Copy, Paste and Repeat

I get a familiar feeling now pretty much every time I write a new blog. Sorry I shouldn’t say every time, its maybe every third time or fourth time. Its been a theme that’s been running throughout this season. It feels like I’ve written this blog before, and in all fairness I pretty much have. The Stoke game at home was another one where we dominated possesion, were barely threatened but failed to come away with the points. There were a few decisions from Kenny in this one that I couldn’t get my head around, I think most Liverpool fans would say the same. His tactics of course may have been dictated somewhat by the very tough game against Manchester City, perhaps he felt Andy Carroll couldn't do it over 90 after chasing shadows in that game. We know Bellers has to be managed carefully, Agger was injured, Maxi too and Suarez is banned of course. Still it felt like maybe we gave Stoke a little too much respect. 3 Centre halves to mark Peter Crouch seems a little excessive at least. I feel doing my usual post match blog would be, as ive said above, simply a matter of repeating myself so instead i’m going to do as I have done before. I’m going to take this opportunity to look at a few positives, from the game itself and the season. At times like this it can be hard to not get wrapped in negativity, so for readers of this blog, and probably as some form of self-therapy too here we go



GAME:





Defensive Solidity:


I know that we have one of the best defenses in the league over the last few months so you might think this is a strange thing to include, but this was very much a changed set, from 4 at the back we moved to 3/5. Out went Agger and in came experience of Carra and the youth of Coates. Playing 3 centre backs against the bustling Stoke side is nothing new of course, it was something Rafa did a few times. It was good to see Carra get a came to keep his chin up. As has been the case throughout the season Skrtel was our best defender. He dealt brilliantly with anything that came his way, the other centre half…..






Coates:


A first home start and a full 90 minutes from our young Uruguayan. He’s not the finished article by any means but its clear to see the potential he has. He looks very comfortable on the ball and strode forward to great effect at times during the game. A full 90 minutes against a strong side will help him settle and get used to life in the Premiership. Once he is acclimatised we will have a very strong defender in our hands and another to put pressure on our current first choices. On this point isn't it mad how a centre half carrying the ball up the pitch always seems to cause such mad panic to the opposing team. I mean realistically, as a defender, would you rather have Gerrard or Coates running at you with the ball? But when Coates did run with the ball, Stoke seemed to lose it with tackles flying in everywhere and defenders leaving their positions to make a challenge. You would think this would be something they would be used to but we’ve seen the panic before with Agger and when Rio does it for Utd. its the same thing, I just think its funny really.






Stevie’s road to recovery:


Our talisman and captain took another step forward in his recovery. Another 90 minutes and another good performance. Again, he’s not 100% yet but he’s getting there and he certainly has kept himself fit. We have more big games coming up and each game that goes by Stevie is improving. Its going to be a hard run in and we will need our best players to be operating to the best of their abilities, with Gerrard think that is assured. It was a pity that in this game Stevie seemed to be under instruction to sit back, but again maybe this was due to Wednesday nights efforts and he needed to conserve energy.






1 game closer to the return:


At the very least we can take comfort from the fact that this is another game of Suarez’s ban gone. We definitely miss some inventiveness and guile with him out of the side. This was exactly the kind of game were you feel he could have been the difference, It was not to be of course but we are closer to seeing him wearing red again and Reds all over the world cannot wait for that!



SEASON:





Were still in the running for 4th:


That’s the crazy thing about this eason. Weve not had a great season so far, there have been frustrations and disappointments’ and very costly decisions by the powers that be. We could be higher in the table, even without more effort just through better luck, be “would have” and “should have” have no place in football . We are were we are and that’s that. Arsenal also dropped points again and so were not out of the running yet. We need to get our performances together of course if we want to start climbing the table, but if we can do that there is no reason that we cannot get up to fourth.






Cup’s:


We have a 1 goal advantage going into a semi-final second leg at Anfield. People might say its only the Carling cup, you can say that to me if you like, I’ll tell you to fuck right off. it’s a competition that has been a favourite of ours for the last 30 years or so. We are the record holders for times won. With no European football this year I always thought it would be great to get a run in this competition, and while it doesn’t make up for Europe it goes someway to helping you cope. Like a European Cup patch if you will. We have an amazing fixture ahead and what promises to be a truly amazing night at Anfield, one which I’m proud to say I will be sitting in the Kop for. Don’t forget, this time last year we were out of both domestic cups!






Possesion football:


If the cutting edge has been lost from the team this season, one thing that has clearly been gained is an ability to control games. I think this can be perceived at times as a negative because it leads to such frustrations when watching your side dominate but not win. I’ll be honest I actually wanted to break something….. anything! after the final whistle on Saturday. That’s all part of the match though. it’s the reason why I wait a while before posting anything, particularly after this type of game. You have to cool down before making judgements. Nobody can expect to be cool headed during, or just after such a game. But when you have perspective and look at the whole picture things dont seems so bad. we’ve had plenty of big performances this season that show we are not a bad side. We’re not a great side by any means but we don't need to add much to become one. a little more inventiveness and an ability to finish if added could move us on leaps and bounds.

Liverpool FC is NOT Racist

I didn't want to write a blog on the current issues surrounding my football club. The situation deals with some major issues which as an amateur writer, I thought I wasn't qualified to comment on and so decided to refrain from doing so. The accusation, the following report, the decision to not appeal are all issues which need to be commented on but I think they have been discussed at length by people more qualified than me. This changed for me on Friday night though when I was watching the Oldham game. We saw that Oldham player Tom Adeymi was near to the Kop when something offensive was said to him by a member of the crowd. He was clearly hurt by what had been said, he seemed upset and was visibly distraught by what he had heard. While this incident occurred, the Kop faithful were signing the name of their current superstar, one of the most exciting players seen at the club in years, and the man who had just been found guilty by an FA appointed panel of Racially abusing Patrice Evra, Luis Suarez. Whats moved me to post about this is the reaction of people to this second incident, as if the two are related in any way. It seems that anybody now, no matter how unqualified, is allowed to now take this incident pack it together with the Suarez one and deem that all Liverpool fans, and the club itself is inherently racist. This is simply not true and it has changed my decision regarding commenting on this whole thing.

First of all lets look at the case of Luis Suarez, on the face of it, it seems pretty straight-forward. There was an accusation of racist abuse, there was an investigation, Suarez was found guilty by an independent panel and punished accordingly. If you choose not to look any further into the case, and if it suits your agenda, that's pretty much all there is to this whole scenario. This isn't a case of Liverpool fans simply defending their man blindly, its because as the party who feels hard done by in this, we have looked into the case and the 115 page report on the ruling more extensively because we need to understand what has happened. Unfortunately when you do take the time to look into the report closely you see that there are a lot of holes in the case. You discover that as this ruling was made by tribunal the burden of proof was not as high as it would have been for a trial in court. You discover that Luis Suarez was found guilty on the basis that he was “on the balance of probabilities” guilty, whereas if this had been a trial in front of a jury, he would have had to proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The balance of probabilities is where those who defend Suarez base their opinions. Its a fact, from the report which was released, that absolutely no further evidence came to light to prove either party right. The accusation it seems is what was deemed enough to find Luis Suarez guilty and see an 8 Match ban handed down. An accusation which of course could not be proven, it was found to “probably” be right. Lets be clear on this point, either before or after the release of the findings, no man or woman on this earth can be absolutely certain of what was said between Evra and Suarez, in the report it is clear that Nobody else saw or heard Luis Suarez racially abuse Patrice Evra. What is clear, and has been admitted by Suarez, that the word “negro” was used at least once. It is also important to remember that the exchange of words was initiated by Patrice Evra, and when he initiated the exchange he chose to do so in the Spanish language. So the word negro was used, but not the English word negro (nee-gro) but the Spanish word negro (neh-gro), these are two completely different things and without getting into the complicated arguments of intent and the nuances of culture we can accept this, as it has been accepted by both parties ,as fact. The only evidence that this word was used more than once comes from Evra himself, and has zero independent corroboration of any kind. What is not clear from the report is why they have chosen to accept everything Evra says as fact in spite of inaccuracies in his evidence, but chosen to deem Suarez’s evidence untrustworthy as a result of perceived inaccuracies in his. In the report small inaccuracies in Suarez’s evidence are given weight and used to paint him as an untrustworthy witness. The panel seems to take a completely different view with regard to Evra. His offensive behaviour, and frequent changes to his account of things are accepted as nothing more than mistakes. At different stages of the proceedings Evra claims he was called “a black,” “a fucking black”, “a nigger” only to settle eventually in the report on “Negro”. He also initially claimed to have been insulted “10 times” but the report found this number to actually be 7, the panel eventually write this off as a nuance of the french language “10 times” it is said is just a figure of speech in French. Hilariously (or at least it would be hilarious if it were not so serious) the report actually says that testimony from Liverpool’s Director of Football Damien Commoli back up this “figure of speech” claim. However, when you actually look at Comolli’s testimony, it absolutely does not back this up. Comolli is asked if a frenchman may use this phrase in a general term and he answers, well you might use it to a child i.e ive old you ten times already, but if you were dealing with an adult you would certainly apply greater accuracy. This, in absolute contrast to the report’s claim of it backing up Evra’s statement, actually contradicts it.
You also have to wonder why when translating Evra’s comments the panel chooses to accept the lightest translation, changing a comment which can be translated as “your sister’s cunt” to “fucking hell”, whereas when translating Suarez’s words they change what can be translated as “calm down pal” to “Because your black”. Evra and the report itself both state that they do not believe that Luis Suarez is not a racist yet they believe that a man who, according to them, is not racist and has no record of racist offences suddenly decided to abandon this and fly into a racist tirade. The decision to translate the Spanish word “negro” to literally mean “Black” is very strange as well as the words used around it greatly change the meaning of this word.
The main problem with the whole case is that it still boiled down to one mans word against the
other and the panel decided to not only back up one mans claim without it being substantiated, they also handed out the most harsh possible punishment. It is for this reason that Liverpool choose to back their man to the hilt. It is for this reason that Liverpool fans defend a man who has been found guilty of such a charge. The insinuation is that if you dare to defend Suarez, certain people will label you a racist and presume you are condoning it. The reality is if there were evidence to back up the accusation or to increase the probability of Suarez being guilty, then we would have to accept this and revise our opinion of the man, but this evidence has NOT come to light and that is why we choose to defend our man. What should also be highlighted is that the fact that Liverpool chose not to appeal this decision is not an admission of guilt. It is stipulated in this case that Liverpool, or Luis Suarez do not have the right to appeal the ruling in this case. They do have the right to appeal the length of the ban but this seems a bit pointless. Liverpool's intention from the start has been to clear Suarez’s name the ruling effectively means this is no longer possible and so rather than risk increasing the ban it was decided it was best to just get it over and done with.


What happened on Friday night was something completely different and must be viewed as such. Yet again there is an accusation but in this instance there are witnesses to corroborate this. As of right now all we know is that there has been an accusation. The complainant, Tom Adeyemi, said he was racially abused by a member of the crowd. I think there is no doubt that what he heard hurt him in a really bad way, you could clearly see how it cut him and the upset it caused. Liverpool FC released a statement to assure everybody that they would assist with investigations in any way possible. The police have taken statements from witnesses and have arrested a man in connection to this. In this instance the case will go to court and will be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” If found guilty he will rightly be punished by the courts and will be banned from football ground for the rest of his life. There is no right minded person would defend a man who has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt!