A Window Into The Psyche Of Moaners

THERE’S AN ELEMENT of the Liverpool fanbase which is, frankly, mad. Yes, I’m talking about the FSGOut contingent.

No sooner had the transfer window closed, the moaners were out, slaughtering the owners. Their basic stance is this: “Fenway Sports Group won’t spend any money, the mingebags, and why can’t we be like Man City?”

I’d get it if Arne Slot’s team were in eighth place and struggling to qualify for Europe. But they’re top of the Premier League. They headed the Champions League megagroup. They’re in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup. I mean, what’s going to make these people happy?

Of course, the default reaction of these crazies is that I’m obviously a FSG dupe who is not prepared to have my access and supply of tickets at risk by criticising the owners. There are people on twitter who’ve told me as much. I’ve even been accused of being on Boston’s payroll. Yeah, that’s why I’m on substack hustling for subscriptions, softshite…

A simple internet search will illustrate how critical I’ve been about FSG over the years. As for getting anything from them, this story is instructive.

I was out for lunch with John W Henry. At the end, I got out my cards. Henry said, “Is there a reason you’re paying? Is it an ethical thing?”

It wasn’t, I said, adding, “You picked up the bill last time.” For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to put away the card and not to worry about it (at the time there was a crackdown on expenses at The Times; I had a feeling they didn’t believe me when I put people like JWH down on the expenses sheet).

“OK,” he said, and let me pay. Fair enough. But there’s a more general point. You don’t get anything from billionaires – at least in my experience, but then again I’m not a right-wing politician.

And football clubs like to think they’re doing you a favour just by associating with you. No one’s getting freebies.

Sane people are 1) not obsessed with transfers and 2) think that Liverpool’s ownership has been broadly positive, given they’re an American investment group.

Nevertheless, messages roll in. “You never criticise them,” a post said, the very week I’d written a piece slagging FSG for letting the contracts of Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold get to this point.

Come the summer, if the backbone of the team departs, hissy fits will be justified, even if Liverpool win the league and/or the Champions League. I mean, we’ve all seen The Last Dance. For now, though, just stop it.

The swivel-eyed sorts seem to have no concept of the impact of Profit and Sustainability rules or even how disruptive it can be bringing in players mid-season when everything is going well.

Some people seem to think transfers are the benchmark of success rather than trophies. They’d rather win the window than the league. At least that’s how it seems.

Whatever you think of FSG, they want the club to win. Not just to bump up the value, either.

In one of the meetings with JWH in the pre-Klopp era, he talked about when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years in 2004. Henry was overwhelmed by the reaction of the fans.

“I’ve never been a jock,” he said, stating the obvious. “But I got to feel like one. I got to feel the love of the people. It’s an amazing sensation.”

Sportspeople are used to being adored. Businessmen like Henry are not. That was an epiphany for him.

“Once you’ve felt it, you want to experience it again,” he said. The outburst of joy in Boston was stupendous – elderly New Englanders had given up hope of the Sox winning in their lifetime. Actually, youngsters felt the same way until the seemingly impossible happened.

Then he moved the conversation on to Anfield.

“I think it’ll be even bigger when Liverpool win the Premier League,” he said. “I can feel the craving.”

Well, Jurgen Klopp brought that trophy to Merseyside but Henry never got his massive celebration and the associated love-in. Covid saw to that. He’ll want to win it again to experience a non-lockdown victory. If it happens, it’ll be wild.

Make no mistake, Henry craves that trophy and the reflected glory that goes with it. Money can’t buy moments like that.

The league is not won in February. Slot knows that as well as anyone.

I remember 1986 vividly. On March 1, Everton were 11 points clear of Liverpool, who were in third place with a game in hand with 12 matches remaining. No one at Anfield thought they had a chance of winning the league.

In May, Kenny Dalglish scored a brilliant goal at Stamford Bridge and the 1-0 win over Chelsea sealed the title.

There’s still a lot of jeopardy in this season with 15 games left. The attitude back then was simple. “The only power we had was over our own results,” Steve Nicol said. “All we could do is win every week.”

That’s the same mindset Slot’s men will need in the coming months. Arsenal can stuff City every week if they like. It won’t matter what they do if Liverpool do their job.

Actually we can hand out one title in February. The Cryarsing trophy.

Step forward Arsenal and prepare to take the plaudits. You’ve won 2024-25 at a canter. No one’s going to catch you.

The latest outburst of wailing on social media – and let’s be frank, this is a competition driven by keyboard dopes – confirmed Arsenal’s fanbase are peerless. They saw a gap wider than six points between Lewis Cook and Cody Gakpo (when even the Bournemouth players didn’t complain) and then told the world they’ve been better than City for two years.

They might be right. I don’t know. If only we had a way to ascertain the best team in any given season.

But everyone’s against them, poor dears.

The QArse contingent make QAnon seem sane.

So get the asterisks out. We won’t be needing them for Liverpool in the event the Premier League trophy comes back to Anfield. It’ll go next to Arsenal and direct you to this sentence: “The PGMOL, the Premier League, Uefa, Fifa, the British Government, the European Union, the United Nations, the Deep State, Men In Black and Tottenham Hotspur fans came together to stop Mikel Arteta’s team from winning a title that the Gunners deserved.”

And yeah, North London Forever is the best pre match football anthem. Ever. No arguments.

I solved the expenses problem at The Times shortly after that lunch with JWH – I know you’ve been worrying about that.

I was socialising with a lot of well-known names during that period and I suspect the accounts people thought I was blagging and drinking with my mates.

So I went nuclear. I took Liverpool’s principal owner into the office. He was interested in newspapers and about to buy the Boston Globe so keen to see what the operation was like.

It worked for me. I paraded him around. “Query my expenses now, you *****” was the message it sent out. They never did after that.

If losing to Tottenham in the Carabao Cup semi-final could guarantee winning the title, you’d roll over in a second. But it doesn’t and it can’t.

So you might as well try to win the bloody thing. That’s what Slot is thinking. And why not?

Buy Far Foreign Land, the book about the journey to Istanbul. £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage