Duran Duran, The Beatles and the long goodbye
Aston Villa 3 Liverpool 3, 13th May 2024
ASTON VILLA 3 (Tielemans 12, Durán 85 and 88)
LIVERPOOL 3 (Martinez (own goal) 2, Gakpo 23, Quansah 48)
A long time ago in a school assembly hall far, far away, I was Simon Le Bon of “Duran Duran” fame as our class, in our collective wisdom, decided the play we’d perform for the school would mirror that of early 1980’s runaway BBC TV behemoth, “Top of the Pops”. Obsessed with their song “The Reflex” and taller than the average 11 year old I was the obvious choice for the miming front man and with flowing golden locks (stop laughing!) I leapt from the school stage in time with both the song and the Duran Duran video I’d watched far, far too many times. 12 months later I’d be singing “Sad Songs” dressed as Elton John in the end of year parade and departure from the comfort of a junior school to a 1,500 strong all boys senior school where thankfully my music taste evolved to more suitably angst ridden fare for a 14 year old boy with the weight of the world upon his sloping shoulders.
What all this has to do with events at Villa Park last evening is anyone’s guess and yours is as good as mine, but “Duran Duran Double” doesn’t cut it and I can’t glue any more of their hits together to conjure a coherent title for this article, so shall we just concede that Liverpool “come undone” again and all move on?
Last evening at Villa Park was Liverpool’s season (and Jürgen Klopp’s final dance) in microcosm: a game littered in passion killing VAR interference, wrong decisions deemed right by death of TV replay, right decisions shown to be wrong by the watching audience’s lying eyes, spells of perfect football via moving triangles all across the pitch and a game snugly in a back pocket marked “victory” for 85 minutes until a late game collapse saw Premier League points frittered away yet again, and again within the final quarter of a game whereby Klopp’s Reds have excelled all season long, growing stronger, more clinical and more dominant the longer the game goes. But since the 3–4 reverse at Old Trafford in the FA Cup this amazing team strength has deserted them amid another end of season disappointment at the crumbling home of Manchester United, three games without a goal, late or not, against Atalanta, Crystal Palace and Everton, and a late giveaway at West Ham that signalled the final rites on a brilliant season of over achievement that with a dash more luck could’ve seen the Reds entering the final game of the season with a live chance of lifting the Premier League title. But a “Duran Duran Double” levelled a 3–1 cruise to victory at 3–3 and there wasn’t a late winning goal to be found.
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For large swathes of both halves of football last evening and repeatedly throughout 85 minutes in a dominant display of controlled possession football, Wataru Endō never gave the ball away or lost a midfield tackle, Harvey Elliott supreme once more as he glued together the transitions between midfield into attack (together with his usual and criminally overlooked performance of energy, desire and tenacity to be in possession of the ball) Joe Gomez my arguable “Man of the Match” for another sterling display at left-back, and a faultless performance from Jarell Quansah should have seen his majestic headed goal on 48 minutes, and his first ever Premier League goal, the headline for a comfortable 3–1 away win.
Alas it wasn’t to be but what was, and sounding so glorious, was the Red hordes in the Villa Park “Away” end who yet again saw the glorious team performance (in large parts) and serenaded their manager accordingly, loud and proud, that they were so glad “That Jürgen is a Red”. That beautiful contortion of a Beatles song will be aired with gusto, and on so many rip roaring occasions too this coming Sunday, and some of us simply aren’t ready to say Auf Weidersehen to the Boss.
Race for the Title
Arsenal P 37 W 27 D 5 L 5 GD 61 Points 86
Manchester City P 36 W 26 D 7 L 3 GD 58 Points 85
LIVERPOOL P 37 W 23 D 10 L 4 GD 43 Points 79
Manchester City’s stroll in the mid-day sunshine of West London and 4–0 hammering of Fulham on Saturday ensured, mathematically, the Mighty Reds of Liverpool could now no longer win this season’s title as well retaking top spot on the highest perch in English football. 27 or so hours later, Arsenal had comprehensively and rather comfortably defeated a woeful Manchester United, and in their own crumbling home of Old Trafford too, as torrents of rain water flowed through every nook and cranny of a grand old stadium now rapidly showing her age. Perfect symmetry of team and stadium: both showing their glaring deficiencies and both in urgent need of new management.
Manchester City now travel to Tottenham on Tuesday knowing that a victory will see them leapfrog Arsenal once more to enter the final weekend of the season with the destiny of the Premier League title firmly in their own hands.
A final word from The Boss
“I don’t feel frustrated. Maybe I should, but I just don’t. I am really happy. Look, we all saw these kind of games before; we all saw games where one team is playing for absolutely everything — qualifying for the Champions League probably means for Aston Villa everything — and one team is already fixed in the position they are in. The challenge we had today was we had to show character and attitude — and the boys showed sensational character and sensational attitude. I loved that. That you can dominate the game like we did here today and against a good team, Unai Emery teams are historically sensationally well-organised. They wanted to be aggressive and they wanted to go for us and they couldn’t because we were that flexible, I liked that a lot”.
“For me, the story of the season is that the boys have really, really good character and a sensational attitude — that’s why we were here today and that’s why we have now 79 points. I know nobody wants to hear it, but being this season the third-best team in the league from where we came from is a statement as well. It’s improvement with a lot of changes and I like it. I am not over the moon about it but obviously for a week or two we’ve had to accept we cannot be the best or the second-best team in the league, that’s a good basis for the future and that’s all you can ask for”.
“The away fans were always absolutely insane. What they did, where they were, we asked them to travel a lot over the years. It was a wonderful relationship, is a wonderful relationship! I always try to show my appreciation and today the boys showed that as well with the way they played”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.