Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 11/12-Jan 2012 onwards

seanwhite20 wrote: »

Good luck with that..his best years are behind him. Whereas Carroll has his best yet to come. He will come good I don't need to hold out hope I know it will happen.

Rega wrote: »

Apokogies if already posted/

The FA have decided to award victory in the FA cup 4th round match to Manchester United this evening having accepted captain Patrice Evra's claim that his team scored 10 times.

Despite 9 of the goals not having been witnessed by the TV, players, crowd or referee, the FA found Evra to be a convincing witness. Conversely Liverpool FC goalkeeper Pepe Reina's testimony was found to be totally unreliable. He admitted conceding one goal but could provide no evidence that the other 9 had not been scored. On the grounds of probability, the FA have concluded that the goals will stand and so United will progress to the 5th round.

Liverpool have 7 days to appeal.

monkey9 wrote: »

So, you're basically on here having a go at the club for spending so much on a flop of a striker and also calling the club an embarrassement for being involved in a case of racial allegations. You? A Chelsea fan??!!

willmunny1990 wrote: »

Sorry but I don't remember AVB wearing a t-shirt with JT's face on it and I don't remember our club releasing statements claiming that some sort of witch hunt is taking place, nor did we call Anton Ferdinand a liar.

JT is probably guilty IMO, but at least my club handled the whole incident with some degree of respect and didn't turn a serious issue like racism into an 'us against the world' scenario.

Maybe that anger isn’t a lack of respect

January 29, 2012 by Jim Boardman | 50 Comments



LUIS SUÁREZ has one game left of the eight-match suspension he got following on from the incident with Patrice Evra in October. By the time he returns the incident will have been in the headlines, or never far away, for the best part of four months.
For two and a half of those months the headlines sat above stories that were based on speculation and on anything that might be leaked from those in or around the two clubs and players. Since then, since the written reasons were published, the stories have been based on a mixture of that speculation and little more than a cursory glance at a handful of the 115 pages the FA panel produced to justify their decision.
There is no excuse for anyone who feels strongly about the incident to comment on it without having read the full report. Not now.
It came out on New Year’s Eve and in the urgency to get a reaction out it’s hardly a surprise the reaction was based on the summary spread out over the last few pages of the epic document. Four weeks on, why have those who keep talking in such strong terms about it still not bothered to read it?
Look at the facts before making the accusations

Freddie Kanouté told the BBC’s World Football Focus that it was possible Luis Suárez had a point, that cultural differences could mean the Uruguayan has been unfairly treated, but he made it clear that he was in no position to defend either player, for one simple reason. He hasn’t read the report, he hasn’t studied the case in any detail.
Kanouté, based in Spain with Sevilla since 2005, said: “Here, some people, they have a way to talk to each other. It’s true; when I arrived here I was a bit shocked because that’s their way to express themselves. But I’m not going to defend him, or the other player, because I haven’t studied the case.
“All the time I think we should study the cases more deeply to be sure we don’t accuse someone falsely.”
Kanouté played in England for a number of years for West Ham and Spurs, he was born in France and played for their under-21s before choosing the African nation of Mali as his country for full internationals.
As we waited over the Christmas holidays for the written reasons from that FA appointed panel it’s safe to say that most of us hoped the document would clarify the facts of what had really happened.  Armed with the facts we could all, whichever way our football or personal allegiances swayed our opinion, make our own judgement on the whole mess. We could find out why Liverpool’s defence of their player was so strong, we could find out why the panel were not only sure they had come to the right decision but why they were so strong in their punishment, we could finally air our opinions based on whatever evidence there was and not on the sensationalised hypothetical versions based on the opinions of those looking on from outside.
Facts

Liverpool fans who stood by Suárez as they waited for that written reasons report did so with a fear somewhere between the front and back of their minds that their opinion of the player and of those running their club could take a massive hit when its contents were revealed.
It’s fair to say that those who condemned Suárez from the first airing of Evra’s accusations also awaited the report with a fear that it might be hard to stand by its findings. Deep down they knew that there might be more to Liverpool’s stance than commercial, financial and team selection worries.
Nobody expected 115 pages. Nobody expected it just as they were about to get changed to go out for New Year’s Eve. Nobody, it seems, did anything more with it than they needed to in order to confirm their existing opinions.
Those who wanted to agree with the verdict didn’t need to read the full document. They got all they needed in a convenient summary at the end. But that summary didn’t really explain the assumptions that had been made in order to reach those conclusions. And those who continue to condemn Suárez, his club or his fans based on that summary have quite literally jumped to conclusions.
The Truth

If your interest stops short of wanting to know the truth and revolves around wanting to condemn Suárez, his club or his club’s fans then it’s a surprise you’re still reading this now. If you saw this as an ideal opportunity for some tribal point scoring the chances are you’re licking your wounds today anyway, avoiding football talk at all costs.
If that’s not you, if you do feel strongly about the issue itself, the accusations of racial abuse, it’s time you did read that report. The longer you avoid it the closer you become to those who celebrated the verdict for the harm it might do Liverpool more than the benefits it might bring to the fight against racism.
If you feel strongly about the issue you’ve had four weeks to read the 115 pages front to back a few times. If you haven’t even had the decency to do that then you should hold your hands up now and admit you’re not really in any position to comment either way.
Blagger’s guide

The nature of the report is such that if you haven’t read it, you can’t bluff your way into making it sound like you have. This is worse than watching the last game on Match of the Day and using the four minutes of action to help pretend you were there or that you saw the whole game live. It’s worse than supplementing that with the opinions of someone who only saw the match report on Teletext.
Much of what has been written – before and after the publication of that document – is way off beam in terms of the detail the report contained.
If you go around mentioning the word “negrito” you’ll stand out a mile to those who have bothered to read it all. “Negrito” got into the conversation about the case after “high level sources” at Old Trafford spoke to a sympathetic Manchester journalist. The word only appears in one place in that 115 page report, in a point discussing what Manchester United’s Hernandez had said about the word.
Have you looked at what Evra’s initial allegations were? Do you know the word he originally accused Suárez of using? When did he change his mind about the word? How many times did he change his mind about the word on the day itself? How many times did he claim Suárez had said the word – and how many times did he change his mind about that number?


If you only read the summary you won’t have a clue. Maybe it doesn’t matter how many times he changed his mind – but how can you say that without reading about it?
Amnesty

There are signs that some of those who condemned LFC and its fans without reading the report have actually started to realise that the anger isn’t a defence of racism, or about blindly putting their club ahead of the abhorrent subject of racism. In time they might actually have the guts to stand up and admit they jumped to conclusions and that they now understand the points being made, even if they still disagree with them. In time they might just see what the cause of the anger really is. Those who do this maybe deserve a bit of an amnesty – as long as they hold their hands up about how they reached their earlier conclusions.
The anger is, in many ways, that we still haven’t actually debated what really happened and that the condemnation is based on something other than what really happened.
Is it wrong that the anger should be directed at Patrice Evra? Maybe – but that’s a debate in itself. And debating the rights and wrongs of Liverpool fans calling him a liar is all part of that debate.
Some of those so quick to condemn that anger need to look at themselves before looking down at Liverpool supporters.
Inconsistencies

Time and again we hear condemnation of inconsistencies in football and many of those having a go at Liverpool now bang on repeatedly about introducing technology into football to cut down on the number of contentious decisions. They do this because they know what one person sees at first glance might differ from what someone else sees at first glance. They do this because they know the ability to spend ten seconds looking at something instead of a split second makes a big difference.
They do this, however, knowing full well that no amount of technology is going to bring an end to the controversies that surround the interpretation of the game’s laws.
And they do this whilst having spent the equivalent of a split second looking at the Suárez incident when basic technology, in the form of a PDF document, allows them to spend the equivalent of many minutes looking at it.
Why the reluctance from those who have been so outspoken to look again, properly, at the incident? The decision has now been made and it won’t be changed by those with the power to change it – but why not just look again anyway? Just for your own personal piece of mind, just for your own integrity?
You’d look stupid if you kept banging on about a penalty you thought was stonewall, demanding a belated 3-match ban for the player you think gave the penalty away, if you’d only seen it once, from one angle, at normal speed. Especially if you added weight to your claims based on the opinions of someone from the side that didn’t get the penalty, knowing that side had also not seen it more than once, from more than one angle. Unless you dropped lucky of course and by coincidence your opinion tied with the details the replays showed.
Without that bit of luck and coincidence you’d look stupid if you chose not to look at the replays, offered to you on a plate, yet continued to condemn the referee for getting it wrong. At times like that you’ve got to choose – take the time to check your facts or shut the hell up. If you genuinely cared, the way your constant references to the incident suggested you did, you’d check your facts.
Look again

This isn’t a penalty, this isn’t a sending-off, this is something far more serious. Yet people still won’t look at the replays. Are they scared it might make them look foolish, it might put them in a position where they have to own up to being wrong, even just a little bit wrong?
Are you one of those who wanted to see Liverpool suffer more than you wanted to kick racism out of football?
Someone amongst the Liverpool supporters looks to have made offensive gestures of a racist nature during the game yesterday and was widely condemned by Liverpool supporters for seemingly doing so. An arrest was made later in the day and that means it’s best not to comment on the incident in too much detail – but anyone doing what that man was accused of doing isn’t welcome at Anfield or entitled to call himself a supporter. And that’s putting it nicely.
Meanwhile Manchester United fans sang, more than once, a song they have been singing for a number of years. They sang it in between chants that “the S*n was right” and far worse chants about Hillsborough. They sang it between chants where they compared Liverpool’s anger at this verdict to the anger felt about Hillsborough. They sang it between chants accusing Liverpool FC of being racist. The chant was about their South Korean player, Park Ji-Sung, and “eating dogs”. The song is considered highly offensive by the South Koreans it’s aimed at yet there is never a word heard condemning it by those who profess to care about discrimination and those who remind everyone about the importance of “zero tolerance”.
If you’re still reading this you probably do care about discrimination, you’ll probably realise that the song about Park shouldn’t be sung, you’ll probably see that Liverpool anger isn’t coming from “closet racists” (as one journalist claimed during a number of embarrassing exchanges on Twitter last night). So you’ll want to find out why Liverpool are angry, you’ll want to try and engage Liverpool fans and you’ll want to make sure the future reporting of this incident is not only more accurate but more helpful to the cause it is meant to all be about helping.
Liverpool fans might still be wrong. The player might still be wrong. But you’ll never persuade us that’s the case if you keep condemning us for what we’ve never said or done.
Think about what respect means before accusing others of lacking it.
Read the report; read it from front to back – it won’t be easy but if you care as much as you claim it’s not a lot to ask really. Imagine it’s a movie outline if that helps, see if you can spot any holes in the plot or see if you think it all makes sense. Just don’t judge the movie by its trailer.
In other words, shut up and focus on reading that report!
Sooner or later we’d like to move on.
* If you’ve not got a copy of the report yet, you can download a copy of it from here or here.

5starpool wrote: »

It'll be ok for them though, as Terry will be found not guilty in a court of law as the burden of proof is far higher, and the FA won't charge him then as he was already found not guilty somewhere the Suarez case wouldn't have come close to standing up in either. If that does happen, the FA have zero credibility, but we'll find out in a few weeks I guess.