It was just a matter of when for Brendan Rodgers

When I first started watching Premier League soccer several years ago, Martin Jol was the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, and even though I didn't know the details that led to it, I knew that he was going to get sacked sooner rather than later.

Every time I watched a highlights show, whenever talk turned to Tottenham, it was always a matter of whether this game, if it wasn't a win, would be Jol's last. Eventually, it happened, and my mate Gardner and I came up with a term for the drip-drip-drip of rumors followed by more rumors followed by talk of replacements and eventual sacking ... the Martin Jol Memorial Death Watch (even though the man himself is very much still alive).

Which brings us to Brendan Rodgers, the man for whom the Jol tolled today.

I was among those fooled by the second-place finish two seasons ago in thinking that Rodgers was a great manager, but at some point last season, a combination of the realization that Liverpool's great season was largely due to Luis Suarez's presence, the players brought in with that money from Suarez being sold being mediocre at best, the crashing out of the Champions League, the poor Premier League form, the circumstances of Steven Gerrard's departure announcement caused someone to first say publicly the Rodgers could or should be fired.

Once that kind of talk starts, there's only one way to steer out of the skid, and that's to win a lot. And for a time, Rodgers pulled it off, with Liverpool going on a long unbeaten streak that pulled them to the verge of returning to the Champions League.

But then came a loss to Manchester United, complete with embarrassing Gerrard red card, and then the utter capitulations to end the season (3-1 at home to Crystal Palace, 6-1 to Stoke) were enough to get the "sack Rodgers" talk started all over again. He even acknowledged it was possible.

Realistically, the only way for Rodgers to save his job would have been for Liverpool to come flying out of the gate this season, but when that didn't happen, the sacking was never in doubt. The only question was when ownership would pull the trigger.

Today, that question was answered.

One man's quest for Liverpool tickets

My wife and I are planning another trip to England for this fall, and we decided to try to get Liverpool tickets.

We made sure that we each had a membership (I had one from last year that I had to renew, but she had to get one of her own because membership only allows you to buy one ticket, although multiple people can arrange to buy them together) and found a home game that fit within our timeframe.

It wasn't one of their biggest games, which actually fit even better, because as new members with no ticket history, we weren't allowed to buy tickets for those games, anyway. Tickets for the game went on sale at 8:15 this morning (not only are games limited based on ticket-buying history, tickets only go on sale for groups of games at a time), and we were ready to go.

Hold on ... did I mention that's 8:15 a.m. England time ... as in 3:15 a.m. here on the East Coast of America?

But if it meant getting up at 3 a.m., getting up at 3 a.m. was what we were going to do, and so I was in front of the computer, ready to hit the button at the stroke of 3:15 ...

... to get put in a queue ... a queue that was going to last more than an hour.

Oh well, I was already up and didn't have anywhere to go, plus ticket availability was very good. Of course it was; it's not exactly Manchester United coming to Anfield.

So I did a little surfing on the Internet, tried to find something to watch on TV and realized that TV at 3:30 a.m. is pretty much crap. My wife abandoned the pursuit fairly early, going back upstairs into bed and telling me to let her know if anything changed.

About a half-hour or so into it, I noticed that ticket availability had been downgraded to good, but I wasn't too worried. After all, I had been queued up for a while, and there were still plenty of tickets left. With a little patience, I'd be all set to work on my rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone."

Then the good news and bad news hit at roughly the same time. The estimate of more than an hour dropped to less than 30 minutes, then less than 20. That was the good news. The bad news was that ticket availability had been reduced to very limited. Was I actually going to get up at 3 a.m., sit online for more than an hour ... and not be able to get tickets?

Yes, yes I was. With fewer than five minutes left in my wait, the ticket status changed again ... to sold out. I let the timer run out (what the hell, I had waited this long), and was sent to a page saying that all the tickets were sold out except limited and extremely limited view. which I have to imagine is the different between sitting near a pole and directly behind it. No thanks, if I want to pay through the nose to sit behind a pole, I can do that right in Boston.

I was somewhat miffed at this news, not now-I'm-going-to-become-a-Chelsea-fan miffed, but somewhat miffed.

Up at 3 a.m. to buy @LFC tickets. In queue when it opened at 3:15. Waited more than an hour. Sold out while I waited. #wasteoftime #thanks
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) July 16, 2014

So now we (and by "we" I mean "my wife") have been looking at options. There's some sort of game-and-lodging package where the only disadvantage is that it would cost an arm and a leg. Apparently, unused season tickets go on sale the week before the game, and Liverpool is on the road toward the end of our vacation.

We'll see what happens.

Today's dumbest story in sports: all-England edition

So it turns out Liverpool won the Premier League after all ... provided you only count goals scored by English players.

Yes, the New York Times brings us some research showing that game-by-game, if you only counted the goals by English players, Liverpool would have cruised to the title by nine points over Southampton and 16 over Manchester United. I actually would have guessed at the result before reading, as Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge, Glen Johnson, Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson give Liverpool a strong English contingent.

As for Manchester City, the actual champions, they would have been relegated with a record of one win against eight losses and 29 draws.

The whole exercise is pretty silly. For starters, it only accounts for goals scored, not goals stopped. As leaky as Liverpool's defense was, it would have been even worse without Simon Mignolet (a Belgian) in goal and central defenders Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast), Daniel Agger (Denmark), Mamadou Sakho (France) and Martin Skrtel (Slovakia), although I'm not sure how Skrtel's four own-goals would count on the ledger.

But more importantly, and seriously, it's just pointless. It would be like someone saying baseball is America's National Pastime so let's see who won the World Series by counting statistics garnered by Americans (although that would mean no David Ortiz or Koji Uehara, so maybe that's not such a bad idea).

The timing of posting the standings if only English goals count is fortuitous, though, in that it's not only the day after the Premier League season ends, but also the day the English World Cup roster was announced. From what I understand, the lack of English players in the Premier League and its international impact is a source of much hand-wringing, with various attempts to figure out how to make things better.

However, as The Secret Footballer pointed out, the Premier League is a business, and a highly successful one, based on getting the best players from around the world.

"That flagship policy (reaching the semifinals of Euro 2020 and winning the 2022 World Cup) is undermined by a multibillion-pound elephant at the other end of the table. It’s called the Premier League and it doesn’t care if England never win the World Cup again."

So there's no need to fantasize about what the standings would look like in a Premier League of only English players; it's not going to happen.

Plus, it's not like England's international record isn't all that stellar when most of the players in its top league were English. There's a reason why 1966 is a magical year there.

Liverpool, the sweet and the bitter

So bloody close, but yet so bloody far

If you just told a Liverpool fan these facts back in August:

• that the team would go from seventh in the Premier League to second, get back into the Champions League and take the title race down to the final day,
• that they would score more than 100 goals and play in an entertaining, crowd-pleasing manner,
• that Luis Suarez would go from being suspended and wanting out to leading the league in goals, teaming with Daniel Sturridge (once again, and I cannot say it enough, thank you Chelsea) to form the often-unstoppable SAS, signing a new contract and being named PFA Player of the Year,
• that they would not only sweep Manchester United, but that United would have such a terrible season that David Moyes would surpass Roy Hodgson at Liverpool in the pantheon of managerial hires that seemed to make sense at the time but turned out so, so wrong,
• that Brendan Rodgers, unlike Hodgson, would prove to be a brilliant hire who can't sign that new contract soon enough, 
• that Steven Gerrard would find a new home as a holding midfielder and in so doing revitalize his career,
• that Jordan Henderson would actually turn into a good player,
• that Raheem Sterling would start living up to his immense potential
• and that they would lay waste to Arsenal in a display that makes me want to have "How many do you want? HOW MANY DO YOU WANT?" as the ringtone on my phone ...

... he or she would be pretty pleased with how the campaign would go, right? I mean, sure, it would have been disappointing to not win it, but that's still a wonderful season.
However ... what that Liverpool fan wouldn't have known then, but would know now, is how close they were to taking the title. It actually would have been fairly preposterous had they pulled it off, as they would have had to improve upon their 2014 record of 15 wins, three draws and one loss either by eliminating the loss, making the loss a tie and winning one of the ties or winning two of the ties ... basically anything adding up to three or more points.
Yet it looked like they were going to do it. After all, following the 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion Feb. 2, Liverpool won 11 in a row through April 27. There was open talk about Liverpool winning the trophy, and The Guardian even ran a story profiling the 20 players that brought them to the cusp of the title.
Then Chelsea's Jose Mourinho parked the bus, Gerrard fell down, Demba Ba remembered for one of the few times this year that his job is to put balls in the back of the net ... and Liverpool effectively kissed the title goodbye. Losing a three-goal lead to Crystal Palace didn't help, either, but the Chelsea loss was the opening Manchester City needed, and they weren't going to lose again.
So the season, brilliant as it was, ends in the disappointment of knowing that a trophy was there for the taking but not taken. Sure, it's easy to say that Liverpool will be back, that the current players will improve, young players who weren't ready to crack the roster this year will earn places and that the team will make additional astute signings, particularly to address the lack of depth and leaky defense.
And maybe they will be, but nothing's guaranteed. This year, the possibility of a Liverpool title was getting a "Yeah, but," as in "Yeah, they might win the title, but their players are in better shape because they're not playing in Europe." Next year, Liverpool will be in the Champions League, which is obviously great, but it does tax the roster.
You also have to assume that Manchester City will continue to spend whatever it takes to win and that Chelsea will try to find strikers who can actually score goals. Everton showed signs of being really good this year. Maybe Tottenham Hotspur will finally figure it out. 
Arsenal actually topped the table for a long stretch before falling off, and Manchester United seemingly has too much talent to stay down long if they get the right manager (something I frequently remind my mate Gardner of when he's feeling too down about life). 
In other words, just because Liverpool had a great year this year, nothing is guaranteed for next year. It could be the last step toward a title, or as close as the club gets for a long time.
And the worst part is, there are no shortcuts. There is actually no one who will be able to say in August with any more certainty than a prediction that Liverpool hoists the trophy a year from now. It's a journey that kicks off in a few months and won't end for another year.
Let the next journey begin. 

Come chat about Liverpool-Manchester United with us

What I hope David de Gea sees in his nightmares.

I am a Liverpool fan. My mate Gardner is a Manchester United fan, and we're throwing an online party to watch today's game.

The door is open to anyone who wants to come. You can log on through Twitter, Facebook or whatever social media you prefer. I hosted a similar chat on another site during the Academy Awards, and it was great fun.

There are basically three rules:

1. Bring your own provisions.

2. If you're coming to a party at my online house, please don't pee in my online pool.

3. The intent of the chat is to hang out while watching the game, have fun and maybe engage in a little good-natured banter. If your idea of chat involves lots of all caps combined with exclamation points and insults (i.e. "DIRTY SCOUSER!!!!" or "FILTHY MANC!!!!), find somewhere else to go.

Other than that, come join us. We'd love to have you.

Confessions of a soccer "tourist"

I saw an article on the Guardian website about a growing concern that the atmosphere at Premier League games has become a bit ... blah.

"For big games and on heady European nights, the atmosphere at most grounds can still make the spine tingle. At others, such as Stoke City's Britannia Stadium, it crackles no matter the opposition. But elsewhere there is a definite feeling that something is being gradually lost from the matchday experience."

Even though it's something I do mostly with extreme trepidation, I started reading the comments. The views expressed were mostly along the lines high ticket prices keeping the "real" fans out, players making so much money there's no connection to the fans anymore (I, like one of the commenters, wondered how Andre Wisdom could afford the Porsche he marooned in the mud) and all-seater stadiums meaning fans can't get together and make noise.

There was also the complaint that there are just too many damn foreigners in the game, because even I know that if there's something wrong with English soccer, blame the foreigners.

I'm no expert on the Premier League or fan behavior in England, but if I had to guess, I would say the ticket prices have a lot to do with the problem. But the comment that got my attention was this one.

"The last time I went to a live game there seemed to be more tourists than fans. People spent most of the game talking or videoing with their phones and posting the "experiance"(sic) to Facebook. Dull as dishwater."

You mean tourists like ... me?



I will confess that Fulham-Stoke would not have been my first choice for a game while I was on vacation, but Liverpool wasn't at home and the Fulham game was the game Mrs. Last Honest and I could get tickets to, and we spent a lot of time online trying to find the best deal on tickets we could.

And even though I bought a hat, I was not full of vim and vigor for the home team. Sure, I hoped they would win, but I wasn't going to scream and yell over it.

Here's the thing, though. I fully admit to being a guy who was at the game just because I wanted the experience of being at a Premier League game. That's my excuse, but what about the rest of the fans at Craven Cottage, given that the Stoke fans in attendance seemed to be far more into the proceedings than they were?

Were they not cheering because Fulham has an owner who was born in Pakistan and now lives in America and a Dutch manager? Were they angered into silence because the players were making too much money? Were they thinking, "I'd scream and holler, but look at all those foreigners out on the pitch"?

Or was it because Fulham is a bad team and the game looked for all the world like it was going to end in a goalless draw where neither keeper had much to do until Darren Bent scored for Fulham? (Granted, he is an Englishman, and people did cheer when he scored.)

Even though, as I said before, I do think high ticket prices are probably limiting crowds to people less likely to make a lot of noise, that's a generalization and there's probably no one real answer.

But I think I can say with some certainty that the "tourists" are, at worst, a tiny part of the problem.

Bob Uecker should have gone to see Fulham play Stoke

Second of what will probably be three parts about vacationing in England. You can see the first one here.

We showed our tickets to the usher, and he told us to walk down the steps ...

When Mrs. Last Honest and I were looking for tickets to an English Premier League game during our vacation to London, my first choice, Liverpool, was on the road, and there weren't a ton of games in the city.

The best bet was the game between Fulham and Stoke at Craven Cottage, and after much exploring on the Fulham website, we found seats that were relatively inexpensive in the mixed zone, available to home, away and neutral fans.

... so we walked down the steps, all the way to the front row, right behind the goal.

Yes, we were in the front row. When I posted pictures on Facebook after the game, my buddy Pizz asked who I killed to get the seats, and to be honest, I was shocked to see where we were sitting. The only thing I can think of is that they weren't as expensive either because they were in the mixed fan area or the seats behind the net aren't considered very desirable.

Me, I thought they were awesome.

Being able to see plays develop right in front of me? I had no complaints.

Since we got to the game early, we saw a lot of the Stoke warmup right in front of us. During one of the drills, Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovic tipped a ball over the bar, whereupon it bounced off a seat about six rows behind me and then right toward me. I was holding my phone in one hand, so I tried to grab the ball with the other. I'm lucky I still have a hand ... even after a tip and bouncing off a seat, that ball had some heat on it! 

That was a small clue as to the speed of the game. Even so-so to poor teams like Fulham (whose manager, Martin Jol, has been rumored to be in line for the sack, meaning the Martin Jol Memorial Death Watch is once again being applied to ... Martin Jol) and Stoke have players that can start and break up play almost faster than you can see up close. (Except Peter Crouch, who I don't think can move out of his own way.)

After a while, when I was filming corner kicks, I didn't even try to follow the ball in from the corner because I couldn't keep up.

Fear not, Martin. We're here to save you!

One thing we didn't see in front of us was a goal. A Stoke player kicked the ball into the net at one point, but it was obvious that the play was offside, so no one moved anyway. However, this still disappointed the Stoke fans in our midst, who seemed to outnumber the Fulham fans, or were at least louder, particularly the ones in the official away fans section in the upper corner, who when they weren't singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" were chanting various sometimes-profane unintelligibles.

Of course, the fans had to entertain themselves beyond the action on the pitch because, as Mrs. Last Honest noticed, there isn't a lot of extraneous stuff going on. Fulham has a mascot, but there are no cheerleaders, no games on the scoreboard, no organ music. They actually rely on people to watch the game. What a concept!

So we didn't get a goal on our end, and for most of the game, we were afraid we wouldn't see a goal, and the possibly only Premier League game I ever saw would end in a scoreless draw. Fortunately, Darren Bent tallied for Fulham, and even though it was clear on the other end of the pitch, we were able to see the play develop and the goal go in. 

Yay, a goal! Maybe Martin gets to keep his job for a couple more weeks!

After the game, we were filing out when some random guy asked the most-obvious question anyone probably heard all day.

"Are you Americans?"

I can't imagine how he figured that out, but I confirmed that yes, we were from America. He then started chatting us up in an accent that I fingernails-hanging-on-a-cliff understood about how he and his brother were lifelong Stoke fans and that English football is better than the American version.

Then he disappeared into the crowd, replaced in our conversation by another guy, clearly American, who said, "But at least in America they let you drink through all four quarters, none of this stopping 15 minutes after halftime BS."

So there you go.

My new best friends are in that group somewhere.

Learning at Liverpool

First of a series (probably three) about my recent trip to England.

"No major American team would stand for this."

The "this" that Mrs. Last Honest was referring to was the home-team locker room at Anfield, which we visited on what was our only trip outside London proper so we could see where my favorite soccer team played. (It was about a three-hour train ride each way, causing my wife to joke that she wished I was a Chelsea fan, given that we could see Stamford Bridge from our hotel room. After all, I originally became a Liverpool fan because I liked Fernando Torres, and he's with Chelsea now.)

Especially after having seen the kind of palatial clubhouses and locker rooms that major North American teams are used to -- including hearing about Derek Jeter having a vacant locker next to his at the old Yankee Stadium to hold his fan mail, which our guide said was a "physical impossibility" for him to answer -- the locker room at Anfield looked like a nice high school locker room.

There was a bench around the wall with the players' jerseys hanging by position (no lockers), a couple of training tables and ... that was about it.

Eighteen league titles, five European cups, home of England's captain, and this is the locker room.

And oh yeah, the fans were allowed in. There were no ropes to stand behind as we gawked. We could walk around, sit on the benches, touch the uniforms, take pictures. (By the way, I don't know the people in the photo; it was just the best chance I got to shoot the whole room.)

The man, Steven Gerrard



I'm hoping for lots of goals from these two ...



... and for him to keep the ball out of the goal.

The behind-the scenes aspects to Anfield -- the locker rooms, the manager's interview area (which we learned partly consists of the famed Boot Room and is a kitchen away from the television cameras), the pictures of Liverpool legends -- were actually among the highlights of the tour for me.

What you can't see (because it's behind me) is the kitchen.

King Kenny

Not that seeing one of the most famous soccer stadiums in all the world was a bad thing.

And hearing this was obviously pretty cool.

We were also sure to pay proper respect to Hillsborough.

They told us to take all the pictures we wanted, as long as no one was leaving something at the memorial.

Aside from what we actually saw on the tour, there were two things I found particularly striking.

Not to brag, but generally when I go on a tour, I know as much or more about where we are than most of the other people, including knowing all but one of the retired numbers on a trip to Dodger Stadium a few years back. But because I'm a fairly new fan, I don't know a lot of the history, although at least I had the good sense not to do what Mrs. Last Honest did, which was to give Manchester United for an answer when our tour guide asked what other teams had won five European Cups.

It was also pretty funny to see the picture of Robbie Fowler, given that he had kind of stepped in it a couple days before. (I actually saw him make the comment live, and cringed when he said it. I also have no problem with him being forced to apologize, given that fighting "like girls" was intended to be a high insult.)

I also realized that this might be my only shot at ever seeing Anfield. I've been on several tours -- the old Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Air Canada Centre, Rogers Centre, the Charlotte and Daytona speedways, Chase Field -- and it's not inconceivable to think I could actually see games there if I ever went back, and in the case of the old Yankee Stadium, I have.

However, even though Mrs. Last Honest is plotting to get back to England (the vacation as a whole was amazing), I have no idea if I'll ever be there again.

So this may have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And that's what made it even more special.