The mighty rhythm of the ocean’s breath is sensitively felt in Liverpool. —Lovell Thompson
From the perspective of someone who’s barely been paying attention, one of the more intriguing stories of the offseason has been the weird swerving of the Liverpool crisis-drama, which is still producing twists well into its 24th act. Just when you think the action is about to go stale (with trembling hand, Martin Broughton places a phone call to the Royal Bank of 
Scotland), they go and follow up the not-one-hundred-percent-intuitive Roy Hodgson hiring by signing Joe Cole, thereby forcing you to realize that, waltzing Elizabeth, the dominant cultural influence in the Anfield locker room next season is going to be…English.
English! And just when it felt like 1983 was gone forever. I’m trying to remember the last time a top English football club was actually, you know, an English football club. Arsenal’s a philosophical cosmopolis, Chelsea’s a pirate hub. Manchester United is bigger than the concept of the nation-state. You can’t be an English club any more, not if you want to win anything; modern economics, or something, makes it impossible. From their tendency to break into (admittedly equivocal) chants like “We’re not English, we are scouse; / You can stick the royal family up your arse,” you could even question whether Liverpool fans really,
in the deep, secret reaches of their hearts, want their club to be English.
And yet, here’s Liverpool, with their English manager, their iconic English captain, their stolid English vice-captain, their glammy new English midfielder, their whatever Glen Johnson is, and for God’s sake, Jonjo Shelvey. Tea is being served and a walrus would like to route redcoats into Guernsey. It’s even possible to make fine individual distinctions about relative degrees of Englishness and appreciate the way the new formation exploits those degrees to maximize its Englishness as a whole. Against Borussia Mönchengladbach, Joe Cole—England’s little Spaniard—played in a withdrawn position behind the striker, moving the hyper-English Steven Gerrard back to a more traditionally English, less insidiously Argentine role in the center of midfield. Yes, a straight 4-4-2 would have been more English still, but this is the world your Roberto Baggio posters have made. …although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, ‘Not English!’ when, PRESTO! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. —Dickens On the whole, Mr. Podsnap is content.
What’s interesting about this state of things is that, as Liverpool is obviously a club in a neurotic state of decline, and as England as a football nation is not exactly calmly ascending new heights, it’s possible to sketch out a tentative dual equation in which Liverpool’s fall can be measured by its resort to English talents, and England’s fall can be measured by the fact that its players are forced to play for Liverpool. That is, Liverpool can’t possibly be an elite club, because an elite club wouldn’t pair Joe Cole with Roy Hodgson and pretend that they were superstars. By the same token, Hodgson and Cole can’t be superstars, because if they were, they’d work for a better club than Liverpool. The two precepts, impossibly, prove each other, like division and multiplication, or the twinned halves of Gervinho’s haircut.
Now, as you know, I’ve been on vacation, so I could be completely misreading this. But at a highly abstract and emotional level at which I can’t possibly be called on to prove anything or display any concrete knowledge, doesn’t it seem like the major dramas at Liverpool at the moment are 1) whether Fernando Torres will manage to free himself (looks like he won’t), and 2) whether Kenny Huang or someone else will buy the club and reinvigorate it with prestigious foreign millions? I mean, yes, everyone complains about foreign millions, but we’re talking about steely possibilities and actual success or failure. What shows the England team in a better light at the moment, Gerrard/Cole/Johnson being tolerated by a debt-squatting British bank, or the same players being actively coveted by a predatory Chinese wealth fund? Can 1983 live in 2010 if it isn’t endorsed by a sheik?
by Brian Phillips · August 4, 2010
Of course Liverpool were in the vanguard of all this non-Englishness by fielding the following team in the 1986 FA cup final:
Grobbelaar, Lawrenson, Beglin, Nicol, Whelan, Hansen (c), Dalglish, Johnston, Rush, Mølby, MacDonald.
Ok, it’s hardly a Wengerian Foreign Legion but there’s not an Englishman amongst them.
“We’re not English, we are Scouse” – if I were to indulge my cynical bent I’d point out that a full 25% of them subsist on welfare benefits from the English they so disdain. Of course I would do no such thing.
Is anyone else here eager to see Gerrard play in that central midfield position he always-coveted-but-played-terribly-for-England? I genuinely want to see how he does week-in week-out there, particularly as he has Mascherano to adequately cover his backside.
Arsenal’s a philosophical cosmopolis, Chelsea’s a pirate hub. Manchester United is bigger than the concept of the nation-state.
Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown, Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Owen Hargreaves, Michael Owen… I’m sure there are a couple more I’ve missed.
And if we’re talking British and Irish players: John O’Shea, Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs, Darron Gibson, Jonathan Evans.
If we were to compile a Fergie XI from his years at the club (in 4-2-3-1 shape):
Schmeichel; Neville, Ferdinand, Stam, Irwin; Keane, Scholes; Ronaldo, Cantona, Giggs; Rooney.
That’s seven British or Irish players. And we’ve left out Beckham, Cole, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Robson, Sheringham etc.
But I do understand what you’re saying, and am not exactly disagreeing with you. Manchester United is by no means an ‘English’ club.
The “English-ness” of the new Liverpool has nagged at me as a fan during this rush of admittedly good news. For many reasons, the Joe Cole signing is a positive, even though there are questions about his effectiveness and health. But then came the rumors of a flirtation with taking Wayne Bridge from City. And Hodgson’s eye turning toward one or two other English players – even if only as a rumor or well-sourced “possibility.” It’s tough to be aware of how the sport works in 2010 and resolve the big-picture question, “So we’re looking to the English for salvation?”
The pride of being a fan makes me want to argue – vehemently – that by writing “obviously a club in a neurotic state of decline” you’ve gone too far in your assessment. Yet, a friend and I have, at least twice now, had rueful conversations this year about how we wish the defense still had Arbeloa at right back. That Glen Johnson, all £17 million package of attacking English fullback that he is, worsened the team compared to a player Liverpool bundled with Xabi Alonso to get an extra £1.5 million (or something like that) from Real Madrid.
Yet, I’m completely high on their chances for some type of success this season, which I’ll define as one point more than whoever finishes fifth. (I guess it’s all in how you define “decline” these days.)
“it’s possible to sketch out a tentative dual equation in which Liverpool’s fall can be measured by its resort to English talents, and England’s fall can be measured by the fact that its players are forced to play for Liverpool”
Isn’t Liverpool’s decline a result of international failures? Benitez’s system, resulting in an over-reliance on injury prone players, a thin squad of international non-talent (Plessis, Degen, N’Gog, Voronin etc), the American debt?
Yes Hodgson is no superstar of the highest level, (or admittedly he wouldn’t be at Liverpool), but his work at Fulham, to take them from a down-and-out dressing room at Eastlands, ready for the Championship, to the glimmering lights of the Nordbank Arena in front of the eyes of Europe, minutes away from penalties, is a big silver lining on the cloud of the English coaches’ quality and representation (the lack thereof). Hodgson is the story we scramble for when trying to convince foreign fans and journalists that the English coaching scene isn’t all bad.
Anyway – a welcome return of RoP after a tantalising holiday break.
@Tom Gouding Yes — I’m not saying Liverpool’s fall has been caused by its resort to English talents, I’m saying its resort to English talents is a measure of the fact that the fall has taken place. The same way ice doesn’t cause a freeze but proves a freeze has happened.
I do really like Roy Hodgson and it will be interesting to see how he does. It’s not completely unthinkable that Tottenham and Liverpool might both be in the Champions League in the next couple of seasons, and what happens to the “English coaches can’t coach” meme then?
@Brian Phillips Indeed – as soon as I commented I realised the mistake I made of thinking you were talking about causality, not about a measurement evocative of their decline.