Man Utd v Liverpool…’Theatre of Dreams’ v ‘This means more’

Matt Stead
Jurgen-Klopp-Liverpool-Football365

Send your thoughts on the worst football mottos and slogans to theeditor@football365.com

 

My dad
I’ve written in before about why I support Liverpool. It was all from my Dad. He used to take me to Anfield, and tell me all about the incredible players he watched through the years.

On Thursday afternoon, I spoke to him in anticipation of Liverpool winning the league that evening. He’s a trucker so works very early mornings, and so wouldn’t be able to watch the game. I sent him a text saying ‘Champions!’ late that evening, excited to catch up with him at the weekend.

Early Saturday morning he had a heart attack at the wheel; died instantly. Small blessing it was early and no one else was involved. But I’ll never get to catch up with him now.

Hug your loved ones so tight.
Stu, Southampton

 

Tim’s response
I sent in a mail pointing out how astonishingly entitled and precious many Liverpool fans are.

It was answered with a torrent of people being entitled and precious.

It was all so delicious I genuinely smacked my lips and made “mmm” sounds reading.

I’ve never seen my team win the Premier League, but our most disliked local rivals have won it several times in this era.

So have Manchester City, fueled by petrol and blood. So have Manchester United, fueled by Glascow and momentum. So have Arsenal, fueled by silk and steel.

None of those wins have engendered the levels of deep dislike and irritation that I feel toward Liverpool currently.

Not even Chelsea under Mourinho winning titles has been as grating as this. It’s actually admirable that a fan base have made a manager as likeable as Klopp and a team as exciting and attractive as this into such a deeply dislikable entity.

Anyway, thanks for the storm surge waves of evidence supporting my position mailbox. I surfed them onto the beach of validation with huge enjoyment.
Tim Sutton

 

Merry slogan
Obviously I’m a Liverpool fan and obviously I am taking most rival fans’ thoughts as simply the rantings of bitter, jealous people.But Tim Sutton and others have picked up on something that I feel needs educating.

“This means more” is a slogan. The definition of which is “a short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising”.

It is not a philosophy, way of life or a comparison of things like pandemics and racism.

However in case you are not sure, here are some other companies to string up and quarter;

– Gillette – the best a man can get (both arrogant and sexist)
– Nike – Just do it – (encouraging people to act on impulse and not think things through)
– maybe she’s born with it maybe its maybelline (sexist and transphobic)
– Red Bull – Red Bull gives you wings (encouraging suicide)

And maybe the most offensive: Everton – nothing but the best is good enough (really out of order to Everton players, fans and the club)
Darius, LFC

 

Just a quick response to Tim Sutton, who complains about the marketing gumpf coming out of Liverpool.  Man United referred to their stadium as the “theatre of dreams”!  Has there every been anything so cringeworthy?

Since I live abroad now I’ve lost touch a bit with the finer details of English football but presumably that awful moniker was ditched long ago.  By all accounts the stadium is dilapidated and in need of repair, like the team, and the football played has been the thing of nightmares, for the home fans at least.
Mark, LFC, Hong Kong

 

Poor Tim Sutton – you need a hug hun?
Jo (English, European and World Champions) Kent

 

All Bark and plenty of bite?
The FA Cup returned this weekend, naturally the stand out tie of the round was 3rd vs 4th in Leicester City vs Chelsea at the King Power Stadium, so where do I begin?

Well the first half was absolutely dreadful from a Chelsea point of view, we had a much-changed line-up, which was to be expected, but in regards to the game itself, Leicester should have been a goal or two up in that first half, they truly dominated us straight out the gate when Billy Gilmour’s misplaced pass gifted Leicester an early chance on goal within 30 seconds, Gilmour did not have the best of games which is a shame for the young lad, but at half time Frank Lampard changed it up by bringing on Barkley, Kovacic and Azpilicueta.

Now he brought on easily my favourite player in the side since the restart, a certain Ross Barkley, I cast my mind back to when the players first returned to training and a photo of him from that first training session did the rounds on social media which showed he had certainly not been skipping leg day what so ever. Now all jokes aside I thought at that moment on seeing such a photo that he clearly had been training hard during the lockdown, improving his physique and ready for the restart, looking to impress and show why he is worthy of being a member of this Chelsea side who most fans hope are going places.

You can argue that this “End of Season” run is a crucial time in Barkley’s career at Stamford Bridge, we have seen flashes of his talent but not consistently, yet he has certainly aced his audition so far since the restart, each game he has featured in he has put in a solid performance and for a player who had so much potential yet one who is turning 27 this December you did worry if his time to fulfill that potential had passed, but so far, it seems he truly is showing that ability we all believed he had during his early Everton days.

Onto the Semi Finals of the FA Cup, you do wonder if this victory also dents Leicester psychologically in the race for 3rd.
Mikey, CFC 

 

Run of the Mills
I’ve just finished listening to Sheff Utd v Arsenal on the radio, and experienced one of the most biased commentaries ever. It isn’t uncommon, and I’d be interested what fans of other big teams think?  Why does there have to be such an agenda to cheer on the underdog?

I get that Talksport is a commercial radio station and is inflammatory to get callers etc, but I hear this in every format of the game. Danny Mills was co-commentator, he’s clearly got an axe to grind against Arsenal for the years of torment and humiliation at the hands of Henry and Pires, but how on earth does this guy get employed to offer his expert opinion on games?

When Arsenal scored their penalty Mills sarcastically noted it was Arsenal’s first shot on target…..it took Sheff utd a further 15 minutes to have their first shot on target!

At half time with Arsenal leading 1-0, having had 66% of the ball, more shots, more shots on target, more corners and fewer fouls Mills told us that Sheff Utd had ‘dominated’ that half.

Mills and his fellow commentator were creaming themselves when Sheff Utd scored a late equaliser and you could hear the disappointment when Arsenal went straight down the other end and won it.

Quite honestly I couldn’t recall a single positive thing either commentator said about Arsenal (the team that won remember) through the entire game.

There is a reason why Neville and Carragher are widely respected as the best pundits in the game is that despite everyone’s fears when they first started out they are not biased in their analysis of the game.  How can you do a proper job as a pundit/commentator if you have a pre-conceived agenda that you’re going to push all game no matter what unfolds in front of you?

Hearing Danny Mills suffer at the hands of Arsenal once again does make the win all the sweeter
Rich AFC

 

W*nk transfer
Maybe there is a really obvious answer to this question and I’m an idiot, but who actually reads transfer rumours in the media? Apart from Mediawatch – who are certainly doing the Lord’s work – what person seriously reads the sports section of a newspaper and believes anything about any potential transfer?

In the 90s there may have been some truth and value in what was reported, but these days the editors just seem to pull some random assortment of “A Big Club” + “A Big Player” + “£90M” out of their arseholes and have a “sports journalist” write it up. Half these stories are so plainly lies not even Donald Trump could say them aloud without giggling.

For example, Liverpool have been very, very clear that they didn’t sign Werner because they don’t have £50M to blow on a player with coronavirus going on etc. Yet, if I Google “Liverpool Transfer Rumours” I get multiple hits like “Koulibaly linked to Liverpool in £90M deal” and “Liverpool consider offering Sadio Mane to PSG in £200m Mbappe deal“. It is clear that no serious journalism has gone into any of these stories. Nobody has tried to talk with anybody at the club and in fact they’ve not even tried to square their made up story with the things the club has said.

It is no wonder why trust in the media is so low when they spend their entire time peddling horse shit nonsense stories about whatever imaginary transfer Neil Custis has dreamt up in some capol infused fever dream.
Oliver, London

 

The title? Maybe
Right.

I’ve gone to sleep and woken up three times since Thursday. Supposedly.

I’ve stood on pieces of Lego abandoned by my daughter in the living room flight-path. Seemingly.

I’ve been on the phone to my parents and listened to my mother shouting to my father in the background, him shout back to her and her shout the name of some dead unknown neighbour down the line to me glorying in the delivery of fresh news like Neville Chamberlain clutching his piece of paper. It would appear.

I’ve had two normal bowel movements and one that slunk out with its tail between my legs that I’m blaming on two bottles of decent Rioja and a share-bag of crisps that I didn’t share.

Maybe.

I’ve scoured social media and the Internet barely believing the news my eyes offered to my brain. Apparently.

The conclusion is stark.

Either my brain has tired of trolling strangers on the Internet and turned on what thinks is its master, concocting a dream so detailed in its breadth and scope that Freud is twitching in his grave….or…….or…..

Liverpool Football Club….. HAVE won the league.

I had NEARLY fully accepted that it was real, but then came yesterday and the news that was surely not only part of the technicolour illusion but the part where the piece of cheese consumed at 8pm sours the unconscious, darkens the dreamscape into nightmare and begins the all too familiar confused scrambling to sweaty consciousness and the desperate clawing to wring out the badness.

Fianna Fail. Back in power. 12 years after hanging my country out to dry.
With…. with….FINE GAEL as partners.

Nice try brain. Nice try.

Next year is our year. Next year…
John Mac, Cork.

 

Bone of contention
You really should write a piece on the emergence of Will Smallbone at Saints.

Not just because he looks mustard but how can anyone resist the opportunity to use “Big break for Smallbone” as a headline.

All the best
Martin (brackets will never die) Ansell

 

Production line
Hi

Re: Mikey, CFC’s request for clubs that have produced a lot of good players, the amateurs of Wallsend Boys Club in the North East are none too shabby:

Alan Shearer
Peter Beardsley
Michael Carrick
Steve Bruce
Steve Watson
Michael Bridges
Alan Thompson
Lee Clark
Brian Laws
Steven Taylor
Fraser Foster
Robbie Elliot
Cheers, Rob.