Limbo, Liverpool FC, Life, and the Pain of Change

(Our time is running out. You can't stop it screaming out)

“Something decisive must occur soon. Whatever it may be will be preferable to continued inactivity.”

So the diarist on Ernest Shackleton’s creaking ice floe, following the 1915 sinking of the Endurance, has just noted in the book I’m reading; after five months shipwrecked in Antarctica, waiting for the chance to move from a frozen camp, having just killed their dogs as there wasn’t enough food to go around.

(In the previous book I read about men lost at sea, they ate the dogs. Thankfully it hasn’t come to that.)

Uncertainty is often what makes people make fatal dashes for the summit of Everest, when the weather says such a move will be fatal. It’s hard to just hold still.

We’re all stuck in limbo in some way, and our time is running out, in all ways, all the time.

Our time is running out/

Our time is running out/

You can't push it underground/

You can't stop it screaming out.

The Contract Trio

I was thinking about the three Liverpool players whose futures are up in the air, albeit they may have already decided to quit, or be looking or hoping to extend; while the club may be looking to keep them, or cut expensive ties with wage demands too high or contract lengths too long.

Who knows?

While I’ll say again that I don’t want to obsess about The Contract Trio (and it’s going to get really tiresome), I do have some sympathy for them, as I hover (as it’s hard to feel grounded) in my own life-changing limbo.

(No, I’ve not invented hover-boots. Note to self: invent hover-boots.)

Equally, careers are themselves finite (and two of The Contract Trio are nearing their mid-30s), and I can also imagine why players are steered badly by friends and advisers and hangers-on, but also wrestle with the temptation to avoid regretting a path not taken, rather than staying on one that’s known.

Below, before the paywall kicks in ahead of the majority of this article, is my explainer* about The Contract Trio, which I don’t want to keep repeating, but which I’ll put below for people to refer back to.

It will be interminable, every game hearing their situations discussed every 10 minutes in commentary (every time they touch the ball), in what may be another 50 or so games, and in all the talk before and after.

You could play a drinking game, while watching Liverpool matches, and take a swig every time it’s discussed; and you’d be dead by Christmas.

Whatever happens, happens. It’s not ideal to be in this state of limbo; but we move on, with or without them. We can’t control that, and right now, even Liverpool FC can’t control that. The players now have the balance of power, and if they go, they go, and others will step up or step in. If they stay, great.

Certainly there will always be ‘grass is greener’ vibes, and that awful “you can do better, you deserve better”, that you hear from female friends to the girl friends about a man who maybe isn’t 100% perfect. (The dumb male version is “you don’t need that hassle”, or a less polite version with the word hassle replaced by an expletive.)

To fixate over the ‘will they/won’t they’ will not be anywhere near as thrilling as Ross and Rachel, Sam and Diane or Niles and Daphne. It will be a form of torture, when most of the time, there will be no change … until finally, it goes one way or the other.

Change

So, I’m in reflective mood, which is fine, as there’s no actual football (that I care about) for a fortnight.

“Nothing endures like the temporary”

As the international break begins, I remain stuck between an old life and a new, and awaiting the final go-aheads, it’s an odd place to be. It’s still my life ahead, of course; just to be relocated.

Then you get this wake-up call, when you turn on your Sky TV and this hits you.

That certainly gets your attention – especially when there seems to be a picture of you too (they mistook me for Harry Hill).

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*(2020, Klopp, the best manager in eons, wins the league. Klopp and Pep Lijnders get more say on transfers. This is natural, and you’d want to make Klopp happy, but maybe Klopp has taken on more than is wise in the modern era, and the previous system worked, but managers almost always want more say (naturally so). 2022, Michael Edwards leaves. The role is no longer the same; Julian Ward takes over. 2023, Julian Ward leaves, perhaps for the same reason. 2023, summer, Klopp has his own transfer man in place, but there’s no proper director of football, as you can’t just plonk someone in above a god like Klopp, especially if they don’t have that much say on transfers. 2023, autumn, Klopp decides he’s burnt out, and wants to leave. 2024, year starts in January with no idea of who the next manager will be; or the next director of football. Nor is there yet a role for Edwards to return, but in time FSG will invent one. Both Edwards and Ward immediately return when Klopp goes; not because they don’t like him or rate him – they did – but because, just as Klopp wouldn’t have wanted a lesser role with less say, they didn’t either, but now they can do the roles they want. Result = long period with no one qualified to make a decision on contracts for players who a new manager and/or director of football may not want to fully build around, and the difficulty in pitching their wages so as to not distort the structure and their contract lengths to be sensible. Meanwhile, players may think “do I want to play for new manager?” or “will new manager want me, or play me where/how I want to play?” Players now rightfully have control as to whether they stay or go, and club will rightfully only offer what it feels is sensible for the longer-term and overall egosystem, as I call it. No one is really to blame, when it’s a series of circumstances that can arise during periods of instability and changeover and shifting power dynamics – and none of us would have wanted an unhappy Klopp.)

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Anyway, back to the article, as I ponder change, and how we face up to it, and why it can be so scary, in terms of life, and in terms of football.

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