Players Only Loyalty is to the Game

Loyalty does not exist in football.

And nor should it.

Yet the topic of players and disloyalty rears it’s ugly head in the transfer window as frequently as players move club.

The problem with loyalty is simple.

The subject matter is always broached from a supporters point of view.

But supporters aren’t in football.

They are always only the support that allows football to live.

Football supporters can be the embodiment of loyalty.

Some will tell you they haven’t missed a games in 30 years.

Others have tattoos of crests twice the size of their heart.

But it is because of this almost blind loyalty that supporters believe their players will feel the same way about their club.

After all, these players are getting to live the dream of so many of these supporters.

They must love the club to do so.

They must therefore be loyal.

After all, every supporter would be - if given the chance to play for their club.

Or so some supporters would believe.

Wayne Rooney grew up joining his boyhood heros Everton.

They gave him Premier League football.

Yet Wayne wanted more.

As loyal as he was to the blue half of Merseyside, he wanted to win major honours.

He joined Manchester United.

He won major honours.

Jamie Carragher has now spent his entire career at Liverpool.

The biggest rival to Everton, whom like Wayne, he also supported.

Jamie would never have won the Champions League with the Toffees.

‘Loyal’ to the reds.

Yet I use the word loyal loosely.

True, Jamie and also Steven Gerard have stayed at the one club their entire careers.

Through thick an thin, supporters might argue.

But the reality is, they both stayed because they were getting something in return.

Their careers were benefitting from playing for a club who regularly qualified for the Champions League.

Who won the Champions league.

Along with numerous other cups.

But even after capturing the biggest club prize of all, Steven’s head was being turned by another team.

Liverpool supporters will say he was loyal in the end when he opted against the switch.

But if winning the Champions League was almost not enough to keep the player who joined them at the age of 10 - imagine what finishing mid-table would have done?

Or getting relegated?

Like the Leeds United team of 2003.

A great team that had taken a gamble on Champions League glory and when success on the pitch wasn’t achieved - the wheels came off rapidly.

A player exodus commenced.

Amongst them was a young Alan Smith.

A Leeds man through and through.

Made up of equal measures of love for his club and hatred for his rivals.

No bigger rival to his team of course was Manchester United.

The team he joined 3 weeks after Leeds left the Premier League.

No championship for Alan.

No, straight to the Champions League for this loyal supporters favourite.

Even those who stayed with the sunken ship cannot claim loyalty.

Gary Kelly hung around for 3 more seasons in the Championship.

Unlikely he could have found another big club at his age.

And he was the third highest paid full back in England after all.

Manchester United have their loyal bunch too.

Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs to name a few.

All loyal one club men.

All achieving every ambition imaginable in the game at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

No sign of the championship for them.

There are of course players who remain ‘loyal’ to their smaller clubs.

Matt Le Tissier perhaps the most overt.

Regularly coveted by larger, more successful clubs.

It would have been easy for him to move on.

But he was the star man at Southampton.

The center of everything.

And he was guaranteed Premier league football.

Finishing his career at Southampton was great to see.

Loyal to the team that gave him his break.

Yet Matt grew up in Guernsey - hardly a haven for Southampton supporters.

Supporters adorn some of the aforementioned players.

They see them as ‘loyal’ servants to the cause as they have remained at their beloved club.

The truth is, the ‘loyal’ ones always made sure it suited them to stay.

This was their career after all.

They don’t support their clubs.

Their clubs support them.

‘There’s no loyalty in the game anymore’ is heard up and down every terrace come transfer window season.

Could it just be that is heard during the period since the Bosman ruling came to fruition?

No longer could the clubs decide where and when the player would go.

Instead the player inherited the power.

The power to remain loyal.

Loyal to the club.

Or loyal to their career...

Who cares what Liverpool Supporters think

Liverpool 0 West Bromwich Albion 1.

Yet another defeat at Anfield for the mighty Liverpool.

They now sit in the Premier League in a group of teams separated by 3 points that include Norwich, Swansea and West Bromich Albion.

With only a couple of games left to go in the season, I see that as a disgrace for a club the size of Liverpool considering how much they have spent in the last year and a half.

However, I am not a Liverpool supporter.

I have enjoyed watching what I consider to have been great football under Rafa Benitez.

I have enjoyed watching the likes of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher over the years and would hate to see them retire without winning the Premier League.

And I have enjoyed numerous epic European nights over the last decade.

But I am not a Liverpool supporter.

And I say supporter, as opposed to fan.

For it is they who support the club.

They who pay the entrance fee.

They who are the ones who experience the emotions of both the clubs successes - and failures.

Not me, nor other neutrals.

Who cares what they think about their club - It’s their club.

So as most Liverpool supporters have been staunch in the defence of Kenny Dalglish - most neutrals think it is blind nostalgia towards a hero of yesteryear who is so far out of the game he should not be allowed near a club the size of theirs.

Liverpool supporters believe that because Andy Carroll scored 2 important goals recently - he starting to prove his worth.

Most neutrals think Andy was a colossal waste of money and at €40m, consider him to be one of the greatest flops in the history of the Premier League.

Liverpool supporters believe Charlie Adam is an acceptable signing because he cost only €8m.

Most neutrals think he is nowhere near good enough to even grace the bench of a club that size.

Liverpool supporters believe Luis Suarez is in the World Class bracket.

Most neutrals look at the record of Luis this season - 8 goals in 28 games - and think why?

Van Persie has 27 in 35.

Rooney has 26 in 31.

Even Yakubu has twice as many as Luis and played a game less.

But again, us neutrals are not Liverpool supporters.

The way Kenny brought shame onto the club with his handling of the racism row was again something that we didn’t agree with.

We also didn’t like the handling of Roy Hodgson.

Sacked after only a few months, Roy now sits 1 point behind Liverpool despite not spending €130million.

Most neutrals laughed when Liverpool won the Carling Cup.

We think it’s a trophy that lost all its prestige when big teams, and Liverpool were one of them, started using the cup to blood youngsters and allow recently injured players get back to full fitness.

As Real Madrid defeated Barcelona on Saturday night to almost guarantee them La Liga - I couldn’t help but wonder what has happened in the 3 years since Liverpool destroyed Real Madrid 5-0.

I miss that team.

That for me, was where Liverpool belonged.

Not winning Carling Cups with Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing in their team.

Hammering the greatest club in Europe with World Class players like Torres, Gerard and Alonso.

But alas, as I said, I am not a Liverpool supporter.

It’s them and only them who can make their judgement on their club and where it should be.

If they support Kenny and Charlie, Andy and Luis, plus the Carling Cup and feel all that is good enough for their club - they will get what they deserve.

I just feel they should be aiming a little higher...

A look back on the glorious international career of Kevin Prince Boateng (2010-2011)

Alan Shearer.

29.

Retires from International football.

Jamie Carragher.

29 the first time he retired.

Paul Scholes.

29 as well.

Each a great loss to their country.

Each bowing out just a little too early.

However, if any country can cope with the loss of one player, then a country with a pool the size of Englands to choose from can.

I’ve never really had a problem with players retiring from the larger nations, even if the above bowed out prematurely.

There is usually a couple of great young players just behind them bursting to take their place.

Think Michael Owen after Alan with Wayne Rooney not too far behind.

Or else quality established stars that are keeping them out of the first team anyway.

Think John Terry and Rio Ferdinand when Jamie went.

But when a player is retiring from a smaller nation such as Ireland, South Korea or Ghana, it is invariably going to leave a massive hole.

The depth of talent that these lesser nations produce, means they could easily go 10 years without producing a left back that’s better than Championship level.

We have seen such countries produce 4 great strikers and not a centre midfielder in sight.

3 left wingers and no right.

That is why it is paramount that when they do produce a player of quality, the player makes it his prerogative to play as long as he can for his country.

When Paul left England, they brought in Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.

When Roy Keane left Ireland, it was Steven Reid with Kevin Kilbane.

Cut to this weekends news of Kevin Prince Boateng.

A player who had represented Germany 41 times as a youth team player.

Yet never quite good enough for the senior squad.

And in 2009, things weren’t going well for him at club level either.

He was heading for the Championship with Portsmouth.

However, he also qualified to play for Ghana.

A Ghana side that had reached the upcoming World Cup.

One switch of allegiance later and despite not playing a single World Cup qualifier, he was on the plane to South Africa in 2010.

Making his debut less than a week before the tournament started.

He used Ghana to get into the World Cup shop window and thus secured a move to AC Milan.

Fast forward one year - and only three games outside that month of June - Kevin announces his retirement from international football.

At the age of 24.

Alan had at least amassed 63 caps before he left England prematurely.

Paul had 66.

Ji-Sung Park had 100 caps when he retired from South Korea at the age of 29.

Yet here was Kevin Prince Boateng, not good enough for Germany, giving the chance to play in a World Cup by Ghana, repaying them by retiring after a whole 9 appearances.

A small nation loses one of their stars just short of their participation in the African Nations Cup.

A 6 week disruption he can do without in his Serie ‘A’ career with AC Milan no doubt.

But no hint of loyalty to the country that helped get him to Serie ‘A’ in the first place.

Had done so much for a young 23 year old struggling in a relegation battle to make sure he could represent their country.

And without the depth of pool that an England has to choose from.

Has it really gone so far that players can now ‘use’ countries as well as clubs.

Kevin used an entire nation as a stepping stone.

And didn’t even hang around long enough to say thanks.

Whatever else Alan ‘might’ have achieved on the international stage was unfortunately lost to his early retirement.

But at least he gave a massive amount to his country in the 9 years he did play.

Sadly though, that’s 1 year for every game Kevin had...