There’s a comforting story we tell ourselves in football: stick by the club through thick and thin and success will follow. It sounds lovely. It also isn’t how the sport works, not really.
You only have to look up and down the pyramid to see it. Every level has supporters who live for their club, spend their money, pass it down the family, and still rarely get to see anything lifted. Loyalty is a constant; trophies aren’t. The hard truth is that success is mostly about decisions: leadership, recruitment, timing, and whether you spot the moment to evolve before everyone else forces you to.
Standards are set in boardrooms and on training pitches
The most successful clubs are the ones that get the big calls right, then back them up with a proper plan. Not just who’s in charge, but how the squad is built, how opportunities are exploited, and how resources are used with a bit of ruthlessness.
Love them or loathe them, Manchester City have been the best at that over the last decade. That’s not praise for the vibe, it’s just recognising how consistently they make choices that keep them ahead of the curve. Liverpool, for a stretch, were right there as close second best. We know what peak Liverpool looks like when the structure is humming and the football has purpose.
Why it feels foggy right now
What a lot of us are reacting to at the moment isn’t one bad result or a slightly flat month. It’s the uncertainty. Even with the memory of last season still sitting there, the drop-off and the turgid feel of the football has left people scanning the horizon, trying to work out what this team is supposed to be.
It’s not just about entertainment either, although that matters at Anfield. When the tempo drops and the press doesn’t bite, everything feels harder. Transitions get scrappy, the rhythm goes, and suddenly you’re watching matches thinking: where’s the identity here? Where’s the edge?
The generational worry is real
For older supporters, there’s a specific anxiety underneath it all: none of us are begging for a return to the levels of much of the 90s or 00s. Not because those years were all bad, but because too often it felt like drifting, like reacting rather than leading.
I don’t expect Liverpool to win everything, and I don’t think most fans do. But higher standards should be non-negotiable, and performances should look like they’ve got a point to them more often than not. Younger fans, especially those who only really remember Jurgen and a league title, must be sat there wondering how it can feel this unsettled so quickly. To be fair, they’re not wrong to ask the question.
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Liverpool News Views offers daily Liverpool coverage including match reaction, transfer analysis, EFL context, tactical breakdowns and opinion-led articles written by supporters for supporters.
