We Need To Talk About Pepe

For years, they train.  Day after day spending a countless amount of hours at the gym.  A professional footballer these days will need to have his body in as close to peak condition as is possible.  But all that effort only matters at the most basic of levels.  Even in a game where it appears to be everything physicality will only get you so far.   It can even - under certain circumstances - count for nothing.  The adage that knowledge is power still rings true in the arena of sport.  An intelligent footballer is worth far more than someone who relies on his strength or speed alone, because even though the dimensions of a football pitch are where the results are filtered out the game itself is played within the mind.  Those that are mentally in tune are the ones who will get their body in the right place at the right time.

Standing in between the posts is a lonely existence.  A goalkeeper is an integral part of a greater cause but no fan actually wants to see them in action, for it means that their team is not on the front foot.  The balance between heroism and castigation is heavily weighted in favour of the negative and so above everyone else, it is important that he is the most sure of himself.  Being agile and having the kind of frame that takes up a goal is useless unless they have this unwavering belief in themselves.  A goalkeeper - especially the great ones - are not allowed to shuffle quietly out of the limelight.  Their fall must be sudden, dramatic and unequivocal.  This is the fate that awaits Jose Manuel Reina, should things continue in the way that they are.

It is not very often that the story of a Liverpool player starts off with everyone happy at his defeat but that's what happened to an eighteen year old Reina when he came to Anfield in 2001 with Barcelona.  He would be directly involved in the key moment of the match, unable to save Gary McAllister's penalty as the reds went on to eventually win the tie by a solitary goal to nil.  After a year in which he battled it out with Vitor Valdes as to whom would be the long term first choice goalkeeper for Barcelona  - a contest which still goes on today, on a much wider scale -  he was loaned out to Villarreal in an attempt to develop and get some first team football under his belt.  Pepe began to flourish at El Madrigal, to the point where just as one keeper was making history in Istanbul his replacement was already being lined up.

The decline of Jerzy Dudek is a peculiar one.  There was a time when he was one of the best shot stoppers in the league and then Diego Forlan - of all people - ruined him.  Saying that Dudek was a terrible goalkeeper - even after his well publicised mistakes - would be harsh but even as the 2004-5 season wore on there was that feeling that Rafael Benitez never quite rated him.  From one player who will always be famous for his penalty heroics to another who had himself a growing reputation for saving spot kicks.  Pepe Reina arrived on Merseyside officially a Liverpool player in July 2005 for six million pounds.  In relative terms to today's market, you would have to pay nearly three times that to end up with David De Gea.

Despite his early years, Pepe had already notched up a total of a hundred and seventy odd appearances as well as an international cap for Spain.  With the help of an organised defence - including Jamie Carragher's stint as one of the best defender in Europe - records tumbled.  Having been at the club for barely six months he set the record for clean sheets with eleven games without conceding, as well as becoming the fastest ever player in Liverpool history to reach the figure of a hundred games where he had shut out the opposition (at a ratio of less than one every two games).  Reina was also the recipient of the Golden Gloves award for the goalkeeper with the most clean sheets for three seasons running.  So what happened?

As with many of the declining factors surrounding the club in the last decade, it begins with the departure of Rafa Benitez.  The club had already began to rely too much on the form of their goalkeeper to get them out of trouble the season prior where he all but single handedly kept the team together, winning player of the year in the process.  Roy Hodgson came in and with it a new style of football - if you could call it that - and like many of his compatriots, Reina suffered.  With a team that dropped so deep that at times they were practically behind him in the stands, it was a massive fall from grace from having been in a team that was used to controlling games to now surrendering possession and allowing multiple chances.  Before lasting damage could be done however - both to Pepe and Liverpool Football Club as a whole - Hodgson went out and Kenny came in.  Fourteen clean sheets over the course of a season represented a good return for an average season but the cracks had started to set in.

Last season and the problems that were rife throughout has been analyzed over and over.  The departure of Lucas Leiva and affect it had on the defence, leaving Charlie Adam and Jay Spearing to take over defensive duties contributed to a dip in form as the season ended.  There was more to it than that however, as by now his concentration and reactions had at the very least gone down a level from that which he had been at prior to Rafa's departure.  Right through the side there seemed to be this acceptance that once things were going wrong we almost expected to concede and the added pressure from our misfiring forward line meant that any goal given away would be twice as painful.  Still the finger of blame did not point directly toward Reina, until now.

The problem for a goalkeeper is that because his position is such a specialist one, it's easy to over complicate.  At the moment something needs to change but that might not necessarily mean bringing someone in.  There has been such a turnaround of people behind the scenes at Liverpool over the last few years it may be easier to get back to basics.  A lot has been spoken of the lack of a true goalkeeping coach, with Xavi Valero's name being brought up often as he was around when Reina made his name.  If Rodgers believes he needs a coach then so be it, same goes for Pepe himself who at this point will know more than anyone what exactly he needs.

He's not used to making mistakes.  There's a difference between having a drop in form - especially when the form he was trying to get back to was the kind that saw him being put into a bracket alongside Grobellar and Clemence - and outright goalkeeping errors.  There's a certain ambivalence around Reina at the moment, primarily because of the alternatives.  Nobody really knows how to address the situation but one thing for sure is that it will not be ignored.  Given the potential financial restraints on the club however and the fact that there are higher priority areas that are in desperate need of improvement mean that for the forseable future, unless he wants to leave then Reina will remain number one.

Giving up on Reina at this moment in time is very premature.  Even to take him as he is now - low on confidence and in need of some work - he still fits the system perfectly.  The added scrutiny he comes under may also be as a result of the fact that on paper there isn't much wrong with the squad.  However big a problem Reina's form is, it will be blown up out of proportion because there aren't that many drastic problems.  This idea that he's become very nonchalent about things and believes he is undroppable however is both insulting to Rodgers' judgement and the professionalism of the man himself.  He is one of the four remaining players who started for Liverpool when they last contested the European Cup Final.  Both he and the club have been through a lot since then.  There is only one way there are going to get back there however.  Together.