???️ Life of A Liverpool Fan

Bob Geldof once asked me a question. To tell him why he doesn’t like Mondays. I can only guess he was a Liverpool fan? No. He was singing about a shooting spree in the USA. On that basis the weekend doesn’t seem all that bad after all. I, like most football fans was tuned into Sky Sports News as I went about my Friday morning doing a bit of work and some chores. Then news broke of the FSG statement to say they had no intention of selling Phil Coutinho and that he wasn’t for sale. Your classic Football Manager ‘Issue hands off warning’ was staring me right in the face. It was the comforting words we all wanted to hear, the equivalent of someone whispering into your ear everything will be ok whilst they give you a gentle cuddle. Straight onto Twitter, the source of all boasting. Tell people the magnificent news ASAP in hope rival fans across the board are looking in disbelief as you casually wank on their hopes and dreams of Liverpool losing one of their main men and becoming one of the first casualties of the 17/18 banter train and therefore a laughing stock before the Premier League campaign has even kicked-off. Moods were high and the weekend was starting to look good. Fast forward a few hours, still tuned into Sky Sports. They announce some breaking news. Well Liverpool have already broken some news today so it can’t be them can it? And if it is, are they spoiling us with a new signing. Those cheeky bastards aren’t going to spoil us by unveiling Virgil Van Dijk or Naby Keita in some sort of Rush hour 3 spoof video to keep up with the latest trend of attention seeking signings are they?! “AND THE NEWS COMES FROM LIVERPOOL” I edge towards my seat thinking this weekend is going to be a belter. “We understand Phil Coutinho has handed in a transfer request.” Well fuck me sideways and call me Barbra. Was not expecting that. My stomach dropped, as well as my face and my Ginsters pastie. Could this really be happening, Phil doesn’t seem that type of guy does he? I’m not even sure what that type of guy is anymore or who to trust for that matter. Moments later respected journalists such as Melissa Reddy and James Pearce started to tweet that it wasn’t true. Happy days. The red tinted glasses were well and truly on, my mood peaked and it turned out that it was all just bullshit and the BBC had got it all wrong. To be fair over recent years they have lost a lot of trust for a number a reasons of which I won’t go into. Reddy and Pearce of course are still respected journalists and rightly so. They were just fed the wrong information. They then confirmed the news that he had in fact handed in a transfer request and he wanted out. Still in disbelief I tried to let the news sink in. So many questions. How? Why? Who would replace him? Surely FSG wouldn’t sell if they made the statement in the morning? Was his hand forced because they made that statement? Why did he sign a new contract in January? Would Barca have caused this upset if they hadn’t had Neymar taken away from them? Is this all PSG’s fault. Three days later I still have no answers. More news has since appeared of fallings out with Klopp or that he has fallen out of favour because he has had his head turned. Rumours Klopp wants to sell but FSG don’t. Rumours he isn’t really injured. I don’t know who or what to believe anymore. I just want the window shut so we can all move on with our lives. Barcelona have since apparently kidnapped Dembele, been linked with Dele Ali and Eriksen and have caused the biggest upset in Europe since Brexit. So far, as I write this piece any bids made have been rejected. As Barca try to march around with their massive bollocks and sign who they want. Saturday 12th of August, Liverpool’s 17/18 Premier League season is about to start. A welcome distraction away from any Coutinho news. Well besides it being brought up on Soccer AM a few times. And in the match build up, half time and full time. It was never going to be totally avoided, it’s one of the biggest transfer stories of the summer. I went into this game full of optimism. So much so in the UMBU show I predicted we would win 4-0. What a dick. In my defence it could and should have been with the amount of chances we had and the way in which we conceded goals. Errors cost us yet again. What makes it worse is we all knew before. We were lured into a false sense of security this pre-season? “Lower League” opposition got the better of us yet again. It’s not all bad, there were a huge amount of positives to take. Mane, Salah both scored and looked dangerous. Firmino scored too and looks another confident penalty taker. We created lots of chances and arguably should have scored more. If anyone has got this far in my article, thank you. I have also this pre-season banged on about squad depth and how much we have improved on that. I never though we would lose Adam Lallana for three/four months and possibly lose Phil Coutinho altogether. With those two out, it doesn’t look great. Being so deep into the transfer window doesn’t make me feel better either. Its a cliche but I feel like I have a devil and an angel on my shoulder. Angel says, its not that bad, its only the first game of the season, there is still time in the window, be hopeful. Devil says, FUCKING PANIC. Klopp says be a believer not a doubter, he wins. I have faith in the man and I have faith that regardless of what happens I still support the club. And back to the Bob Geldof scenario, things could be a lot worse. Overall thats the life of a Liverpool fan summed up in a few short days. Joy and jubilation on and off the field only to be levelled out by the bastard that is reality. Let me know your thoughts in the box below. Are you hopeful everything will be fine or is it tits up from here? We will all know more in two weeks time once we the transfer window is closed and we will know by then if we have or haven’t qualified for the group stages of the Champions League   Ross Chandley