Liverpool suffered a calamitous FA Cup defeat at Watford 45 years ago that prompted Bill Shankly to break up his first great Anfield team. Scott Murray wonders if another embarrassing defeat at Vicarage Road will prompt Jurgen Klopp to opt for similar action when he studies the obvious deficiencies within his squad.
---
On Saturday 21 February 1970, Watford Football Club scored one of the most famous goals in their history. At Vicarage Road, in the sixth round of the FA Cup, Hornets midfielder Ray Lugg centred for striker Barry Endean, who crashed a diving header past the desperate hands of Liverpool goalkeeper Tommy Lawrence. One nil, on 63 minutes, Watford never looked like letting their lead slip.
The Hertfordshire side therefore reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in their history. It was one of the great FA Cup shocks, the lowly Second Division side putting out a team that had won the trophy only five years earlier, and had come second in the league a year before. Watford were thrashed 5-1 in the semis by eventual winners Chelsea, but they did at least retain their Second Division status by a couple of points.
The repercussions were more serious for Liverpool. Upon seeing his side knocked out of the cup, Bill Shankly decided there and then to break up his first great team. Legends were unceremoniously bundled out of the side. The goalkeeper Lawrence lost his place in the very next game to a young Ray Clemence. Talismanic striker Ian St John only played two more matches for the club. The remaining fixtures of the season - all thundering non-events, as Liverpool were well off the pace in the league - proved to be the last as a regular starter for club captain and dependable Sixties icon Ron Yeats.
Watford did Liverpool a favour in the long run: Shankly's youthful reboot reached the cup final a year later, won the league and Uefa Cup in 1973, and finally won the FA Cup again in 1974. Have they done the Reds a similar turn by comprehensively beating them 3-0 in the league, 45 years on, highlighting significant flaws once again?
It wasn't so long ago that Liverpool were contemplating an unlikely run at this season's Premier League title. Before they faced Newcastle United at the start of December, having recently put four past Manchester City and six past Southampton, the bookies had them as low as 6/1 to become champions. It didn't seem that unlikely. Things change quickly enough, though, and after one point from the following three league games they're 50/1 outsiders, all that hope shown up for the mirage it was.
Some of this is patently not Liverpool's fault. Since that astonishing rout of Saints, a performance that genuinely had the rest of English football sitting up to take notice, the team has been disrupted by crucial injuries to Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge, the best two players at the club. Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp has been unable to rely on a settled central defensive partnership since arriving at the club, various injuries befalling Mamadou Sakho, Dejan Lovren and now Martin Skrtel. Throw in a crocked first-choice goalkeeper, and a few accidents are inevitable.
But the excuses can only stretch so far. Accidents are inevitable, yes. Humiliations? Not so much. And make no mistake, Liverpool were humiliated at Vicarage Road last Sunday. That assessment has nothing to do with Watford's supposed lowly status as a newly promoted club - they started the day ahead of sleeping giants Liverpool in the league, after all - but everything to do with a £150m team's total inability to create anything meaningful in attack.
Most of the post-rout opprobrium has been heaped on Liverpool's defence. After a 3-0 whupping, on the one hand that's understandable enough. Then again, the ball was kicked out of the second-string keeper's hands, one of the centre backs was replaced halfway through the game by a 5ft 10in central midfielder, and everyone knows Liverpool's defence is a busted flush anyway, several players living on borrowed time until Klopp gets round to a comprehensive rebuild next summer. Occasional haplessness is to be expected, until a problem never truly addressed by Brendan Rodgers can be finally tackled head on.
More worrying for Liverpool, surely, is the slow realisation that several of the folk stationed further upfield might not be of the requisite ability either. The midfield and attack have turned in several fine performances this season - City, Chelsea, Saints - but plenty more poor ones. The Newcastle game, dressed up as a nadir by Klopp at the time, at least saw Liverpool fashion a couple of chances. Watford was much worse, an artistic vacuum, and there comes a point where these displays should be seen less as signifiers of inconsistent talent, more a basic lack of quality. Klopp has given Rodgers' squad a chance to prove themselves, as well as supporting them in public, assuring them all is not lost. Has anybody truly seized the day?
In 1970, Watford convinced Shankly that it was time to rip it up and start again. They may have just made a similarly persuasive case to Klopp. Few of the current squad have earned the right to feel safe.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét