You'll Never Walk Alone (But You'll Lose to Sunderland)

Listen to YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE by The Crowd.

My sympathy for Liverpool is increasing as they reveal themselves to be less than what I thought they might be. It's clear by now that they're not challenging for the title. They are 5 or 6 teams that look better than them at the moment, including Sunderland, who thrashed them 1-0, albeit with the aid of a ridiculous goal that hit a beach ball on the way in and never should have stood.

Straight after the Liverpool match (which I kept an eye on as I was watching Arsenal beat Birmingham), I took in the OU-Texas game, and couldn't shake the feeling that being a Liverpool fan is a little bit similar to being an Oklahoma fan these days. Undoubtedly one of the most storied clubs/programs in the sport, a lot of recent success but a lot of frustration recently too. Both have men in charge who are undoubtedly competent but can rub outsiders the wrong way. When Rafa's scrappers scrapped the Champions League trophy, there was a lot of placing of Rafa on a pedestal with Shankly and Paisley by a lot of Liverpool fans, which seemed premature at best to me. To me, Rafa's Liverpool will always flatter to deceive.

Until pretty recently, I would have rejected any comparisons with my football team. Bob Stoops won the National Championship in 2000 and it felt like for a long time that the next one was only a matter of time. At least for me, I've never really questioned that he was the man to do it (I'm sure the bloom was off the rose a long time ago in the hothouse talk radio atmosphere back home, though). You have to wonder, though, even accounting for the bad luck he's gotten (Bradford's bad shoulder being the equivalent of a bouncing beach ball in the Liverpool game), whether this Oklahoma program is going to make it back to the top any time soon. Having said that, I'm almost a little relieved we won't suffer another title game debacle this year. My nerves couldn't handle that again!