What is sports fandom without moments of desolation? Moments of despair over a lack of form. Moments of gloom realizing missed opportunities now likely means missed silverware in May.

Is it accentuated whenever you’re a fan of a club meant to challenge for titles every season? Is it worse whenever you may have seen it coming in the previous season, but refused to acknowledge it? Is it worse whenever you feel it all slipping away? Is it all accentuated after having watched your club climb from near oblivion to reclaim their rightful place at the top?

Maybe so. Maybe it’s just being a fan. Maybe it’s jealousy. Maybe we’ve all put way too much into it. Maybe it is just a game.

What ever you tell yourself to ease the pain, friend, that’ll suffice.

Of course, I’m talking about Liverpool. Of course, I’m talking about the rough, despair-inducing start to the 2022-23 Premier League season. The Champions League begins on Wednesday with a trip to the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium. Never an easy ask, but anything less than all three points will only add to the malaise felt among global Kopites.

If we were honest with ourselves, though, we should have seen this coming. Three finals last season, no goals. Stymied. Unimaginative. The engine stalling.

Maybe it’s unfair considering we finished the league undefeated in the last 18 matches. But we won the last four of those matches by having to come from behind. Perseverance, after making things more difficult for ourselves, being the key to victory.

Even in the Champions League, form was slipping. A win at the San Siro was followed by a lethargic loss at home. A commanding performance at the Estadio da Luz saw us give up three at Anfield. A clean sheet at home to a spirited Villareal, saw the Reds go down two in the first half at the Estadio de la Ceramica. They came back, of course. Pulled through. Overcame. Dug deep.

That final. Paris. The turmoil outside the ground. The match itself. I don’t even want to think about it. Chances created, more shots on target, our opponents burying their one clear chance.

It’s a pattern. Beyond unlucky, which if it were only about luck that still wouldn’t suffice for a club like Liverpool anyway.

Have teams found us out? Is it Klopp’s seven year (ish) itch? Is it complacency? Is it a new system that hasn’t quite settled in? Is this just one of those transition years that clubs go through, only to re-tool, re-calibrate and start the next season firing on all cylinders?

Six matches in to a new season is way too early to be asking these questions, but this is fandom. This is despair. This is what happens when the memory of all those years never ever being nearly good enough, mostly also rans, mid table, narrowly missing out, whatever is still relatively recent. We haven’t escaped that. Not yet.

But, we’ll be back on Wednesday and every other match day. Because what else are we going to do. No matter the despair, the anguish, the nerves, this is exactly what it means to be a fan.

What’s the point of it all, if it were easy?