Liverpool FC's winning mentality has been eroded by a team of weak-minded losers

There is a sickness shrouding Anfield, and it is not the anti-football, technical ineptitude and perennial underperformance in the league – it is the death of Liverpool’s winning mentality, writes Jaimie Kanwar, Editor of Liverpool-Kop.com...

Quite simply, the current Liverpool team is full of defeatist, whining LOSERS.

Bill Shankly once said: “A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.”

Liverpool's current squad and management have have a serious problem with collective defeatist mentality. The amount of pessimistic comments by Liverpool players to the press this season is ample evidence of this, and has exposed the depressing lack of a proper winning mentality.

Let’s start with Ryan Babel. After the Sunderland VICTORY at the weekend, he stated: "Fortunately we saw off Sunderland on Saturday”.

Fortunately?! According Sunderland such respect to the extent of suggesting that Liverpool struggled to beat a team in the relegation zone is ridiculous. Even if it’s true, Babel should put a positive slant on it. He continued:

"Hopefully we have taken a first step towards regaining confidence, which is a bit low at the moment. We haven't been doing well the past few weeks. Our captain Steven Gerrard already said that confidence is a bit low at Liverpool at the moment”.

Such negativity should be no surprise coming from a player who clearly has no self belief, as illustrated with these recent comments:

"I can't physically cope with the terrific pace of the Premier League. I invariably face a tall task, even also against the so-called small teams".

Babel can’t cope?! Is this what Liverpool fans want to hear from players in public? Here’s a though – GROW UP. Stop acting like a baby and start acting like a man. If you can’t hack the premiership, keep it to yourself, instead of inviting ridicule and making yourself and the team look weak.

It gets worse. Let’s move onto Dirk Kuyt, who recently whined:

"We are struggling at the moment in the league. We know we can do better and win games like West Ham away. It's been disappointing to lose a lot of points at home this season”.

What purpose is served by confirming the obvious fact that Liverpool are struggling in the league? Then, ffter the Sunderland VICTORY, Liverpool’s ‘inspirational captain’ Steven Gerrard offered the following rallying cry:

“Confidence is a bit low at the moment”.

Great. So after a victory, Liverpool's captain focuses on the negative. Why?

Rafael Benitez added his own pointlessly negative comments after the Sunderland VICTORY:

“It was important to win and important to find our confidence.

Benitez is no stranger to public defeatism, as evidenced by more recent comments:

"We need to find the confidence we had when we had people scoring goals and winning games”

What about Jamie Carragher? Surely positivity from him? Think again:

"We've got to sort it out very quick, otherwise fourth place is going to be in danger as well. We just need a couple of results to get the confidence back”.

Carragher also said the following recently:

"At the moment, the confidence isn't quite there, we're not quite at our best”.

And in yet another pessimistic public comment, Carragher noted:

"At the moment, obviously, the confidence isn't great and we're not playing as well as we can. We realise that, we're not stupid. A draw wouldn't have been that bad, but we've got to move on now”.

And there’s more from Carragher!

"We should be doing a lot better, but we've just got to try to get through this period and come out the other side."

There seems to be an obsession with Liverpool players telling the world that confidence is at rock bottom. Such comments are counter-productive because the lack of belief makes it seem that Liverpool are on the rack and BEATABLE.

Whilst it may be true that confidence is low, WHY SHOUT ABOUT IT IN THE PRESS? Who does this help? NOBODY. It just perpetuates the negativity hanging over the club and lets every other club in Europe know that Liverpool are there for the taking.

It doesn’t stop there! More examples include Gerrard complaining that Liverpool’s off-field problems were affecting the team and, in the last few days, Benitez criticizing Xabi Alonso in public.

With such a negative, defeatist attitude coming out the club, it is no wonder Liverpool’s season is tailing off into ignominious failure.

Anfield needs WINNERS in the team – players with an unshakeable winning mentality – not mewling ladyboys who cry about lacking confidence every five seconds.

You never heard Graeme Souness moaning about lack of confidence. You never heard Emlyn Hughes whining about not being able to ‘cope’ with the league. You never heard Kenny Dalglish whimpering about how confidence was low.

Why? Because they were winners with the right mentality, and their consistent success at Anfield proves this.

All the comments I have highlighted above are not what Liverpool FC is all about, and such an astounding level of defeatism has no place at the club.

I am not suggesting that there should be blanket optimism and blind faith – far from it. There are, however, ways to present a united, positive front in the face of adversity, and at the moment, Liverpool just do not have a clue.

A massive overhaul of the club's media strategy is needed, and this should start with players being banned from talking about things like lack of confidence to the press.

It needs to start from the top down, and this will be difficult with arch pessimist Steven Gerrard captaining the club and petulant sulker Rafael Benitez managing the club. Both are supposed to be club leaders but both have a tendency to exacerbate the negativity with repeatedly ill-advised public comments.

Until the club sheds the losing mentality (on and off the field) and rediscovers the never say die, winning attitude that made the club great, the mediocrity and chronic premiership failure will continue.

And won't that be fun?

http://www.liverpool-kop.com
Critical realism about Liverpool FC

Site - www.liverpool-kop.com
Contact - Jaimie Kanwar
Email – editor@liverpool-kop.com
Tel - 07779 210994

Liverpool-Kop is a news and opinion portal offering hard-hitting views on Liverpool Football Club. The site was set up as a rejection of the cliched, sycophantic, biased approach of fan sites and the mass media when it comes to reporting about LFC.

This release was published on openPR.