\t\t\t\t\tA season which had an eerie resemblance to 2014-15 is finally over for Liverpool. The opportunity to reset must be taken\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2015, Sachin Nakrani and I wrote a book, \u2018We\u2019re Everywhere, Us\u2019 about the 2014-15 season. Our idea was to carry the flame of excitement from the 2013-14 season and write a match-by-match report of the following campaign which would chronicle Liverpool\u2019s inevitable title win.<\/p>\n
Talk about cursed.<\/p>\n
Liverpool were abject in 14-15. Dire. It was hard to work out what the low point was as there were so many candidates. Maybe the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Aston Villa where we played midfielders up front and left a striker on the bench. Or, of course, the humiliating nadir that was Stoke 6-1 on the last day of the season.<\/p>\n
Having read those chapters back, it\u2019s clear that I saw Stoke as the final insult. I wrote:<\/p>\n
\u2018This season just looks like mush with targets not met, players being played out of position and absolutely no passion once things go wrong. I want a new Liverpool. I want a Liverpool which is infuriated when it goes behind. I want a Liverpool which shrugs off criticism and is unharmed by troublesome squabbles with wantaway players. I want a Liverpool which won\u2019t settle for the top four and wants to be top of everything. Then to have the urge, the passion, to do it again the year after. I don\u2019t want to be a party to sponsorship deals sold as news, to nice PR pieces about the players or excuses, excuses, f__ing excuses.\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s good to see we\u2019ve moved on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even the troublesome squabbles with wantaway players struck an eerie chord.<\/p>\n
I also call for a new day. I\u2019d been listening to Cuyahoga by R.E.M from their album Life\u2019s Rich Pageant and the opening line had resonated with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Let\u2019s put our heads together\/Start a new country up.\u2019<\/p>\n
Well, quite.<\/p>\n
The middle eight of that song reads: \u2018Rewrite the book and rule the pages\/Saving face\/secured in faith\/Bury, burn the waste behind you.\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to put 2025-6 away. It\u2019s even time to put J\u00fcrgen Klopp away and confine him to history.\u00a0 Take a picture here. Take a souvenir. It\u2019s time to start a new country up.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve little choice anyway. Mo and Robbo have gone, leaving just Alisson and Virgil left from the team which carried a huge trophy off a Madrid pitch in 2019. They too will be looking elsewhere before too long.<\/p>\n
Rewrite the book and rule the pages.<\/p>\n
No one likes a Day 1. It\u2019s the hardest point of any journey with things more likely to go wrong than right, but it\u2019s also a line in the sand. Liverpool are entirely without character now. A blank page. No one trusts anyone else, the fans are at each other\u2019s throat and no one, literally no one, is saying \u2018We do this now.\u2019 It\u2019s time to put an end to that and this blanket fury.<\/p>\n
Scary, yes, but also an opportunity. Like Brendan Rodgers before him it\u2019s difficult to assess what a par Arne Slot season looks like. For a league title and an empty hole of a season read Rodgers 2013-15 seasons. The wheat and the chaff blown up in technicolour.<\/p>\n
Slot, Hughes and Edwards have 55 weeks of contract to go so they either begin again or hand it over to someone with an idea of what happens next. J\u00fcrgen Klopp came in and built the Liverpool world anew. No one\u2019s saying that\u2019s easy and there\u2019s huge mitigation for Slot\u2019s awkward second album, but there has to be both character and a plan to drag us out of this fug, this swamp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Liverpool lost 12 league games last season. Defeats were normalised by March. Standards have dropped to that degree. That has to be the first change.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re with or against the manager (and that \u2018change the world in 55 weeks\u2019 thing makes me sceptical to say the least), we have to look at a strategy to overcome whatever the hell that season was supposed to be. The players included. No matter how safe they feel from an Instagram comments section, they have to look at themselves and remember who they play for. They can start by trying to do so with each other.<\/p>\n
But that was last year and that\u2019s gone now. Start again. Build again. Just mark this as the point where someone stands up and takes the reins.<\/p>\n
Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.<\/p>\n