My view at Wembley Stadium for Sunday's Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle United
My view at Wembley Stadium for Sunday's Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle United
Sunday’s trip to Wembley Stadium had all the hallmarks of a day to forget. Liverpool put in an utterly indefensible performance and for a fanbase that has always defined itself as being the best around, in the end it was all about Newcastle - their fans and players alike making it count.
Everything that Eddie Howe's team did on the pitch was simply an extension of how their fans expressed devotion across the capital, starting on Saturday afternoon. I stepped off my train at Euston Station to be greeted by swathes clad in black and white, waving their banners, singing their songs. As it turned out the majority would disperse to Covent Garden but there were numbers in bars across Central London, all donning Newcastle shirts or scarves.
Venturing across the capital on matchday again more black and white was to be seen with only specks of Liverpool red, often only poking out of the top of a dark coat, by comparison. The west section of Wembley was turned into a wall of their colours, ferocious long before kick-off.
That is what made panning across our own supporters - suffering a huge drop-off in our historic standards and certainly emotionally drained from Champions League elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain five days earlier - so disheartening.
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I even heard somebody say: "Oh well, it's the league we want," heading towards the Wembley Park tube at full-time. I feel whoever that may have been and so many others have stood there on Sunday and missed the point entirely - we weren't at Wembley to win the league.
Yes, the players never gave enough to latch onto, at least until it was too late. We can't control their individual decision-making but how we carry ourselves remains within our influence.
Before they step out it is our duty to create an atmosphere to be proud of. By extension that will be one the opposition are envious of and instead we let it be the other way around.
Our chants only started when our tifo made its way across the stand and had died down by about 25 minutes of the match, if that. Standing in stark contrast I remember last year's final, getting onto a concourse too tightly packed to move spilling beers everywhere, the songs in full flow. That lasted well into extra-time of a match that produced anxiety more than anything to get excited about before Virgil van Dijk's eventual winner.
How the attitude has changed in 12-and-a-half months since that five-minute-plus encore of 'Allez, Allez, Allez'.
My view of the 2024 Carabao Cup final vs Chelsea, which stands in stark contrast to 2025's (Image: James Quinlan/Liverpool ECHO)
If you're also quicker to find reason to moan about anybody seemingly not from Liverpool attending these matches or indeed any match at Anfield, negative energy certainly isn't going to help the matter any more.
Instead of frustration, just work doubly hard to make up for their so-called lack of contribution and create the atmosphere this club is reputed for. Others will band together alongside you, I've seen it happen before both home and away.
Also before anybody hears us, they will see us. Walking around London, sitting there in Wembley you would think our team colours were the Blues or Blacks rather than the Reds. There has become this stigma against wearing the colour and frankly it needs to stop.
I find it so daft to listen to people explain why they possibly wouldn't turn up to a match in a Liverpool shirt or with a red-and-white scarf. It's 'uncool'? Get over it - lead by example, you will never find out if some passer-by is judging you for it and if they are a Red themselves doing the judging, they have a problem to get over as well.
'It's cold, I need a coat' - that's fine, wear a Liverpool shirt under it, add a scarf to the outfit, it serves both purposes of keeping warm and when 32,000 are swinging them above their heads as Newcastle did across from us, as we have done so many times before, that is pure atmosphere being created in the easiest way possible.
The only excuse I am willing to listen to is any club manufactured apparel being extortionately priced, completely out of touch when compared to the general cost of living these days. Still, my response is that we live on Merseyside where there are numerous examples of independent, fan-run sites and stalls outside Anfield on matchdays selling good clothing to be proudly worn to the game at a fraction of the cost.
The last thing I want to be doing is telling people what to wear but I just desperately want to see a red wall backing this team as a black-and-white one was on the other side of Wembley for the other team on Sunday.
I spoke to one Newcastle supporter in a bar after the match on Sunday night, they told us how at the 2023 final when they lost to Manchester United, free scarves had been left to all supporters on their seats and that was the one he cherished and wore again this past weekend. I don't think Liverpool should require that, personally, and I know from experience anything like it would get an adverse reaction from our fanbase.
Here at home I've still got an FA Cup final 2012 flag handed out to all in the Reds' end for that defeat to Chelsea 13 years ago. This was long before I was lucky enough to get on the list for a Wembley trip, the flag had been turfed to the floor by another fan too proud to accept it and brought home by a friend of mine and his father. As a child I was ecstatic to get my hands on such memorabilia, even if like this most recent final it was one to scrub from the Anfield history books.
A relic from Liverpool's 2012 FA Cup final defeat to Chelsea at Wembley Stadium - a flag, provided to supporters upon arrival to their seats (Image: James Quinlan/Liverpool ECHO)
Again, I don't want to have to tell anybody how to support this club. We all have our own ways and rituals, like me buying a match programme at every single game I've ever attended. For others it might be match pins or getting a photograph with friends and family.
I'm just a supporter granted the opportunity to put his thoughts into words about this great club, just hoping we can take lessons from this final and start to restore some sense of the identity that was once so fearlessly displayed to all that oppose us, and I know the ideal turning point, at least if not straight away when Everton cross Stanley Park after the international break.
In a couple of months' time we might be getting another trophy parade with the team taking the Premier League silverware out on an open-top bus display around the city, just as they did with the Champions League six years ago and the two domestic cups in 2022.
My view of Liverpool's 2019 Champions League trophy parade as the team bus passed by the Cunard Building (Image: James Quinlan/Liverpool ECHO)
For both of those, a sea of Red engulfed the streets of the city, which is all well and good once the trophies are in hand. As well as being a day to celebrate an emphatic achievement in Arne Slot's first season, let that be the turning point in which we regain the sometimes lost identity and carry it forward into next season and onwards.
I want to see Anfield turned Red again.