You'll Never Win Again

First off, well done Europe!

We all had confidence in G-Mac didn't we? Not to mention L-Don, M-Jim and I-Pou. In fact whenever a European bagged a birdie and shouted 'C'Mon!' they were actually hollering for the team captain Monty. As LifeUniStudent tweeted us, no one ever calls Tom Watson T-Wat - we reserve that for Jeff Overton.

'Looks like it's going to be a close shave - Immac for G-Mac!'

I'm pleased that they managed to rescue the Cup from a flood of Biblical proportions on the first day. They all went out two by two on Monday and well it lived up to the billing in the end. My only regret is that no one managed to attack some of them lads with a pair of clippers.

Bubba Watson looked like a Silvikrin ad, Ricky Fowler like some lost sibling of the Partridge Family and Rory McIlroy looks for all the world like the illegitimate offspring of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction and Jimmy Nesbitt. Get a bleeding haircut.

It was the right result in the end though eh?

As it was at Anfield. Blackpool walked it really. I hope they stumble again soon cos by God am I fed up of hearing some numpty commentator use the phrase 'Tangerine Dream'.

But it's more likely that Liverpool will continue to suffer. Poor Woy. It's been a while since we've heard 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the Kop. I reckon Hodgson might be doing just that - straight out of Anfield - very soon. Incidentally, Nigel de Jong's favourite terrace anthem is 'You'll Never Walk Again'. And for Fernando Torres, it should be 'You'll Never Run Again'.

Torres's lack of confidence in either his ability or his groin is the tip of Woy's iceberg. He insists he's one of the most wespected coaches in Europe but that hardly matters if he's one of the least wespected in Liverpool.

'Wot Wubbish! This weally couldn't be any worse if my name was Gwaeme Souness.'

His main problem, as far as I can make out, is in my own limited, naive, objective, ill-informed opinion, that he's got a shit squad.

'Course Benitez had the gall to say, as they finally got shot of him, that he'd left the club in good nick. Which is like watching a man fall past your twenty-seventh floor window and remarking on how good his skin looks.

Hodgson's always had his work cut out but at the moment he resembles a man trying to stop a runaway piano from going down a 1 in 4 hill. And it would be a damn sight easier if it didn't seem like the players and most of the board were sitting on top of the bloody piano while he put his shoulder to it.

Not that Woy's immune from criticism. Poulsen looks like his Voronin. Joe Cole is playing like a wasp in a jam-jar. Glen Johnson's form is literally indefensible. He looks less like an international full-back and more like a four-year-old who's just got off a roundabout.

And you have to look really hard at Jamie Carragher to reassure yourself that he is actually moving.

Thirty years after the death of Bill Shankly, there was an appropriately feisty march by The Spirit of Shankly supporters, demanding that Tom Hicks (T-Hick) take the first horse outa town.

It's a very understandable point of view. It's incomprehensible that the man can't just accept he and his grey pint-sized fellow prospector have done little more than trash a proud institution to the edge of insolvency and madness. And get out quick.

I guess they're afraid of losing face, or more likely money. Thing is, football isn't about money. Not to the supporter. It's about love. And love, like a lot of Liverpool's first XI right now, is blind.

It's also a dangerous sentiment when practical solutions are required. The worst noise Hodgson could've heard on Sunday (apart from the dim and ugly ping of the sinews of Torres's inside leg) was the chant of 'Dalglish, Dalglish'.

Every one knows Dalglish in Geordie is 'Shearer'. And look how he turned around Newcastle. He picked them up, dusted 'em down and marched 'em straight into the Championship.

The reason Al did that job was cos he couldn't turn down a loved one in need. Fact is, the Lard Ashley got him in cos whatever Al did he was beyond reproach as afr as the Gallowgate were concerned. Same with King Kenny.

The Liverpool board might soon be dead keen to get him in cos even if he can't reinvent Dirk Kuyt as a flaxen-haired Lionel Messi, he'd still be worshipped at the Kop End.
Dirk Kuyt dreams he's playing for Blackpool.

But then here's Hodgson's real problem. He's not allowed to tell the fans that their expectations are too high, even though they are. Mine would be too if I supported Liverpool FC.

Here's a club so steeped in its recent history that you need a bloody good mangle to squeeze all that sentiment out and give it a dose of reality. And the fact that Hodgson appears to be doing this by selecting teams with all the ambition and adventurousness of a giant panda's diet means he really isn't going to last long.

In the meantime the likes of Rushy, Kenny and co can gaze down on to their playpen and shake their sorry heads as Liverpool Football Club careers into the abyss.

As someone who grew up hollering for Liverpool in Europe, and who still rates that team Arsenal pipped in '89 as one of the finest sets of entertainers ever to set foot on English soil, it doesn't fill me with great glee to see the Red demise.

But, face it, my Scouse friends, the good times, Woy or not, are a long way behind you and until the white charger arrives bearing its truckload of Oriental cash, you'll have to make do with Average.

You've had a good run. Now Welcome To Our World.