Mails: If Liverpool plan, then selling Salah is fine…

It’s a short Mailbox. Basically, we are ready for more football. Mail us at theeditor@football365.com

 

You’re right….it’s okay for Liverpool to sell
Just wrote in to say that article by Sarah Winterburn has actually cheered me up. For the last few years being a Liverpool fan has been exciting and positive but there’s always been a certain dread that Madrid or Barcelona will come in and screw it up by buying one of Salah, Mane or Bobby. I hadn’t really considered a positive but the article is spot on.

We should sell but at the time that suits us. I’m secretly hoping we are finally organised enough to have a Plan B because we got very lucky that selling Coutinho didn’t come back to haunt us. Enjoy the weekend and come on Salah, score a hat-trick (triple captain gamble)
Ade (been annoyed about buying Carroll for too long now) Guildford

 

There has to be a plan though…
I agree in part with what Sarah Winterburn is saying. Selling players while they can garner a huge asking price is always good for business. You need to have the replacements readily available. This is something that Wenger tried at Arsenal too, where he got the absolute best out of Vieira, Petit, Overmars, Henry, Cole, and I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting. What he did was realise they were on the wane way before the rest of the footballing world did. None of them were as successful after leaving Arsenal.

If the ‘pragmatists’ as Sarah calls them, are as cute as Wenger was, then they can do the same with the hot commodities that are Salah, Mane et al. They need to be much cuter in bringing in their replacements though.
Culk The Younger

 

Only one trophy…
Based on Nikhil’s real trophy guidelines, and particularly point d, almost every competition on earth is a friendly. In fact, the Super Cup is now the only European game that matters. So Liverpool are the obly trophy holders in football, and therefore the most successful club on earth.

Clever boy.
thayden

 

Champions League qualification talk
Lucy, LFC
I see your point regarding teams such as TNS not being considered suitable for the Champions League (although as you said, they were actually in a Europa League qualification game!) But at the same time the CL qualification process to me seems very harsh. Ajax, who were Eredivisie champions, and so close to the final, have to play two qualifiers?!! Totally unfair. Also the Portuguese champions have already gone out in qualifiers, as have I believe the Turkish champions. And Celtic!

Country coefficients and all that is the reason why. (And money!). But personally I would be quite happy if England, Spain, Italy were reduced to a max of 3, even if it came at our expense. Unfortunately unlikely to happen any time soon. And anyway is only fair that champions of even the smaller countries get to have some European experience. It may indeed be humbling, but at least it should be a great experience for the fans, whatever the result.
Mike Woolrich, LFC

 

The younger the better
Using recent logic from the Mailbox, make all top level referees under the age of 12.

Nobody’s going to scream in their face on live TV, are they?
Roger THFC

 

So near, so VAR
Seems everyone has an opinion on Abraham’s losing battle with gravity and VAR yet no-one has mentioned what I thought was even worse in the same game which was the Pulisic disallowed goal. He gets the ball near the halfway line (apparently a chest hair was offside) beats two players cuts inside then plants the ball in the bottom corner for a great goal only for VAR to deem he was offside when he first received the ball near the halfway line, this to me is all that is wrong with VAR sucking all the joy out of football a marginal decision not given by the assistant ref he then does the hard work of actually beating players and scoring a wonderful goal only for some twonk sat in a room somewhere to decide “actually his kneecap was 2cms forward from the nearest opposition player I deem him offside” FFS!! Can VAR be used for only the most blatant brainfarts from the officials please, marginal calls piss me right off.
Paul Murphy, Manchester

 

…I’ve kept my opinions to myself regarding VAR until now. As with anything new in football there were always going to be teething problems and the traditionalists decrying that it was destroying the beautiful game.

I have to say that after watching the European Super Cup game on Wednesday has positioned me firmly with the traditionalists. It brought up two big issues for me, one should get resolved but the other will simply destroy the joy of football.

Firstly, the penalty that Chelsea were awarded. The official in charge of the VAR system were not able to access every single angle to determine whether the referee had made a clear and obvious mistake and therefore the penalty decision wasn’t reversed. After watching it back several times, and with Adrian also admitting that he did touch Abrahamas, I think most people who understand football and physics will tell you that it wasn’t a penalty. Going forward there will probably be more camera angles available to these officials and they can make a better on-the-spot decision.

Secondly though, it takes the joy completely out of the game. I’m a Liverpool supporter but I wasn’t able to celebrate either goal fully. Liverpool players were in borderline offside positions so I was aware that the goals could get chalked off. Even with my allegiances I felt sorry for Man City fans, players and coaches when they celebrated elatedly to Raheem Sterling’s goal against Spurs in the Champions League quarter final only for the decision to be reversed.

Not wanting to be disappointed by the referee reversing the call, you won’t celebrate as much and by the time the decision is made, that’s it – that most amazing of moments, spontaneously erupting with joy as the ball hits the back of the net is gone. I mean that’s why we love football, for those spontaneous moments of joy that last long in the memory that can change an otherwise drab day.

Combining both points though, what’s the point of taking away that joy if they’re not even going to get the decisions right in the end?
Peter Stevenson (brother of Adonis – Cyprus)