Mo Memes Ranked 7 Types of "Legend Departure" and I've Lived Through All of Them as the Manager

Right. Mo Memes wrote a piece ranking the seven types of "legend departure" every club goes through, all because Andy Robertson is finally leaving Liverpool after nine years. Very clever. Very funny. Lots of little crying emojis. The youth love that sort of thing.

But here is what Mo Memes and every other content merchant on the internet doesn't understand. They watch these departures from the stands or from their sofas. I had to orchestrate them. From the dugout. Looking a man in the eye and telling him his legs have gone. Try ranking THAT into seven neat little categories, son.

You want memes? I'll give you memes. Here are the legend departures from the manager's perspective.

There's the one I call "The Hostage Negotiation." That's where you've already signed the replacement. He's training with the squad. The legend can see him. You can see the legend seeing him. Nobody is saying anything. The whole training ground has the energy of a Christmas dinner after someone brought up politics. That one lasted three weeks once. Three weeks of a 34 year old centre half giving me daggers in the canteen.

Then you've got "The Press Conference Ambush." You go in thinking you're talking about Saturday's match. Some journalist asks about the legend's future. You say something diplomatic. The legend watches the clip on his phone in the dressing room. Doesn't speak to you for a month. You lose four on the bounce. Cheers.

My personal favourite is "The Testimonial Trap." You agree to give the lad a testimonial because he deserves it. Lovely gesture. Then he plays 45 minutes in the testimonial and suddenly thinks he's got another season in him. He hasn't. He very much hasn't. But now you're the villain because you promised him nothing and he heard everything.

There's also "The Leak." That's when the chairman tells his wife, who tells her mate, who tells TalkSport, and suddenly the legend is finding out he's being released from a bloke called Dave on a phone in at half seven in the morning. That one was not my fault. I want that on the record.

Robertson though. Robertson is getting what I call "The Clean Getaway." Nine years. Trophies. Fans love him. Club respects him. He goes with dignity. Do you know how RARE that is? That almost never happens. Someone always messes it up. Usually the agent. Sometimes the chairman. Occasionally me, if I'm being honest.

The kid was a proper left back. Old school. Overlapping runs, tackles that meant something, could deliver a cross without checking his phone first. Liverpool fans spent two years moaning about his decline and now they're all weepy about it. That's football, that is. You don't know what you've got till some 22 year old from Salzburg is warming up in his spot.

Mo Memes wants to rank these departures like it's a Buzzfeed quiz. Fair enough. Entertaining read. But trust me. There's only two types of legend departure that matter. The ones that go well. And the ones where I end up on the back page looking like a monster.

Robertson's getting a good one. Enjoy it, son. They don't come around often.