Dear Phil,
When we first met, you were just a young boy, like myself. The first thing we noticed was your unkempt hair and the way it bobbed up and down as you cut inside and out.
A tender goal against Queens Park Rangers via a deflection was a somewhat softened introduction to your magic, but our eyes lit up the same, knowing what potential lay ahead.
As the weeks flew by, your price tag became an evident bargain, and you slotted into the side better than most in a midfield which had recently starred Stewart Downing and Joe Cole. As our kits were made sharper and we headed into a new era, you sharpened the blade at the barber and got quite a few tattoos.
We loved this new Philippe, or Phil, as you had affectionately become known to us by then. The first time we knew we were in love, was against Manchester City, near the end of the 2013/14 season, when you deftly placed a shot in the bottom right corner just out of Joe Hart’s reach to give us a vital three points during our title run-in.
In the coming seasons, you would do the unthinkable, put in free-kicks from absurd angles, razzle, dazzle and deconstruct defences. Something in our relationship changed, though. This past summer, although things seemed to be progressing in Liverpool, you started seeing someone else.
Freak injury scares, which amounted to nothing, would leave you out of important European matches. You stopped travelling with us everywhere, and it was obvious why that was. Maybe it was our fault. Maybe we shouldn’t have believed that you were different. But, the fact still remains that we did. And now, in the midst of a January period which has seen as much resilience as our side has had to offer in recent years, you’ve left us. Maybe we’ve been wrong to think it would end any differently, but when we gave you a chance so many years ago, we thought one day you’d realise what you had in us.
Goodbye Phil, and may you never forget us, as we try to forget you.
