Liverpool's messy ambition still preferable to Arsenal stasis

It would be forgivable, as the season turns into its final straight, for Liverpool fans to cast their gaze around and conclude that their club is selling them short. After all, in the same week that Liverpool’s squad were whisked off to La Manga on account of having no fixtures to fulfil beyond the Premier League schedule, their supposed peers were out there doing what big clubs really do: Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United advancing in the FA Cup, Manchester City preparing for the visit of the French league leaders, Arsenal embarking on a trip of their own to the German champions.

They might have a point, too – success has been hard to come by at Anfield in recent years. But appearances can be deceptive, and success and satisfaction don’t always go hand in hand. Indeed, that final example – Arsenal – provides an interesting counterpoint for any Liverpool fan who feels underwhelmed by the past decade or so.

Taken together, the two clubs make for a good case study in what satisfies a fanbase. In many ways, Liverpool and Arsenal are very similar: comparable in recent years in terms of profile, budget, position in the hierarchy and even achievement (two domestic trophies apiece in the last decade).

On the other hand, their travails have been almost precisely the inverse of each other’s. While Arsenal have marked the 12 seasons since their last league title with an unerring steadiness – one manager delivering moderate success unfailingly every year – Liverpool have seesawed wildly, with an FA Cup, two Champions League finals and two bum-squeaking title challenges offset by a couple of eighth-placed league finishes, four sackings, the near-liquidation of the entire club, and the signing of Charlie Adam.

It may seem counterintuitive that of the two sets of fans, it’s Liverpool’s who have come out the other end of that experience quietly content while Arsenal’s contains large factions in open revolt. But then again, there’s few more dispiriting traits in a football club than open inertia.

Barring the spell of Gillett-and-Hicks-inflicted carnage around 2010, Liverpool have been a club, if not actually progressing, then certainly trying to do so. There may have been plenty of flux under the guidance of Benitez, Dalglish and Rodgers, and even plenty of failure, but all hinted, to varying degrees and for varying spells, at a capacity to restore Liverpool to football’s pinnacle. Say what you like about the last decade at Liverpool, but one thing it certainly hasn’t featured is stasis.

In contrast, stasis is exactly the charge being levelled at Arsene Wenger in the wake of yet another season of high-end mundanity in north London, and is arguably the pivotal variable in the complex equation of exactly when fans’ dissatisfaction gives way to dissent.

Despite a nascent title charge having disintegrated into a lowly battle for fourth in a matter of weeks – with some fairly pitiful displays en route – the Anfield crowd remains as broadly upbeat as any time in the last three years, chiefly because the club is imbued with a sense of purpose, no matter how stutteringly that might be being enacted.

Look closely, and you’ll see that the Emirates has in fact played host to a very similar story this season: joint-top in November, now destined to scrap it out for fourth. The difference is that there, the fans see a club that has sleepwalked across the thin line between stability and stagnation, and the tide is beginning to turn accordingly. To misquote Ella Fitzgerald: it isn't where you are now, it's where you're going that counts.

The comparison is made all the more pertinent by the identities of the men at the respective helms. Wenger is English football’s unlikely Tony Montana figure, starting out as an innovative young insurgent but hamstrung over time by complacency and a refusal to change, his financially-blinkered outlook blinding him to life’s true prizes. Wenger’s downfall has been slightly less dramatic than his Cuban counterpart but the dethroning feels equally inevitable.

Jurgen Klopp – who has invigorated the Premier League with his nerdy charisma, cutting-edge sports science and markedly modern style of football – is something akin to the coach Wenger was 20 years ago, and despite the wobbles, few doubt that he is taking Liverpool on an upward trajectory.

That Arsenal were not prepared to roll the dice two summers ago and move for Klopp is, for the club’s fans, a frustration that is compounded by every subsequent season of same old, same old. Their frustration that should be instructive on Merseyside. The nature of the modern world means that anything lacking in obvious short-term rewards is likely to be painted on some front, by some people as a worthless failure. For Liverpool that means this season. It’s not the case, of course.

Ironically, the lesson any impatient Liverpool supporter can take from Arsenal’s travails is the same one that many are throwing at the Arsenal fans themselves, with the prospect of Wenger’s departure: you don’t know how good you’ve got it.