Slot, Klopp, Trent, The Trophy Lift for No.20, 20 Years After Istanbul
*All* the emotions
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Post-Match Thoughts
Paul Tomkins
I don’t often cry over football, but it’s been a long season, and I’m still processing the loss of my mum in the spring, and the changes I need to make to my life to stay healthy enough to keep doing this (including a year of trying to get my house sold and move into a bungalow).
I don’t really understand people who cry with happiness, but today was about every emotion. Just watching on TV, I felt overwhelmed.
I’d felt a lot of anxiety for Trent Alexander-Arnold, and that while I understand that people don’t like the way he’s leaving (or where he’s going), I feel that you also have to show appreciation for what people have given, to inspire others to do the same. To me, unless he joined a direct English rival, then there’s no betrayal. He’s spreading his wings, and that’s human. (He may be flying into a viper’s nest, to mix metaphors, but then that’s his ‘problem’, not ours.)
On a human level, I felt sickened for him when he got repeatedly booed on the ball the other week, and I don’t want to see Liverpool fans go down that path, as booing doesn’t come instinctively at Anfield. And while not everyone will have forgiven him, the reception he got today was special.
That brought tears to my eyes, along with seeing Alan Hansen and Virgil van Dijk; and a smiling Jürgen Klopp brought back all the pent-up emotions that arose during his tenure, including the inability to celebrate in 2020 and all the people lost since then; with Hansen himself almost joining them last year, before thankfully recovering.
Even seeing Jordan Henderson’s, whose departure to Saudi was certainly foolish, but where he has become an important player at the much more acceptable Ajax.
Liverpool FC has been brilliantly run for 15 years now, and it was lovely to see Kenny Dalglish, a symbol of the original halcyon days, smiling.
His return was the first step on the course to this new era, as he came in to rid the club of the stench of Gillett and Hicks, and the shitball of Roy Hodgson (just five years after the best footballing day of my life in Istanbul, 25th May 2005). We’ve come a long way since the dark days of the previous, debt-loading American owners, with FSG, who stepped in when the club was on the brink of administration, not spending enough money for some people, but always balancing the books, and finding the genuinely smartest people in the (back)rooms.
But maybe what Liverpool needed more than anything was Klopp in 2015, in that he reconnected us with our emotions. Indeed, his reaction to the treatment of Alexander-Arnold was a reminder of how we should not allow strong emotions to become toxic, but also, how you don’t care when someone leaves unless they’re special. It’s complicated; but it helps to be unified.
I still go back to the West Brom game, the 2-2 draw ten years ago, and Klopp taking the players to the Kop for a “celebration” for a late equaliser that was an act of bonding. I think all this stems from that, in terms of building a positive mindset and good vibe at Anfield, to go with the brilliant recruitment. Klopp was mocked for that gesture, but instantly I saw it as vital, as stadiums can be edgy, nervy places. And the fans were the ideal kind for Klopp, too.
He also left perfectly in 2024 by singing the name of the man replacing him. I mean, who does that?! Again, I thought of him leaving a year ago, and how insane it is that the Reds have won no.20.
The atmosphere in celebration this past month has been sensational, and Arne Slot was perfect to build on what Klopp left, which itself was built by a variety of people, including many behind the scenes. Liverpool, ranked the best team in the world, blitzed the strongest league in the world, and had done so by March. The proposed transfer business for 2025 is already mouth-watering.
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