Calm before the storm: Liverpool vs Man Utd

Ahead of the epic clash against Liverpool, MUFC India interviews three Liverpool FC supporters who get candid about the club they support, and the rivalry. Aditya Mukherjee is a Shillong-born fan who lives in Nagpur and supports LFC full time. Moonmoon Ghosh works for a reputed sport magazine, and believes that the glory days are soon coming back. Amlan Nanda comes from an unlikely city – Bhubaneshwar, but is probably the most fiery of the lot. He also remains the only scouser whose banner was ever displayed at a Man Utd vs Barcelona match in USA.

RAI: When did you start supporting Liverpool, and why?

Aditya: Early noughties. Mainly followed Michael Owen into Liverpool.

Moonmoon: In 1999. I clearly remember the year, but I don’t really have a reason on why I started supporting it. Maybe it was the club, the team, players, everything came together at the time I was starting off with football. It all fell in place.

Amlan: It was in around 2002. Why? Lets just say destiny. I mean, It just happened. I had watched a few games of Liverpool before then but only in 2002, I started watching us more regularly.

RAI: How does it feel to be finally knocked off the f*cking perch?

Aditya: Was devastated initially, but after a lot of pondering, I remembered, It’s OUR f*cking perch. We’ll win it back!

Moonmoon: Hahahahaha. I knew that would come from a Manc. Obviously it doesn’t feel good to be finally knocked off but I hope this gives the club an impetus to start off on a fresh note. Enough has happened for the past three-four seasons. Maybe this was one of the kick in the backside everyone needs.

Amlan: Well, It feels the same like you lot have been feeling till last season.

Aditya Mukherjee with Mumbai LFC

RAI: Do you think Liverpool have a realistic chance of competing for the league title this season?

Aditya: Not really. This team has so much to learn about itself.

Moonmoon: Practically speaking, I don’t think so. The squad has potential and world-class talent, but players still need to come together and play together as a team. Rebuilding isn’t an overnight process by any means.

Amlan: No. I will be happy with a Top-4 finish. That is our priority. Anything more than that is a bonus.However, I wouldn’t be surprised if we do challenge for the league title. We don’t have any European games in midweek. So, The main players would be fresh for the league games. But, It depends on two players. If Agger manages to start in at least twenty-five out of the thirty odd league games and Suarez is able to perform like he did in the second half of last season, I think we have a good chance to challenge for the league title. Agger improves our defense immensely and with him in the side our defensive record has been fantastic. The record you need to become champions. Suarez is a genuine match winner who can win us the games where we don’t perform well. And, He is a kind of player who will help other play better as well unlike Torres.

RAI: How long before Man Utd equalise/overtake Liverpool’s European tally?

Aditya: End of the world is probably ahead on the queue

Moonmoon: Let me hope and pray that Barcelona can stop that from happening for a long time!

Amlan: Behave!

RAI: What do you think of the new Man Utd team? Is Fergie obsessed with beating Barcelona, or is it just keeping up with his team building philosophy of creating something different?

Aditya: As much as I’d love to say otherwise, I think he’s sticking with his philosophy and it looks good for him at the moment.

Moonmoon: I would think it surely is not so much as an obsession with beating Barcelona. Fergie is much too smart for that. With experience slowly draining from the squad, he has placed his faith in youngsters. Though it remains to be seen if the same team can reap rewards against sterner opponents.

Amlan: It has been really good. But, I still feel City have the best team in the league. You have a lot of talented young players who are doing well now. They will make mistakes and their form would drop but playing together now would benefit them in the longer run. After few years, they will be much more experienced and would have got used to each other movement and all. As far as Fergie being obsessed with Barca is concerned, I don’t really know. I guess, Fergie is just creating a new team with different ideas and philosophy. A team where the front four is much more fluid and your defenders play a very high backline. One of the main reasons why you’ve been playing this well is because of you have almost all the defenders who are very good on the ball and are playing really high up the pitch. The likes of Smalling, Jones etc move into midfield with the ball a lot more and after passing they make themselves available for passes again. This provides one more option for the midfielders/attacking players to pass and it ultimately creates some space for the other attacking players to exploit. You are doing this almost fifteen to twenty odd yards higher up the pitch than you used to which means the attacking players get quality possession higher up the pitch.

RAI: Could Barcelona do it on a cold night at Britannia?

Aditya: Yes. They’d own them.

Moonmoon: Oh, Barcelona could surely do it on a freezing night. And comprehensively beat Stoke!

Amlan: No. As Paul Merson would say, Ask Danny Higginbotham and Andy Wilkinson, They would love to play against Lionel Messi as they would easily bully him.

RAI: What do you think of Gary Neville the pundit? Has he mellowed down, or was the whole hatred towards the Kop a facade he put on?

Aditya: I’m not enjoying it much. I am too used to despising him.

Moonmoon: I think it is the thought of television ratings and the audience that has caused him to mellow down. Surely it isn’t his hatred for Liverpool that has decreased suddenly. Neither was it a put-on.

Amlan: I don’t really bother wasting my time thinking about what the inbred says.

Moonmoon Ghosh in her favourite colours

RAI: Why do you think no top clubs are linked with any of your players at the moment (Torres factor) ?

Aditya: I’m sure clubs will be after Suarez soon. The rest still have a lot to prove. And I kinda like it this way.

Moonmoon: Lack of European football, I think, is a huge factor. Plus the last two years, including the turmoil of ownership and business issues, will need to be consigned to the bin soon enough for top players to come in. Having said that, there are some players here who would be welcome in any top team.

Amlan: Wait till we play Chelsea. Whoever scores against them, we will see Chelsea being linked with him. Oh Sorry, You said top club.

RAI: Carragher retired from international football last year, if he retires from Liverpool, will ESPNSTAR give him Steve McMahon’s palce?

Aditya: Lol, I don’t think the Asian audiences would get his accent. I don’t.

Moonmoon: Well, I don’t think that would happen so fast. For starters, it would be quite a task comprehending what Carra says (the thick Scouse accent).

Amlan: If I say so, They definitely will.

RAI: If Kenny Dalglish is the King, then who is the drama queen at Liverpool ( name one player).

Aditya: Fernando Torres. Oh wait!

Moonmoon: Can I say Luis Suarez, for all the pouting and an innate ability to rile up the opposition?

Amlan: You mean drama-queen like Fergie?

RAI: One player from Man Utd you’d love to have in your team.

Aditya: Dimitar Berbatov

Moonmoon: Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer (past), Javier Hernandez (present).

Amlan: Easy. Refs.

RAI: Would you want Rafa back at Liverpool? Reasons.

Aditya: No. Those of you in the manc circles who know me, would know what I felt about him in his last 6 months as our manager. I respect him a lot and wish him great success in life both professionally and personally given how good a man he is but I don’t want him back managing us. Too stubborn with his approach at times, and while his persistence with ‘rotation’ helped us a lot, his similar rigidness and denial with respect to the hole left in the midfield after Xabi left, hurt us BIG TIME.

Moonmoon: I have been a fierce Rafa supporter. Yes, I would want him back at the club. He was methodical, clinical, good with the tactics most of the times, though not a very efficient arm-around-the-shoulder man-manager. He restored Liverpool’s European glory days, though the squad was built by Houllier. But a manager must always be appreciated with taking a team to a premier competition final. So it was with him. Quite simply put, I love the fat Spanish waiter.

Amlan: Now? No. Presently, Kenny is by far the best for the job. He has done very well till now. We have played really good football under him. Its probably the best I’ve seen us play since I started watching us regularly back in 2002. When Kenny decides to retire, then may be. It ultimately depends on what options we have then.

RAI: Do you really think that Adam, Henderson, Carroll and Downing are ‘Top 4′ quality?

Aditya: Have the potential to be. Especially Henderson and Downing. I have my reservations on Adam though, but will give him some more time.

Moonmoon: Of the four, I would like to think of Downing as Top 4 quality. And wager on Henderson to come good.

Amlan: Yes. You don’t really need to have an entire starting eleven filled with world-class players. Downing is good enough as a starter and has done really well except the last few games. Adam started off well but has been poor since the Stoke game. However, He is a good squad player to have because of his set piece deliveries. Henderson and Carroll are more of buys for the future. They are unfinished products now but both of them have a lot of potential. With proper coaching and hard work, both of them will turn out to be really good players.

RAI: Do you think Meireles was wronged by the administration, especially considering how his Chelsea career has started out?

Aditya: I always rated him a lot. Was our best ball playing midfielder after Xabi. But aren’t we all too ignorant about what happens behind the scenes to comment? I usually leave these issues because clearly nobody have a clear information except the people involved.

Moonmoon: Well, I was gutted on the transfer deadline day when Meiro was shipped out to London. Properly loved the player, his work rate and ethics and professionalism and didn’t want him to leave. I am not a fan with blinkers on. Maybe Kenny did make a mistake then.

Amlan: Raul has hardly set the world alight with his performances. Has he? I would have liked to keep Raul but he wanted to leave. So, I don’t really have any issue with us selling him. He was anyways going to be employed out wide on the right like he has been under Kenny. And, I feel we have players who are better than him in the wide position in Downing and Bellamy. Also, Henderson will ultimately become a better player than Raul in future.

RAI: Wouldn’t it be better to build a team around Suarez, as opposed to Carroll, as you are doing now? In other words, wouldn’t it have been better if you had Aquilani, Hazard and Mata instead of Adam, Henderson and Downing?

Aditya: Not a huge fan of Aquilani but I’m sure we would have considered Mata and Hazard at some point. While I do agree that Kenny has been inclined to buying Brits, but I’m sure there must have been more to the window than just nationality. Also I am not in favour of building the team around Caroll, and I’d rather use him as a Plan-B at the moment.

Moonmoon: Oh surely. Aqua was shipped out because of a bloated midfield. Suarez has tremendous energy and always loves to perform. The guy runs around from midfield to the front line, links play, starts attacks, finishes them. Maybe a 4-4-1-1 could be tried with Suarez up front and Gerrard playing in the hole behind him, similar to his successful partnership with Torres.

Amlan: Well, It would have been better if we had Xabi, Gotze and Messi. We were very interested in Hazard. Comolli rates him very highly and he along with Kenny were seen in a lot of Lille’s games last season. But lack of champions league football hurt us. He wanted to move to a club who were in UCL. We were interested in Mata as well. Don’t know how serious the interest was, but we had enquired about Mata. However with the likes of Chelsea sniffing around, I don’t think Mata would have chosen us over Chelsea. Also, I feel we wanted a proper winger. Someone who stretches the game and provides us a with new dimension as we didn’t have even one winger. Mata is more of a wing-forward who works in different area of the pitch compared to Downing who is a genuine winger. As for Aquilani, He wanted to go back to Italy so that he could stay with his wife and new born baby. Also we couldn’t promise him regular football and rightly so as we had Gerrard ahead of him in the pecking order. And, We aren’t really building a team around one player. We are trying to rather mix it up. In Suarez, Bellamy, Dirk, Maxi, Downing and Gerrard we have players who can very good one touch pass and move game like they did in the second half of last season. In Carroll, Adam, Downing, Henderson and Gerrard we have players who can play a more direct aerial game if needed. We have a lot of variety now and it will depend on oppositions what type of tactics and style we employ.

Amlan's Banner at Man Utd Vs Barcelona game

RAI: What’s with Kenny’s obsession with English players? Do you think it could have a negative effect on the future?

Aditya: It could, or could also be a masterstroke. I’ve always thought communication too has a major effect on a teams success (Hinting to our glory days with teams full of brits). Look at your club .

Moonmoon: I wouldn’t call that an obsession. It all recurred in successive transfer windows, which is why it seems like such a huge deal. Kenny would bring in players from other countries if he and the management deemed them fit and suitable enough to pull on the jersey.

Amlan: History suggests that most of the great teams had majority of their squad filled with local players. Be it the Real Madrid of late fifties, Herrera’s Inter, Michels’ Ajax, The Liverpool side of late seventies and early eighties, Sacchi’s Milan or Pep’s Barcelona. Take a look at United. You yourself have a lot of British players. There must be a reason, right?

RAI: What are your realistic goals for this season? Will the Kop call for Kenny’s head if they are not realised?

Aditya: Realistic chance: Top -4. The Kop will never call for King Kenny’s head. That’s Blasphemy. Im sure if things don’t work out, the King will be the first to acknowledge it though.

Moonmoon: My realistic goal would be cracking Europe, finishing fourth. And no, the Kop shouldn’t be calling for Kenny’s head if those goals aren’t realised. Everything starts slowly and takes time and any sensible Liverpool fan would see that winning the league will not be possible this season due to a variety of reasons. But then, fans these days are notoriously fickle. And I cannot talk for everyone. I, for one, wouldn’t be calling for his head.

Amlan: Top-4 Finish. I would love if we are able to win the FA Cup or Carling Cup. But, Thats a bonus. The priority is Top-4. And, The Kop would never call for Kenny’s head. It never really called for Rafa’s head either. Although, There will be some set of idiots who would throw their toys out of the pram but I’m sure majority of the Liverpool fan-base won’t call for Kenny’s head.

RAI: Do you think Kenny is an Anglophobe?

Aditya: No way. That’d be a major exaggeration.

Moonmoon: No.

Amlan: Your question is beyond the pale.

RAI: Prediction for the game?

Aditya: 3-1 to Liverpool.

Moonmoon: 2-1 at Anfield! Kuyt to score the winner! Go Reds!

Amlan: Liverpool 2-1 Man United.

RAI: What impact would a win or a loss in this fixture have in the long run for Liverpool?

Aditya: Momentum. Just like any other big game.

Moonmoon: Well, a win over United is always good for the morale. Frankly, I do not see such a huge impact in the long run per se because we have a lot of things at home to worry about first. But surely, it’s always heartening to win this one.

Amlan: Nothing. At the end of the day, Its just another three points. Winning or losing one game won’t really matter a lot in the long term. How we perform in the next ten to fifteen after the match against United would matter.

Let the battle begin…