Liverpool inspired by ‘unique’ and ‘special’ unsung hero as fans prove they are anything but
Joel Matip gets his flowers after a hard-fought victory, before which Liverpool supporters proved they are the same as every other fanbase.
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Much better
We finally saw a Liverpool team come out and compete. It was the first game all season where we showed the intensity that’s necessary to turn our tactical idea into a result. I don’t count the Bournemouth game because they were properly awful.
Matip is a great defender but more than anything he adds a really unique dimension offensively too. His ability to carry the ball and find a pass is pretty special and adds an extra element to the way we play.
Thiago is frustrating. I say that because he’s become our clutch player but we can’t rely on him to stay fit. Tonight showed how instrumental he can be. Even his misplaced passes seemed to work out fine. The way he handles pressure on the ball is amazing.
A very important three points and if we can beat rangers twice then we should hopefully be in a great position to qualify for the knock out rounds. We just need to hope that the way they battled today follows through every week now. If we fight like we did today then win or lose we can at least enjoy this team.
Minty, LFC
Boo-urns
Liverpool fans have the absolute right to boo.
The rest of us now also have the right to say they’re just like the rest of us i.e. they’re fan group includes a coterie of idiots.
In other words they’re not special. Never were.
That’s fine
Lawrence, CFC
‘Small minority’
A thing that always sticks in my craw whenever misbehavior is discussed in football is the constant references to “small sections/loud minorities” who aren’t representative of the club/community/country
It always puzzles me that a football community that without everyday formal guidance from above knew by itself to ostracize other races, then other sexual leanings and then cultures/religions etc suddenly is helpless when it’s own fellow fans are loud/violent idiots
It reminds me of that canard of “a few bad apples” that gets trotted out everyone US police shoot an unarmed person. (Feel free to focus on this analogy and not the point I’m making)
If opposing fans came and sat with home fans and started misbehaving and being insulting they’d be set to order immediately with no need for officials to issue statements
But when two fans of a club ascot like idiots, where are the four fans to set them straight on the spot? Even if it’s calling stewards over
What does it say that those two idiots are even that comfortable to behave in that manner
One more thing -Football matches should not need so many police officers that police officials have to choose where to send resources between them and a state function
Fans should be embarrassed by that
Regards
A former Arsenal fan disgusted by Kagame, China behind licking and the shameful treatment of Ozil
G*mesmanship
It’s just getting a bit much isn’t it? Yes, all teams run down the clock if they’re preserving a score in the last 5 or 10 minutes by passing it around without probing or running the ball into the corner flag and holding off defenders. This is annoying but, crucially, within the rules of the game. The opposition still has the opportunity to press and win the ball back.
The difference over the last year or so is twofold:
1) The Simeone effect
2) The perennial timewaste
The Simeone effect is as pernicious as strikers diving for penalties but for some reason gets praised as being ‘masters of dark arts’. Diving defenders (because somehow that’s different), cramp feigners, ball throwers..it’s all just brushed off. E.G. tonight’s Liverpool vs. Ajax:
Corner taken. Attacking header. Defender gets a ball to the face. Has the wherewithal to clear it as it drops to his feet but then realised that he’s received a massive trauma to the head so goes down clutching his massively traumatised head. Ref stops attacking play. Defender gets up. Play resumes with the attack snuffed out.
Or look how frequently teams that are wanting to preserve the score suffer from cramp compared to their opposition. The referee had no need to stop play for this blatant lie but invariably does. As someone else in the mailbox said, cramp is due to a lack of fitness so would the ref stop the match if a player just ran out of breath whilst on a foot race with a fitter player?
As for the perennial timewaste:
A lower placed in the league team plays one of the normally higher positioned teams. Not all of them do this. I’m being diplomatic here.
Goalkeepers forget that they are only allowed to keep hands on the ball for 6 seconds. Referees also forget this rule that is codified and punishable by an indirect free kick. Goalkeepers waste 20-30 seconds per involvement.
Goalkeepers put a ball down for a goal kick. Feign that they will take it from the left side of the six yard box before moving it to the right. Feign taking it short before waving their defenders forward for a long kick. Every. F**king. Time.
Ref motions to watch as if to admonish them but never, ever books a keeper for time wasting prior to 87 minutes and never adds on appropriate extra minutes especially in the first half.
Some teams employ these tactics in tandem. You know who you are and Dante has a special circle of hell for you.
My point being is that traditional gamesmanship was, whilst annoying, within the laws of the game. Now we’re witnessing blatant cheating and rule breaking being waved through as if it’s now part of football culture.
F**k that. Let’s get a stop clock system whereby the ball is in play for 30 minutes per half and whenever it’s out of play be it throw in, goal kick, injury, streaker, whatever…the clock gets stopped by an independent timekeeper and the ref and players have no influence on how long the game is played for.
James Outram, Wirral
Potter going on the cheap
What I don’t understand about the Graham Potter to Chelsea move is this: why are players and managers treated so differently regarding termination of contract and moving on to the next employer?
A player under contract with more than 6 months left can’t change employer on a short notice unless the club receiving the player pays a large sum of money to the source club. A manager’s job, however, is regarded more as a normal job, where you can join a competitor’s payroll for a relatively small compensation from the new club to the old one.
While the £22m reported that Chelsea paid Brighton for permission to acquire Potter’s services was some kind of record or another, it’s easy to see his actual worth to Brighton being many times more than that. Why did they have to let him go so easily? Are managers considered unimportant by the governing bodies dictating the rules, or is there a more complicated reason for their contracts being treated differently to players’ contracts?
Samuli, THFC
Stickertastrophe
Ecuador maybe getting booted out of the World Cup? Well that would f*ck up my sticker book! Mustn’t happen.
Gareth Dix, Sutton
Absolute class
As a working class cricket fan and a republican I have to disagree with John Matrix in Tuesday morning’s mailbox.
Not all cricket fans are landed gentry. I and many other working class people enjoy the sound of leather on willow just as much as we enjoy football.
The cricket was cancelled on Friday. I know this because I had a ticket for the Oval on Friday and didn’t get to go. Then had to fume impotently on Saturday as 17 wickets fell. I could have been there to enjoy that.
I like to invoke Hanlon’s Razor in times like this. Which states “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Class war might be real and the wealthy are responsible for a lot that is wrong in this world but in this circumstance the FA and Premier League were incompetent and put the irrational national mourning of a celebrity death above the more practical needs of an already congested football season.
Whilst the picture of some fat cats lighting their romeo y julieta’s with 20 pound notes is what normally pops to mind when things like this happen in this case, I am more in mind to view those in charge as morons rather than Machiavellian schemers.
Simon CFC (Woking)
Hey John Matrix – I know class war is very much in vouge on these pages but the idea that “they” canned only pleb sports seems a bit weird.
The football authorities took the decision for football, the ECB for cricket, the RFU for egg chasing etc. Was not a decision by a cabal of satanic monsters at the center of government (you do sound very Q Anon).
Ever considered that the peeps running our game in the UK are just not very good at it?
Alistair
John Matrix AFC lays out manifold reasons why ‘posh sports’ weren’t cancelled but football was. Laying aside that all horse racing was cancelled on Friday, the remaining three stages of the Tour of Britain were cancelled from Friday through to Sunday and the boxing at the O2. At least one international rugby match was cancelled, the Test Match didn’t play on Friday, neither did the BMW Championship golf and domestic rugby union in Scotland was cancelled.
But yes, football was the only sport cancelled.
There is a pretty simple, and non-class based explanation. The total attendance in the Premier League in 2021/22 was 15 million. Divide this by 38 rounds of matches and you get just under 400,000 people attending each weekend. The Championship, League One and League Two got a combined 17.46 million. They have 46 rounds of matches so around 380,000 people on a weekend. This means men’s professional league football alone will attract around 800,000 people to matches. That needs a lot of policing, local authority involvement etc.
The test match was at the Oval which holds just over 20,000 people. Rugby Union Premiership matches regularly attract crowds of under 10,000.
Football is a behemoth which takes a lot of organising and a lot of resource. I would suggest that is why it was cancelled on mass and not because it is the sport of the plebs. The decision to axe grassroots football was terrible though.
Micki (I had tickets for the Liverpool game this weekend so I have a vested interest by the way) Attridge