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There were few positive things about Lucas Leiva’s long injury lay-off spanning the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, but one bright spot in an otherwise depressing year was his emergence as Liverpool’s resident King of Twitter. Lucas demonstrated his unmatched ability to plug into the club’s vast online community, maintaining a balance of maturity and congeniality atypical of most athletes on social media.
As a result, fans know Lucas and Lucas knows the fans. Lucas is a man of the people, and whether it’s through his dabbling online or encountering fans post-match, he has obviously come across the weirdly pervasive opinion that despite taking all nine available points so far this season, it’s premature for Liverpool fans to be getting excited by how the season is shaping up.
"I don't think it's dangerous for the fans to get a bit carried away after a win like [Sunday’s against Manchester United] — they should celebrate," Lucas disagreed. "It's a great start. We can't deny that. That's the way we wanted to start. But for the players, we need to keep our calm and keep our focus as it's a long, long journey until the end of the season.”
It’s a quick reminder that the people who bear the responsibility of not getting too cocky over a great start are the players, not the fans. They, too, are allowed to enjoy a great start to the new season, but a season is played one match at a time and putting together a string of positive results takes concentration and hard work. Fans, for all our grousing and attempts to define “work” as “drinking heavily”, are exempt from these conditions for success.
"If we keep going like we have done now,” the Brazilian continued, “then it's going to be a great season. But the fans just have to celebrate, and if they have the belief then they will support us even more."
So for the remaining miserablists amongst us, cheer up. Lucas said so.