Source: Telegraph
Liverpool v Manchester United: it's do or die for Glen Johnson
"Basically, it's ---- or bust," he admitted as he sat in the club's Melwood training ground this week.
No pressure there then. But Johnson has a point: such has been the calamitous run on which his club have recently embarked, defeat by their hated rivals would put Liverpool's league challenge in terminal jeopardy before the Halloween pumpkins had been lit. Victory against Manchester United, on the other hand, would be a timely reminder of the team's capabilities.
"The results are terrible for ourselves," he says. "It's devastating for everyone. It makes Sunday even more massive for us. Being against United is big enough, but more importantly this could be the game to put us on a run. You never know, this could be the launch pad to put us there or thereabouts."
When Johnson arrived from Portsmouth in the summer, he thought he was joining a club pressing for the title. Instead he has been centrally involved in Liverpool's worst succession of defeats in 22 years; an autumnal sequence which reached a moment of low farce last Saturday in the Stadium of Light, when a stray beach ball was responsible for Sunderland's winner.
Johnson was in the midst of the action, seemingly bemused by the course of events. So what is his memory of what happened?
"I've seen the shot and I thought, 'Oh I'll block that'," he recalls. "Then it's not there. Gone. I'm thinking, 'how can I miss it? I'm not that bad'. Obviously, now I've seen the replays I know why that was. But I've looked over my shoulder, expecting the ball to be there and Pepe [Reina] to have it, but all I've seen's a balloon.
"Unbelievable. The ref said to me at half-time he thought that I'd hit the ball. I said that's impossible, the ball's gone the opposite way from if it had hit me. He said, 'Do you remember the goal at Sheffield United [when Luton Shelton scored against Manchester City through a flurry of balloons]? That was given'.
"I said yeah, but just because that was given, doesn't make this right. And he just said, 'Sorry I thought it hit you'. For him and the linesman to miss what went on is ridiculous."
It is enough to conclude that the fates are conspiring against you. "Part of being a footballer [means] you have to put stuff behind you and move on," he says. "The beauty of the game is that you've always got next week. Besides, if you look at each game we lost, the result could have been very different.
"Against Chelsea we were right in it. Against Sunderland, the beach ball's got in the way. Against Lyon the lads were doing so well up until very late and then we lost because of a mistake that can be so easily cut out. You have to get on with it and deal with the hard times."
If Johnson sounds philosophical, that might be due to recent experience. After making his mark at West Ham, he was the first player to arrive at Chelsea following Roman Abramovich's takeover. But he found his progress stalled by the appointment of Jose Mourinho, whose attitude towards him challenged his self-belief.
"Every player wants to play but I felt I wasn't being given the chance," he says of his time under the Portuguese. "He kept telling me if I played well I'd stay in the team. I'd get the man of the match, then be out.
"It got to the stage where I realised I could score six goals and not play the next game. He never explained it to me, nothing was said. It was such a kick in the balls, all my trust and belief was gone, so I knew I had to get away."
After a recuperative time at Portsmouth under the matey regime of Harry Redknapp, Johnson finds himself at Liverpool under another Iberian coach not renowned for his interpersonal skills. So how has he adapted to life under Rafael Benítez?
"You can tell Rafa loves football, he lives for it," he says. "Pretty much I've never heard him talk about anything else. But we're all here to do a job and this is our place of work, so it's good to talk about work with him. Yeah, it's nice to have a bit of social chat, but I don't necessarily look to a manager for that. And Rafa's really keen to help me improve."
Where in particular does Johnson feel he needs to improve (beyond, of course, being able to spot a red balloon in the midst of his area)?
"I know people have been saying that my defensive side needs work, but I'm happy with it," he says. "There's things people make a scene about when they don't need to. If somebody gets a cross in against me does that make me bad?
"It's impossible for a full-back to stop every cross. I played against Chelsea the other day and got a cross in against Ashley Cole. Does that mean he's rubbish? No, he's the best left back in the world. I'm a lot better at defending now. I have improved. I wasn't the worst, but I was never as bad as some say."
Which is just as well, as he will need all his defensive capabilities on Sunday when he is likely to line up against Ryan Giggs.
"I don't think anyone's ever had Giggs in their pocket," he says. "He's a fantastic player. But I enjoy playing against United. And if we do what we can do, we can win. We need to worry about ourselves first, focus on what we need to do. Get ourselves right, then you never know."
In other words, it is all or nothing. Though Johnson might have a more compelling way of describing things.
