Fuck.
I’d gone full CL, but watching the slow wankfest coronation of Liverpool, while we are in the catbird seat but yet to face Spurs and United, I just could not stomach them winning it this season.
The level of fanboydom from the media has exceeded gag reflex levels for months now, yet we have just kept on keepin on. Always there, stylish football, record goals, long stretches unbeaten, all while suffering without three of our key players for long stretches of the season, and being accused of cheating our way to buying a team.
One looks around at our rivals and wonders where the Starting XI Academy players are in their team, trying not to point out that they bought the most expensive goalkeeper and defender in the world, while also not spending inconsequential sums on all but two of their starting XI. However, none of that matters, because it is the idea of Liverpool that matters to the media. The idea of Shankly’s Klopp’s boys winning their first PL title against Pep’s Mercenary Johnny Come Latelys.
The idea is romantic, but completely fabricated.
Liverpool today are not Shankly’s Liverpool. Heck, they are not even Paisley’s boys. No, they are the same cobbled together group of international mercenaries as every other team in the upper reaches of the PL, but the media has grown tired of our brilliant football.
They have tired of goals scored by every player touching the ball before scoring after 24 passes.
They have tired of seeing one of the best forwards to ever grace the PL score another 20 goals.
They have tired of seeing David Silva weave his magic and Raheem Sterling emerge as the best player in Britain, whose scoring is only matched by his eloquence on racism in football.
They have ignored the class and quality of a team and club Captain who is seen by all as the model Captain. Educated, well-spoken, who always speaks well of others, yet never fails to impart his passion for both the game and his adopted city.
They ignore the fact that the club has a hands off owner who has reshaped the British game in his image, albeit while denigrating him and his methods, of course. An owner who has not only given a sleeping giant the tools necessary to wake it from its slumbers, but also the foundations to return it to its heights of 50 years ago and far beyond.
So, Premier League it has to be.
The owner might prefer the Champions League. I think the manager would prefer the Champions League. But, this time it has to be the Premier League.
This season has been a World Championship Heavyweight 15 rounder, with both sides taking solid rights to the chin, while absorbing hooks to the jaw that would, and have, put other teams on the mat. It is a slugfest, with bloodied noses and cut brows on both fighters.
However, when all is said and done, only one will be left standing.
Only one can be called the Champion prizefighter.
I want that to be us.
Last August, we all came back from the agony of a couple of months of no City with bated breath and a seemingly improbable target: Back to back titles.
The coach accepted the challenged and, it appears, the players believed it was possible. Now, nine long months later, they are STILL THERE.
They have sweat blood in an attempt to win everything that has been put in front of them. After only one short period of hiccups and one missed penalty against our only serious opponent for the title, we have strung together wins that have left us with the League in our hands.
The problem? We may have to win every game left to win it.
Against that backdrop, that Herculean effort, that long nine month trial by media, I have relented.
I’d still like to be in a CL Final, but I’d give up the win to have already won the League and created history.
198 points and over 300 goals in two seasons of football, resulting in two League Cups, an FA Cup, and two Premier League trophies. And, let’s not forget the Community Shield “title!”
Yes, I could be happy with that, I suppose, but why not fuck them all and win that last one, too?
Winning EVERYTHING would be stunning.
It would be epic.
It would be outrageous.
It would be a new day in British football history.
It would not be simply the GOAT team, but it would further elevate players who have given their careers to us. Players who we know by one name: Vinny, Sergio, Silva, Fernandinho, Kev, Bernardo, Raheem, Ederson. Some new, some old, but all have signed on for the ride of their footballing lives with City.
And, in no small measure, it would be a just reward for Sheikh Mansour and his belief that a nearly bankrupt Manchester City could be built into a world class global organization that epitomized the very pinnacle of what football could be in the hardest, most demanding league in the world.
Push comes to shove, it’s the Premier League now, but in the immortal words of Kevin Keegan, “I would luv it, luv it” if we could clear the table and rewrite footballing history.
This team is that good. These players and this club deserves it.
