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News today out of North London that Spurs have agreed a deal for Roberto Soldado is most encouraging for their supporters and not so much for clubs who haven't done much high-profile business to this point in the summer. That's not an Arsenal joke but can obviously be used as such, rather another event that will give rise to Liverpool supporters' backs about the lack of big business being done. All the moves this summer have been agreeable and full of sense-making and seem to fit well in the squad, and that's so boring.
Boring itself doesn't quite capture the sentiment, but from a slightly different lens--with an assist from Aldous Huxley--it mostly fits. "I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasure. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness." I want to see everyone else suffering, and if they have the audacity to be content or possibly even the daring to enjoy something, it is painfully, painfully boring. Excited for Luis Alberto's future? Ugh. Think Simon Mignolet is going to be quite competent and maybe even an upgrade? Please. Don't even get me started on Iago Aspas or Kolo Toure.
The problem is that boredom generally always leads to panic and fear mongering, at least when Liverpool happens to be involved. It's been a full month--A MONTH--since Liverpool brought a new player in, and literally thousands of players have gone elsewhere during that time. Henrikh Mkhitaryan went somewhere else. Edinson Cavani went somewhere else. Paulinho went somewhere else, and Soldado went to that same somewhere else. Dries Mertens! Dejan Lovren! Wilfried Bony! Everyone! Everywhere!
Except Liverpool, of course. Hamstrung by their incessant desire to be mid-table for the rest of eternity, they've only gone and tried to strengthen the squad in the manner they see fit, losing out on a couple of bigger names to clubs with better reputations and recent history that indicates they are, in fact, better clubs. Heresy, maybe, but also fact if that's the sort of thing you're interested in.
So Brendan Rodgers and his squad are left to build, and left to hope that maybe they hold on to Luis Suarez and add a clever signing or two over the next month. The money's there, the ambition is there--it is, and if you don't believe that, you're being forcefully negative so just give it up already and get over yourself--but the execution continues to falter. Liverpool's pattern over the past few seasons has been one of decline, and they're hoping to reverse that. Turns out doing so when the club has been run into the ground is hard.
Feel free to panic, but maybe just don't confuse other's joy and your subsequent boredom with a justifiable reason to do so. Your favorite team is still composed of grown men working a full time job while wearing athletic shorts, and you're still someone who enjoys--or at least used to enjoy--the hell out of watching them.
And if that proves too much to bear, there's always FIFA.