May 1981, Paris, and Ray Clemence sat in the dressing room
at Parc des Princes and contemplated his third European Cup success. Most players never even play in a European
Cup Final, let alone three and here was Clem with his third winners medal. This would go nicely with his two UEFA Cup
medals, five league championships and an FA Cup win. As he sat there watching his teammates
celebrate victory over Real Madrid, Clemence had an uneasy feeling inside. This was yet another success with Liverpool
but for some reason it just didn’t feel the same. He’d kept another clean sheet but it just
wasn’t enough anymore. He wanted a
change.
When Ray Clemence told the club he wanted to move everyone
was shocked. He’d not given any inkling
of being unsettled and perhaps he hadn’t quite realised it himself, but he felt
he needed a new challenge. So after almost
thirteen years and six hundred and sixty-five appearances he moved to Tottenham.
The following May saw Clemence return to Anfield for the
first time in his new colours. Defending
the Anfield Road end the crowd kept chanting “England’s number one”, but it was
the reception he received when he came out for the second half which took his,
and many watching, breath away. As he
ran towards The Kop the whole stadium was on their feet.
Clemence still says this was the most
emotional he’d ever been at a football ground.
But why should Clem receive such a warm reception from
supporters he’d walked away from? He’d
given the club his finest years. He made
three hundred and thirty six consecutive appearances between September 1972 and
March 1978. The club was successful and
had a worthwhile, if yet unproven, replacement waiting in the wings in Bruce
Grobbelaar. The general feeling was that
he’d given us his best and he left with our blessing. He also announced he was leaving during the
summer, which didn’t affect any momentum we might have built up during a
season.
The 1981-82 season was a pivotal one for the club as players
such as Clemence, Jimmy Case, Ray Kennedy and Avi Cohen all left, with also
David Johnson and Phil Thompson moving on during the season. Liverpool usually only replaced one or two
players at a time so to replace five was quite a risk. They needn’t have worried as the club’s
thirteenth League title was secured with that win over Tottenham. The replacements Grobbelaar, Mark Lawrenson,
Ronnie Whelan and Ian Rush soon became legends in their own right, so the
succession was seamless.
Maybe there lies the key to whether a player who leaves a
club on his own volition, is given the blessing of the fans.
This article, if you hadn’t guess already, has been inspired
by the latest goings on surrounding Philipe Coutinho. It now appears the club has been successful
in keeping him, as he is now blaming his ‘advisers’ for the reason he’s made
himself unavailable so far this season.
Coutinho’s career was floundering at Inter Milan when he
signed in the January 2013 transfer window for a bargain price of £8.5m. During his three and a half seasons he has
become an important member of the team with last season arguably his best. Barcelona has come calling and for a
Brazilian who was spotted by Inter as a sixteen year-old at Vasco da Gama, he
may find the lure too irresistible.
The club didn’t want him to leave, the supporters didn’t
either but if he had have gone why should it hurt so much?
He signed a new five year contract in January giving us
every indication he was going to be an integral part of the brave new world
Jurgen Klopp is attempting to build at Anfield.
In pre-season we got a glimpse of what we might be able to look forward
to when he combined well with new signing Mo Salah on numerous occasions. The
prospect of Coutinho unleashing the pace of Salah and Mane was beginning to
water mouths.
Yet on the eve of the new season he puts in a transfer
request. The suggestion was that FSG did
not want to be seen to be keen to sell him and so engineered the player into
this position to save face. It would
suit the owners if the fans had turned against Phil, as they had begun to and
so Coutinho could move into the box marked ‘snake’.
But how can a player avoid this? Is there a right way to
leave a club? Can you blame players for
wanting to challenge themselves? Can you blame players for wanting to play in
front of over 100,000 people at the Nou Camp?
This hurts us supporters each time. I was gutted when Luis Suarez left. I felt proud the club refused to sanction his
efforts to leave the previous season, yet you can’t knock the player who did
his utmost to try and get us the league title twelve months later. Some fans still harbour a grudge, but for me
Suarez is such a magnificent player he was always likely to want to move to
somewhere like Spain.
Coutinho is no Suarez though. You always knew what you’d get with Suarez.
You knew he’d influence each and every game.
But Coutinho goes missing in matches.
In amongst some magic moments there has been some average performances.
But what right do we Liverpool fans have to expect players
to stay at the club? After all, they
invariably have come from somewhere else.
Did we consider how PSV fans felt when Suarez left in January 2011? What about Roma fans having just witnessed
twenty nine goals in two seasons from Salah only to see him return to England?
Of course we can’t ignore Southampton who have endured a
raft of players moving from the South Coast to Liverpool. In fact as I write this the ongoing saga of
whether Virgil van Dijk will leave St. Mary’s for Anfield continues to rumble
on. I’m sure Southampton fans would’ve
loved to have seen more of Lallana, Lambert, Lovren, Clyne and Mane, but
they’re Liverpool players now and we want them to do well for us.
It’s not easy being a football supporter but your club is bigger
than any player and will exist long after those players have retired. We’ve lost players before, some of whom I
struggled to get over such as Keegan, Souness, McDermott, Beardsley, Alonso and
Suarez. There have been numerous I’ve
said good riddance to, Owen and Sterling for example.
There are also plenty the club has decided to move on and
it’s this point where you can see the players’ side of things. They could give their all for a club but if
the club decides in a change of direction then they could be sold anyway. Coutinho may well have signed a contract but
the club could still decide to sell him whilst he’s under that contract.
Van Dijk is under contract at Southampton and appears to
have decided he’s leaving. This saga has been dragging on since virtually the
end of last season with the player effectively downing tools. What us fans
never really consider is that we’re happy to have a player who has cheated his
previous club, preferring to ignore the fact he may very well cheat us.
Do we really think Salah will stay longer than a couple of
years? What about Firmino? He’s twenty
six. Will he still be here in three
years time? These are not Liverpool-born
players, it’s not particularly clear whether they’ve been lifelong Liverpool
fans so should we expect them to stay here no matter what?
It’s pretty clear these days that players hold most of the
cards, although maybe that should be corrected to agents hold most of the cards. What shouldn’t be forgotten is that
Coutinho’s agent is none other than Kia Joorabchian, a name which still strikes
fear into many football supporters hearts and who has been effecting transfers
worldwide for years since the Tevez affair in 2008.
After all this there are only a few examples of clubs
successfully holding onto players when they’re being courted by other clubs,
with Suarez and Gareth Bale being recent examples. Although in both cases it seems they were
persuaded to give one more season before their moves were sanctioned twelve
months later.
So perhaps we’re to endure this charade again next summer so
let’s hope the story follows a similar path to Suarez and Coutinho gives us his
very best for this season and we’re challenging for the league title
again. What does seem to be clear, though
is that the club were not planning to re-invest any transfer fee (which may
have been as much as £130m) back into the playing squad. The squad needs improving and £130m would’ve
gone a long way to helping with that.
But the club was quite happy to pass up the offer as if they don’t
really need the money. Although it could
be argued the team would’ve been poorer for the absence of Coutinho and would
£130m have replaced him without disruption?
Another question is that Barcelona were offering as much as they were
because their coffers had been filled by the Neymar transfer. Will they still have that much money next
summer? Will any team? If Coutinho is unsettled again next summer
will the club have to accept a lower offer than they would’ve been able to
obtain this summer? It’s a risky
strategy in a game where players and agents are holding many of the best cards.
As supporters we’ll go on falling hopelessly in love with
our heroes even if they do eventually leave for other admirers.
