Sunday, January 09, 2011

Liverpool are the new Newcastle

Are Newcastle the new Liverpool? I asked in a post two years ago - written in a scuzzy internet cafe in the Victoria district of London, if I recall rightly.

The answer this weekend is pretty clearly yes. Ray Hodgson has been sacked for not challenging for the Premiership, even though he inherited a team and squad that are manifestly not up to the task. Now Kenny Dagleish has been called upon in the hope that he can recapture past glories. Maybe he will revitalise things, but I seem to recall Kevin Keegan returning to manage Newcastle with similar hopes.

It is not often that I settle down to watch a Manchester United game hoping that they will win, but I would not be sorry to see Liverpool lose today.

There was a little of this irrational sense of entitlement to success about Australian cricket this winter too. Before the series started Australian players and pundits were unanimous in the view that, though there team stood fourth in the world rankings, they were "much better than that". Now they are lucky to be fifth.

I also seem to recall an Australian saying that they were "unlucky" that England's catching was so good. The whole point is that this England team has given up trusting to luck.

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