively a hate crime, becomes the victim. 

The illness in question is ME, sometimes referred to as ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ or CFS (ME/CFS is the most commonly used appellation. I will mostly use ME hereinafter). The arguments contained in such articles are often scurrilous and baseless, and are calmly refuted by ME charities and patient groups. But similar articles stubbornly return like summer flies to be swatted away. Efforts to repudiate the stories continue, based on rational lines of thought and scientifically legitimate evidence. But patients and charities are mocked, jeered at, and accused of harassment simply because they lobby for truth and justice. I doubt this would happen in any other disease. So why does it happen to us?

Patients with ME are in the unenviable position of suffering from a disease that has no complete explanation, and no treatment. Usually, the traditional solution begins with allocating levels of funding to study the disease commensurate with the suffering caused and incidence of the illness in the population. However, according to charities and patient groups, in the case of ME/CFS, funding falls pitifully short when compared to other similar illnesses. What is perhaps worse however, is that most of the funding is siphoned away by a small group of psychiatrists and psychologists who promulgate a psychosomatic theory of the disease that has been disproven many times over, but who also enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence within the British medical establishment and media. Their work has come in for fierce criticism from academics right around the globe, who say their studies and theories do not stand up to basic scientific scrutiny. When any patients complain however, they are branded as militants, activists, or worse – mental health deniers. The latter argument is particularly powerful and seductive, and consciously or unconsciously, deploying it allows the psychologists in question to behave more or less with scientific impunity.

A few weeks ago, The Telegraph published an article by a regular GP columnist (How I became a target for the ME Militants, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, 26^th Sept), which raked over the old, tired accusations once again. The article suggests that ME patients don’t understand that psychology plays a role in their illness and instead have a ‘fixation with the minutiae of immunology.’ Well, no. Patients are in fact fixated with getting better, that is all. And, based on the best available science, immunology is one route we could follow to develop better understanding and treatment of this disease. Immunological studies in the USA and elsewhere have shown – since the 1980s in fact – huge abnormalities in ME patients that could account for the spectrum of immunological symptoms reported. Inflammation is seen in neuroimaging studies, and impaired metabolism and energy production have been clearly demonstrated in the laboratory. It is thought that the immune system is somehow blocking cellular metabolism, leading to the most well-known symptom of crushing physical and cognitive exhaustion. But in the British media, the idea that ME patients might wish to investigate immune system abnormalities is something to poke fun at apparently. Because the old story goes that we simply don’t grasp the fact that the human body is complicated, and the mind and body are connected. We want to focus only on the body, and not the mind, say the accusers. The mind and body are connected? Really?

This is something that we already knew, and have always been on board with. It has never been the crux of the argument. As my own consultant, a respected Harley Street infectious diseases practitioner, puts it: ‘Your grandmother could tell you that if you stress an animal out it will get sick.’ The first thing he ever suggested I do when I met him was to meditate. The mind-body connection is something any enlightened physician or patient understands. It is a truth so obvious that it barely needs to be discussed. It is known technically as the biopsychosocial (BPS) theory of disease, and the ME lobby are time and time again accused of being cave-dwellers who deny it’s reality, and who are afraid of the stigma of mental health playing any role in their illness. As such, the narrative suggests, we angrily reject any involvement of psychology in the battle to understand this complex disorder. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Virtually every ME patient I know is aware that their psychological state may have affected how they became ill, and affects their condition on an ongoing basis. Psychological intervention is usually welcomed by all. Further, since inflammation of the brain is suspected in this disease, more serious psychiatric symptoms also play a major role. It is not psychology or psychiatry we are at war with – it is a very small group of researchers who have an appalling approach to scientific methodology and medical ethics.

This political friction surrounding the management of ME/CFS dates back at least four decades, but is arguably more important now than ever before. Since the Covid pandemic began, roughly 5% of those infected with SARS-CoV-2 have gone on to develop lasting symptoms, that have identical properties to those seen in ME/CFS. This has led many Covid researchers around the world, including Dr Anthony Fauci, to conclude that at least a subset of these ‘Long Covid’ patients are in fact now suffering from ME. Some experts believe that the total number of those afflicted with ME – currently estimated at around18 million globally – may triple as a result of Covid. Clearly, it is about time we resolved any lingering questions that surround how best to manage the disease, using the limited information we have at our disposal.

In his article in the Telegraph, this is opposite of what Dr Michael Fitzpatrick endeavours to do, instead choosing to muddy the waters by dragging up old, out of date ideas and accusations. The thrust of the article concerns a recent debate about the treatment of ME/CFS patients in the UK, that the author says bears a ‘striking resemblance’ to one that he became embroiled in himself two decades ago. At that time, he penned an offensive Op-Ed in the British Medical Journal expressing that in his considered opinion ME patients simply don’t grasp the fact that psychology and medicine overlap. But the current debate Michael Fitzpatrick is referring to in The Telegraph bears no resemblance to anything that was being discussed twenty years ago.

The recent disagreement surrounds the publication of new guidelines by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the best way to manage ME in the UK. NICE were due to publish new, updated guidelines in August after a three year review, but at the last minute were blocked by a small group of influential establishment figures. No-one has ever prevented NICE from publishing guidelines before – it was an utterly unprecedented occurrence. The ME community were upset, as for many years we had been attempting to overhaul the current treatment options for ME, based on patient experiences and new evidence. The existing NICE guidelines stated that a form of physiotherapy known as Graded Exercise Therapy, or GET should be offered by GPs and physios to anyone with ME, based on research carried out by psychologists. However, patients have long claimed that this therapy is not only ineffective – but it actively makes them worse. GET has been the main form of treatment in the UK for decades, based on the psychosomatic model of the disease that has always been controversial. But as time passed, worrying reports began to emerge, suggesting not only were the therapies ineffective, but they were harmful. Most patients who underwent GET programs were getting worse, they said. Sometimes severely worse, and sometimes permanently.

How did these ideas come about in the first place? The UK psychologists and psychiatrists who have taken an interest in ME/CFS are often collectively entitled the ‘Wessely School’, after Professor Sir Simon Wessely, who first suggested the use of GET and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in a 1989 paper. In this now seminal study, he sets out his hypothesis for the disease: patients fall ill with a virus and suffer from fatigue, then recover. But the trauma of the illness means that patients develop a ‘fear of recovery’ and begin to entertain ‘false illness beliefs,’ due to symptoms which actually come from their anxieties. They then subconsciously employ ‘exercise avoidance strategies’ and confine themselves to bed whereupon their muscles decondition. After this, patients enter into a ‘feedback loop of negative thinking,’ which causes their fatigue to worsen. These are direct quotes. It is, the paper suggests, a self-propagating phenomenon. Since there is no biological impediment to recovery, the negative thinking loop can therefore be broken by therapy, and a patient can be restored to full health with physiotherapy.

This hypothesis was never evidence-based, and sounded fanciful to begin with. It could not account for the majority of the symptoms, the severity of the illness, the three-to-one female to male ratio, the sudden and aggressive onset, and the lack of correlation with pre-existing mental health and psychological problems. But now, the theory has been repudiated by decades of biomedical research, and a complete failure on behalf of the Wessely School to demonstrate that their techniques actually help patients. Moreover, since the onset of Long Covid, patients in their millions are reporting identical symptoms, strengthening the argument that ME is a post viral immune system disorder.  Nevertheless, the psychosomatic paradigm persists, for several reasons. It was always cheaper to fund psychological studies than drug trials, and so a tidal wave of papers from the Wessely School followed the first publication. Sadly, they all suffered from the same scientific flaws. The results were predictable before the studies even began.

Dr Fitzpatrick bemoans the fact that NICE wanted to change their guidelines based on ‘scientific evidence’ (the inverted commas in this case, are his, and not mine), and have been bullied into this position by ‘ME militants’. The ‘evidence’ however, is not quack science that comes only from the ME lobby. It is evidence from Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and similarly respected research centers. The evidence has now been studied very closely by independent and highly experience men and women at NICE for three years. I have never heard a doctor sneering at the idea of evidence before. It is one thing for scientists and doctors to disagree about the interpretation of evidence. But this is the first time I have heard a physician dismiss the concept of evidence so disdainfully.

He dismissively describes ME as a disease which causes ‘extreme tiredness and generally feeling unwell.’ This is probably the most inaccurate and trivialising description of the illness I have ever come across. Alas, none of this humiliation is new. There is a lengthy history of journalists attacking ME patients, and spreading misinformation about the illness and the behaviour of campaigners. Rod Liddle, who had once previously labelled ME sufferers ‘pretend disabled’, wrote in the Times in 2015: ‘They are hopping up and down with rage over at the ME association… At least they would be if they could. As it is, they are probably sitting quite still.’ He went on, ‘No matter what evidence is marshalled by the likes of Simon Wessely, some sufferers cling with grim and livid determination to a non-existent biomedical explanation.’ Mr Liddle has had a bee in his bonnet for a while about this illness, and has further smeared patients elsewhere. Describing the fervour with which ME patients have to protest and fight to gain access to medical treatment, he saw fit to opine in The Spectator magazine: ‘When it is finally proven that ME is a mental health disorder, I am convinced that it will be the least of their problems.’ 

This is part one of a longer blog entry, which will be continued soon.

@paulthedaid

By Max Gallagher (@Maxgallwrites)

It was cold and it was dark. In a champions league group game at Anfield, the ball sat up to be hit at the Kop end, and was smashed into the right hand side of the net. The crowd, tension released, erupted. Thiago Alcantara’s strike against Porto midweek will not be as pivotal as the one seventeen years ago that changed the direction of history for Liverpool. But it was an important moment nonetheless. It was a goal that said: I have arrived.

***

Football is full of surprises. Remember when Gary Neville was widely considered to be a vile, odious little twerp? When Sky Sports hired him as a pundit, most people thought that it was so he could be the bad guy – to play the Simon Cowell, or the Nasty Nigel to the handsome blue-blooded prince of punditry, Jamie Redknapp. Most people, then, were surprised whenever he started talking, and brought new life to Sky commentary with his sincere and urgent insights. There was nothing Jamie Redknapp could do to keep up. He even went so far as to pump his face full of chemicals and leave his wife, but all to no avail. Brilliant sentences just kept falling out of Neville’s mouth, often with that hypnotic blank look on his face. Other pundits simply couldn’t match him for words and brains. Redknapp was out in the cold, relegated to post match tunnel interviews and writing columns for right wing newspapers. The nation had a new darling of armchair sports digestion. We all loved him. You did. I did. We all did.

What I like most about Gary Neville is that he does not hold back in his praise for teams that were once his rivals. Some of his most gushing outpourings of enthusiasm have been for the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Virgil Van Dyke and Mo Salah. But the most surprising thing I’ve ever heard him say came after the Liverpool versus Leeds game in late September: ‘I was watching Thiago today, and he just reminded me of Paul Scholes,’ Neville purred. ‘In those big games we used to play, the games against the likes of Arsenal when everything would be frantic and rushed, and then there’d just be this little guy in the middle of the pitch calming everything down. Thiago has done exactly what Liverpool brought him in to do.’

As I heard this, my jaw nearly hit the floor. There is an unwritten rule that no one is allowed to compare anyone to Paul Scholes. It is prohibited. Like looking the emperor in the eye in the forbidden city, or grabbing a centurion’s balls. Even mentioning Paul Scholes in this way can get you into serious trouble. Especially if you’re a Manc. Especially if you’re a United fan. Especially if you graduated from the same famous class of ‘92 youth team that Paul Scholes did. As far as compliments go, this was like Buzz Aldrin comparing somebody to the Moon. Praise just doesn’t come any higher than this.

The Spaniard’s debut was a sumptuous affair, perhaps my favourite of all time. There had been a long summer of flirting between Bavaria and Merseyside. Karl Heinz Rumenigge would drop his handkerchief, and then gaze longingly across the Rhineland as he peeked from behind his fan, waiting for Liverpool to respond. Months and months of this went on, until we started to wonder if it had just been newspaper guff all along. In a typical piece of Michael Edwards brinkmanship however, the deal was done at the death, for the small matter of an initial £20million. The talk was that this guy was the real deal. His actual surname is Do Nascimiento – the same as Pele’s. His father, Mazinho, was a Brazilian international who won the world cup in 1994. But those that had read Pep Guardiola’s autobiography murmered that it might not be that straight forward Alcantara had been Pep’s first signing at Bayern, but hadn’t impressed, and failed to nail down a regular starting spot under his former Barcelona manager. Without a pre-season and having missed the start of the league campaign already, we didn’t quite know what to expect from our new signing. How would he bed in? Where would he play? When would he play?

Klopp elected to unleash Thiago on the world at half time in a home game against Chelsea. The blues were a different prospect under Lampard, and had just had a player sent off. Henderson was subbed, Thiago came on, and the world loved every single minute of it. It was more like being at the circus than watching a football match. With Chelsea sitting back, Thiago had almost the entire pitch to himself to demonstrate his entire repertoire of passing. There were dinks, prods, pokes and knocks. Chips, wedges, curls and lobs. Nibbles, tickles, tiki and taka. Fizzes, pings, sprays and drills. All of this without getting out of first gear. It was like an audience with Thiago. Thiago the musical. Thiago on Ice. After the game, a 2-0 win for Liverpool, Peter Crouch tweeted: ‘Thiago is gonna be a joy to watch.’ And that’s how we all felt. This season was going to go so smoooothly.

Alas. What followed was complete and utter chaos – the worst period in Klopp’s reign. It was as if the Gods of soft tissue and ligament injuries had picked up the entire club and upended it like a snow globe. Our very own winter of discontent had begun, and no one knew when it was going to end. Thiago himself was hacked down in the midst of the slaughter of the famous Red Wedding of Goodison Park. The defence were as skittles in a bowling alley. Juergen Klopp had no choice but to pull senior midfielders out of place to cover, leaving the centre of the team badly exposed.

By Christmas we were just about hanging together, but still in contention for the major trophies. Whilst little children looked to the sky in search of Santa Claus, there was another name on the lips of Liverpool fans. Thiago. When Thiago comes back from injury it will be okay won’t it? Thiago will fix everything. Despite his glittering skill and his La Masia schooling, Thiago was actually brought in as a defensive midfielder. At Bayern, his stats told the story. He had fewer goals and assists than any of the other midfielders, but had the greatest number of tackles and interceptions during his spell at the Allianz. The maestro had been the lynchpin, as opposed to the desequilibriante. This took me by surprise – this little guy, who I’ve been watching on Youtube all summer? He’s a defensive player? The guy who lets the ball beat him whilst wiggling his arse, showing that you can roll a six-foot-four defender and salsa dance at the same time? If his stats were correct, then Liverpool could dare to dream that we had a player on our hands. Perhaps even that mythical creature – the complete midfielder.

Before Thiago had arrived, Liverpool have been doing rather well, beating every other football team in the world and winning every single trophy in the process. They were a functioning unit, a finely tuned machine, a well drilled platoon. The group had been together for a long time, and formed that rare thing seen nowadays – a team. Liverpool were a throwback to the days when footballers used to spend years in each other’s company. Teammates would go round to one another’s houses on Christmas Day to smoke fags and presumably shag one another’s wives. Having played together for so long, everyone was on the same wavelength and everyone – even squad players – knew exactly what their role was. Under Klopp, the defence began to climb higher and higher up the pitch with the confidence of a horny dog. The midfield trio formed a battering ram as formidable as the Macedonian phalanx. Firmino had perfected the false nine role, hovering in gaps and spaces, like a Matador teasing and drawing defences out of position, to make space for the fianchetto of Mane and Salah. Everything was ticketyboo. Until it wasn’t.

The worst thing about our injury crisis last season was that it was making a mockery of our first title defence for thirty years. No one thought things could get any worse. But then of course, they did.  And although no one could blame Thiago for what happened next, it will hardly be the highlight of his CV that Liverpool had gone fifty-four matches unbeaten at home by the time he returned from injury, but after he had been re-introduced into the team, Liverpool not only blew that spectacular statistic with a limp performance against Burnley, but went on to notch up a record six home defeats in a row. It didn’t say much about the immediate impact of the Spaniard. So much for that sumptuous debut.

Gini Wijnaldum’s mind was clearly elsewhere, and Thiago was thrown in at the deep end to shore up a team that were falling apart. It was like tossing a paper aeroplane into a tornado. Opposition teams smelled blood, and were tearing into Liverpool like never before, taking full advantage of our new psychological and personnel weaknesses. Thiago was trying to adapt to a new culture and to find his feet in the middle of a maelstrom. On the ball he was ineffective and subdued, off the ball he was chasing shadows. Like a cork bobbing around on the surface of tempestuous waters, Thiago was all at sea. Most commentators concluded that the pace of the Premier League was just too much for him. Liverpool fans watched through their fingers. It was a horror show. One of my friends texted me drily: ‘I see Liverpool are shite again.’

Football is full of surprises. No one can pinpoint the exact moment it turned around. But at some point, Nat Phillips put his magic hat on. Along with Rhys Williams, they put together the most unlikely heroic partnership since Turner and Hooch. Klopp had found his settled back four, and Liverpool began to look a bit like themselves again. With Fabinho and Henderson back in midfield, we started to see glimpses of the Thiago Alcantara we had read about and seen playing on the continent. The guy who had almost single handedly played Chelsea like a musical instrument. Then Diogo Jota thumped in a left footed finish against his former club Wolves, and it was on.

Ten games to go. Liverpool were eight points outside the top four, sitting in eighth place. The teams around us were all formidable, but we did have a kind fixture list. Was it possible?  Of course it was. Thiago was at the centre of everything as Liverpool finished the season the form team in the league, playing like champions again. Thiago found the niggle and the grit and the fuck you part of his game, imposing himself on games and disrupting teams who liked to play. But on the ball, he was just sublime to watch. The little guy in the centre of the pitch, just calming everything down. At his best, he is perhaps the first truly world class midfielder to play for us since the dream team combination of Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano. Perversely, I think I enjoyed last season as much as the previous two, when we won the league and champions league. Although we finished without a trophy last year, it was such a rollercoaster, with so many twists and turns. Buddhists say it is the journey, not the destination that matters. Maybe that counts for sports too. Maybe the Buddha was talking about Thiago the entire time. All things must pass. Jesus, it all makes sense when you think about it.

He still has his critics, and has a long way to go to prove he can really stamp down his authority in this team. But this season he started as he had left off, in imperious form. Once more, Liverpool were a fine-tuned machine, putting teams to the sword, but with a new look midfield of Thiago, Fabinho and Elliott. Unfortunately, this seasons rhythm has again been interrupted by injury, most notably to the youngster Elliott, but also to the veteran Spaniard. Tellingly, Thiago was missing from the starting line-up for the defeat to West Ham. Fitness may ultimately be the major factor in how much he can contribute to this Liverpool project. Only time will tell.

On Wednesday night, FC Porto arrived at Anfield for their ritual mauling. Porto are a solid defensive team with great attacking options, but for some reason when facing Liverpool, Porto behave like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert. But here they played well, until the hour mark when the ball sat up for Thiago, skipping across the surface, whispering hit me, hit me. The technique was extraordinary, struck with venom by a player clearly full of confidence. He opened his foot up and picked his spot almost disdainfully, like a Victorian judge sending a peasant to the gallows. There was nothing dismissive about the celebration however. He celebrated like a midfielder who doesn’t score enough. Like a player who feels he is going to make an impact this year, in a team that is going to make an impact. Like a player who is growing, growing, growing.

What a hit son. What a hit.

@Maxgallwrites

With the world’s best player enjoying a second spike in outrageousness, this question is popping up more and more on social media. I take an in depth look at how the Egyptian compares with Liverpool’s all time greatest player.

NO.

Players these days can play well past the age of 65. But some are even getting better as they age. 

by Max Gallagher (@maxgallwrites) 

I saw a quote from an interview with Joel Matip on Twitter recently. The  quote read: ‘I have been here five years already. It is a special club and a special city. You feel it everywhere you go.’  If you want to endear yourself to the Anfield faithful, you simply need to – sincerely or otherwise – mention how much you love Liverpool itself. Underneath the quote, a fan tweeted: ‘name going on the back of my shirt for defo’. Five years ago if you had suggested you were getting Matip’s name on the back of your shirt you would have been laughed at. Or for that matter, five months ago. So what has changed? 
 
I think most independent observers and commentators would agree without doubt at this point that Joel Matip looks a bit like a giraffe. He has a long neck and an adorably small head. I know it’s not polite to compare human beings to animals. But since a giraffe is everyone’s favourite creature, and Matip is the world friendliest centre half, I doubt he’ll mind. Who doesn’t love a giraffe? Incidentally, giraffes are the only animals other than human beings who bury their dead. This is a fact. At least, I read it somewhere reliable a long time ago. I don’t want to google it now and ruin the illusion for myself. It does seem unlikely though. It’s hard to picture – a crowd of giraffes standing around in the cold drizzle nudging one of their mates into a big hole. Then afterwards shuffling off in groups of two or three, pondering mortality and the passage of time. It just doesn’t seem plausible. 
 
When Joel Matip  arrived on a free transfer in the summer of 2016, Jurgen Klopp said he would save Liverpool millions. At the time, that didn’t seem very plausible either. When a new manager arrives from a lower league, they will usually try to bring in a couple of cheap-ish signings from their homeland who they hope will be sneaky successes, but are usually donkeys. For example, in the same transfer window, Ragnar Klavan was also brought in from the Bundesliga. He was another unknown quantity, and eyebrows were raised. As the captain of Estonia, he had some pedigree, but not much. Estonia is that small Baltic country that nestles up against Russia. Since Russia is apparently now hellbent on trying to infiltrate the West and undermine it geopolitically with every statecraft trick in the book, Estonia is in a rather vulnerable place, a little bit like Europe’s adam’s apple. With all the cyber espionage and Novachek flying around, Estonians have to be tough as nails. Klavan was certainly that ( the man is named after a Viking, for Christ’s sake ), but he was a little bit short, and a little bit slow, and was never going to be the answer. But who was this slender, elegant German-Cameroonian? 
 
When Klopp first arrived, it was off the back of a managerial sacking that had been brought about mostly by defensive calamities. But in his first season in charge, Liverpool conceded two goals more than Brendan Rodgers had done in his terminal final season. In fact Klopp’s first season represents Liverpool’s largest goals against tally in the premiership area. Most people were sure that Klopp would ring the changes at the first opportunity. One January transfer window went by and club did not act. In the summer of 2016 therefore, all the talk was of who club was going to bring in to solve our defensive problems. The answer apparently, was no-one. Matip was the main addition to the back line – a free transfer from Schalke. The fans took to him immediately, it must be said, due to his clear ability and off field demeanour. He was a ball player, an athlete, and a goal threat from set pieces. But he had injury niggles, and although he was Liverpool’s first choice defender that season, the stats were not particularly flattering.  

After Klopp’s first full season at the helm, although we had made the top four and showed some improvement, playing aggressive attacking football, the defence was still the major problem. Liverpool were conceding an average of a goal per game in the Premier League, and every press conference was identical to the one before. After one match, Klopp stormed off in the tunnel during the post-match interview when a reporter had the audacity to mention our poor defensive record. ‘Always the same, always the same!’ hissed the German as he walked away. Despite the manager’s indignance, it was a concern for every single fan that he had not apparently made overhauling the defence a major priority. However, unbeknownst to us, Klopp was simply waiting for the right man to come along. A bit like a romantic waits for a knight in shining armour, or that girl next door who looks a bit like your mum. Sometimes miracles do happen though. Sometimes dreams can come true. And history of course, would prove Klopp right. 

In January 2018, Virgil Van Dyke arrived, if my memory serves me correctly, upon a cloud flanked by angels playing harps and weeping. Around the same time, Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander Arnold were promoted from the reserve team, and Andy Robertson was plucked from an obscure team on the river Humber. Suddenly Liverpool had the best defence in the league, if not Europe. We had centre halves with the pace and the nous to play on the halfway line, and two overlapping fullbacks from hell that made us look like a scorpion with two tails. The next two and a half years were a story of record breaking success, and while Matip made for a decent squad player, it seems as if his day was over, and his chance was gone. Or was it? 
 
When the infamous defensive crisis of 20/21 hit, Liverpool lost their two treasured centre backs. Having sold Lovren in the summer, there were only youth team players and Joel Matip to turn to. This was Matip’s chance to stamp down his authority, and to shepherd the team through crisis, at a time when we were still league champions and in the running for both of the league and the Champions League. It had been said that Matip was too injury prone to be relied upon. Now was his chance to prove us wrong.  

Including the pre-season of 2020, Matip had already had four separate spells on the sidelines before Christmas. On the 29th of Dec, he picked up a groin strain. Nerves were already fraught, and well when Matip limped off the pitch, Anfield – already devoid of supporters – fell quieter than a giraffes funeral. He missed four games, but on his return match away to Tottenham, he made an important tackle against Heung-Min Son and picked up the ankle injury that would rule him out for the rest of the season. There was one day left in the transfer window – just enough time for the club to bring in Davies and Kabak as late cover, but the Joel Matip era it seemed was well and truly over. He had failed on the biggest stage, blown his chance, let the side down. 

This summer, during the usual transfer hysteria, sacrificial names were offered forward in order to raise funds to bring in a world-class attacking player. With the purchase of Ibrahima Konate, and the near cult status of Nat Phillips, it seemed as though our central defence was sorted. Matip was to be sold. On one reliable forum, it was suggested that offers would be listened to in the region of £5 million. Matip had indeed saved us millions – but only five of them it appeared. 

No offers came in for Matip in the summer, and so Liverpool now had a new defensive crisis-too many top-class centre halves. Konate had been brought in as the first choice companion to Van Dyke, and Gomez and Phillips were fans favourite. So where was Matip going to fit in in all of this? The answer, surprisingly, was in the starting line-up on our opening game of the season against Norwich. Watching that game, it seemed perhaps Matip felt he had a point to prove – a note of contrition for failing to step up in the previous season. He played with determination, guile, and an aggression that perhaps had been lacking in his previous outings. 
 
As the season progressed, this became a familiar thread, and his performance level never dropped. By four games in to the season, during our away game at Leeds Utd, Joel Matip looked simply undroppable, and unrecognisable. If he had been playing all season with a fake glasses-nose-and-moustache disguise, and we had been told he was a brand new £75 million signing named Jim O’Petal, fans would have been purring about our new Irish bespectacled centre-half, and how you just need to spend big sometimes to bring in quality. He had always been a ball carrier, but now he was striding out of defence with the purpose and intensity of Franz Beckenbauer giving Alan Hansen a piggyback.  

Liverpool have been putting teams to the sword the season and it has come, ironically, as much from their renewed confidence in defence as the return to form of their star strikers. This has been in no small part due to the stunning form of Joel Matip. Konate got a chance against Manchester United and Matip was rest rested, perhaps due to the physicality of Cristiano Ronaldo. A five nil win at Old Trafford meant that Konate deservedly kept his place against Brighton at home one week later. But once again Liverpool’s defence was in the headlines for the wrong reasons, blowing a two-goal lead and struggling at times to keep Brighton at bay. Matip was re-introduced for the home game against Atletico Madrid, and Liverpool were once more imperious. At times it has been the former Cameroon international who has been providing the leadership and reassurance that we are used to seeing from Van Dyke. You might even say that Matip is temporarily the senior member of that partnership, whilst the Dutchman recovers his confidence after his cruciate ligament injury. 
 
I wonder if that bloke ever did get Matip on the back of the shirt. It doesn’t seem so laughable anymore. If Matip were to be sold right now his age might reduce his fee, but he is currently playing like a world class centre back. Jurgen Klopp has been proven correct. Joel Matip has genuinely saved us millions. But if there is a trophy at the end of the season, we will have our mild-mannered camelopardine defender to thank – and you can’t put a price on that.