blogging it real

What a way to begin a blogging career - finally, after two years of bumbling and dour, defensive football, Gerard Houllier has been shown the door at Liverpool, the first time a manager has been sacked there in....oh, a good long while (I'll look it up eventually, and report cold hard statistical data later...be prepared, as I'm sure this will be long-running habit of mine). No replacement has been announced as yet, but the front-runners so far appear to be Alan Curbishly (currently plying his trade at Charlton, who aren't too bad unless they happen to be playing the last third of a season...), Gordon Strachan (who couldn't handle the pressure at Southampton, of all places, and is now in the hunt for a job that gave the last manager a heart attack), Rafael Benitez (who led Valencia to the domestic league/UEFA Cup double) and Jose Mourinho (who had a go at Alex Ferguson and then acted like a lunatic when Porto beat Man U in the Champions League, making him by default the preferred choice of the long-suffering Anfield faithful).

Houllier was a decent enough guy, but for me, there were two major strikes against him: his style of football was atrociously defensive - the kind of stuff THE SIMPSONS made fun of in the episode where Homer got a gun ("...this gun had a hold on me. I felt this incredible surge of power, like God must feel when he's holding a gun") - without the mitigating factor of actually winning; and he was probably the worst post-match interviewee in the history of the known universe (and this is a universe where Mike Tyson was routinely asked to talk). This season, we have had to listen to how Liverpool didn't lose because they were outplayed, or they just plain sucked, but because of:

* the referee
* the ground
* travelling
* injuries (Milan Baros broke his leg, and Houllier bemoaned his absence for 2 months. Upon his return from injury he was relegated to the bench and not used)
* the wind (I kid you not)
* lack of support
* a gypsy curse (okay, this is a lie, but it would have come next season, for sure)

I have been a Liverpool fan since 1989, when my metalwork teacher was a die-hard Arsenal fan, and so I picked a team to root for that was challenging them at the time. Of course, Arsenal won the Premiership at Anfield that year with a last minute goal, and set the precedent for my the following lean, lean years. This past year, i could barely stand to watch my team play, which is never a good sign. Hopefully, by the time the next season rolls around, we will be ready to play some decent football and stop Arsenal from sauntering around England like a average looking Western guy in Korea.