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Told you so
On the 5th January I wrote in to respond to an overconfident Liverpool fan (Mike LFC Dubai) who was getting a little carried away __with their current form, and I made the point that it is more likely Spurs would catch Liverpool from 2 points behind than Liverpool catching Chelsea, following Tottenham beating Chelsea 2-0.
At the time I felt this was a fair point to make, on the back of Spurs beating a team on a 13 game winning streak, but it brought a hail of criticism from ‘triggered’ Pool fans who were absolutely apoplectic __with rage that someone who supports a club that hasn’t won a billion trophies dared to criticise them. And what was this ‘criticism’? “Let’s see where we are in May”. Wow, that is brutal isn’t it.
Anyway, I pointed out that a cramped January without their two best players could have a negative impact on their season…again, a fairly asinine point to make, and it has come to pass. Liverpool have crept past Plymouth at the second time of asking, lost home and away to Southampton in the League Cup and been beaten at home by Swansea, who have had an absolutely torrid season. All of a sudden the proud manor of Anfield in December has become a crumbling sandcastle, in the space of just four weeks.
Now, I know it isn’t May yet but this really does just echo what I was warning about…disaster is always just around the corner, and it would be wise to just concentrate on your own results in future rather than crowing about other teams giving you a chance to do something.
Good luck for the visit of Wolves. You’re going to need it…and no need to apologise.
Ross THFC
United fans turning into Liverpool ones
They really are turning into Liverpool fans, aren’t they? Such fun!
The Man U fans in this morning’s mailbox. Well they’re a calm and even-handed bunch, aren’t they? Refereeing is broken, something must be done! Well, it might be broken. It might not be. I don’t have any real sample size to back it up, nor any comparison with historical refereeing performances, but that shady penalty is proof enough that England’s referees are failing the nation. I mean, it could be that we are now in a world in which every angle is immediately available in super slow-mo, or that sports journalism is now little more than loud voices and pointing fingers, wherein the easiest position to take is that the referee f**ked it. But no, it’s because they are just really bad at refereeing these days. That must be it. A profession-wide diminishing of skills.
OR IS IT?! Because Lynton is through the looking-glass, dropping truth-bombs and blowing minds. The FA are out to get Mourinho! The stats prove it! Wake up sheeple! All those unsuccessful penalty claims; what the f**k is that about? Don’t these people know the natural order? Don’t they understand that when a walking Maris Piper says he wants a penalty, he gets a f**king penalty? Other clubs are getting penalties, which only goes to prove the FA’s conspiracy. Oh we are going deep now. And those offside goals in Man U’s favour, well it doesn’t mean anything, does it? You know, they were pretty difficult decisions so a bit of latitude is expected. So it’s all fair, right? Evens itself out over the course of a season, doesn’t it?
WELL THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE! This goes to the very top, and I’m not talking about Wazza’s thatch (which only goes somewhat near the top, but without ever really convincing anyone; it’s the Corbyn of counterfeit coiffures). Those ABUs have infiltrated every level of society. This insidious rot cannot be tolerated. An overhaul is needed of everything in football. The world is broken. Have you seen the league table? Have you bloody seen it? Manchester United are not at the top of it, and therefore the world is inherently wrong and everyone is cheating. Referees are the worst and the FA is persecuting the manager. How else can you explain Man U being s**t again? Thankfully we have a hero in Jose, a man with the strength to stand against the lies and fake news? Man U lost? Did they? Did they really? No. It was a draw. Don’t believe the lies. Man U are in 5th? No. First. Always first. Man U number one. The global dream-team, in partnership with North Korea (best Korea), Donald Trump (see Wayne? That’s how you fucking do it. Get a ginger tabby and a staple gun), and the effervescent charm of Sol Campbell. Any statements to the contrary are just lies. Only stupid people believe lies. You’re not stupid, are you?
thayden
Bring on the holo-refs
The debate about the standard of refereeing is one of those things that really bugs me. It’s boring and repetitive.
Refs and linemen have a ridiculously hard job under massive pressure but still manage to get most things right most of the time. They’ll get stuff wrong (in the viewers eyes) sometimes because a) they’re human and b) the laws of the game are open to interpretation. Asking them simply to get better is bonkers, they are already – believe it or not – the most well equipped and trained set of referee’s we’ve ever had.
Which leads us nicely to the next and most annoying point. You can give the officials all the microphones, earpieces, shaving foam and training you want but if we really wanted consistent and predictable refereeing the answer is there and being studiously and deliberately ignored.
Give the team that built hawkeye or another bunch with similar skills time to work on a refereeing system and they’d easily be able to give you something that tells, you in seconds, info such as:
Which player touched the ball first
If contact was made
If an offence occurred in the box
If the balls gone out of play
If a handball occurred
etc.
Yes there would be changes needed to incorporate it into the match and yes it would probably be a bit of trial and error to make it ‘feel’ right but let’s not pretend the solution isn’t available or fill up precious mailbox space hand wringing about ‘what are we to do.’ The technology exist and it’s not even particularly cutting edge anymore.
As for Man U fans moaning about ref’s – really? Really?
And Lynton… “Now that is scientific fact—there’s no real evidence for it—but it is scientific fact”
Matt AFC (Quoting Brass Eye makes me feel old)
On bad referees and more
I rarely write in but when I do you can bet it’s because something somebody has said has either tickled my funny bits or wound me up to the point that my fingers can’t help themselves.
Strangely, there were three such mails that caused a mixture of these emotions today. Namely ‘DJ & Paul Murphy – Man Utd fans’ and Raul H. Garcia, who apparently ‘supports’ Liverpool.
Firstly, DJ & Paul – it’s nice that you’ve finally joined us in the ‘raging at refs’ camp. We’ve been there a large part of the season, and also had 2 fair penalty shouts turned down ourselves on Wednesday night. It’s been a theme of ours, and many other teams’, seasons. Yours, however, have benefited quite a bit. Particularly since Jose went on his yearly rant about the vendetta against him.
Speaking of which, seeing as you’re so irate at refs now, fancy giving us those 3 points from OT that the officials managed to reduce to 1 by the way of an atrocious decision to not call offside against Valencia? No, didn’t think so. I know one of you mentioned the call being ‘close’ but it really wasn’t. Nor were most of the others close either, so don’t kid yourselves into thinking the refs’ decisions weren’t as bad in your favour as against you last night.
Secondly, Raul H., if you are genuinely a Liverpool fan then you might want to lay off the sauce for a while, as fans like you are the reason we’ve become a bit of a laughing stock. I bet, after half a dozen games, you were calling us for the title. Now we’ve had a bad run, Klopp is clueless and we’re a pile of crap.
Broken we most certainly are not. Having a bad patch, which was inevitable, we are. Our main issue is that teams aren’t just willing to submit without a fight, hence why our intense pressing that was previously so successful is struggling because nobody is stupid enough to come against us and try to play expansive football.
Also, the injuries, missing players, etc. hasn’t helped as our strongest side has barely touched the pitch since last year. Most sides are now facing us with 10 men behind the ball, in their own half, hoping to catch us on the break. It’s worked a few times in January, and will again. Klopp won’t let that last indefinitely.
Meanwhile, you’re welcome to go and support somebody else. And mind you don’t hurt yourself, your knee seems to be jumping all over the place.
DaveT, LFC
If push came to shove
Everyone seems to be going a bit mental over Arsene Wenger’s push on the 4th official. The way most papers are talking, it sounds like they want him banned from football.
If only there was a similar event a few years ago where we could see what punishment had been handed out. Oh, wait a minute, Alan Pardew pushed an assistant ref didn’t he? What ban did he get? Was it a 10 game stadium ban? A 200k fine? 3 months in jail? Let me check the internet. Oh, it was a 20k fine and a 2 match touchline ban.
I suppose I’m probably biased, but shouldn’t there be consistency in these matters? Of course Wenger should be punished, but shouldn’t the punishment be the same as when the exact same thing happened previously?
As for the suggestion from Lynton that the FA have it in for Mourinho because he got a ban for kicking a bottle, I’m afraid he has his facts wrong. He got sent off for kicking a bottle, as did Wenger at Old Trafford. So total consistency there. The one game ban was because it was his second dismissal of the season, which is a standard punishment for dismissals. It’s why Xhaka is getting a 4 game ban instead of a 3 game ban for his sending off.
In terms of punishing Mourinho, the FA have been entirely consistent. However if Wenger gets anything more than Pardew did, I think you will find it’s Wenger that has been victimised.
Adonis (A lot of moaning from Man Utd fans for reaching a final. Imagine if they had lost!) Stevenson, AFC
Alternative Arsene facts
What a strange email from Graham Simons, Norf London. In making his point for Wenger to go he has a paragraph on the Arsenal side that won the league in 1989. They were the ‘last English champions to win the league only using British and Irish players in 1989’. The ‘squad was awash with English players and yet none of them featured in the 1990 England World Cup squad.’ Eh? How is this a proper argument against Wenger? British and Irish players? 1990 World Cup squad?
If you’re going to argue against Wenger by all means talk about his signings, his tactics or how he may show too much faith in some players. Talking about an Arsenal team from nearly 30 years is a non-sequitur. It’s like saying Southgate isn’t a good manager because England won the World Cup in 1966 with their star striker injured for the final. Or Rodgers should go because Celtic won the European Cup in 1967 made up of players from a 30-mile radius.
He then tops it all by making up the fact that Wenger said he is happy with second. Total fabrication! In fact, if you Google ‘Wenger happy with 2nd’ you’ll see a video straight away of Wenger saying the opposite. I think there’s a job waiting for him with the Trump administration with his alternative facts.
Johnny Byrne, Bangkok.
Love for Sutton (not Chris)
Loved your piece on Sutton Utd today. I’ve always had a soft spot for them after finding out in secondary school (this was the late 90s) that my English & History teacher was the one and only Barry Williams. If you don’t know the name he was the manager of Sutton Utd when they knocked Coventry out of the FA Cup. He was such a lovely man and it was always a joy to go to his lessons, especially if you got him onto the discussion of football as the whole lesson plan would be forgotten. He gave me my only ever nickname as well, what a guy.
Believe it or not he wasn’t even our school football coach!
Would love to know if he is still knocking about, if he is he must be getting on a bit. The interweb says he emigrated to Spain many years ago.
Doris (Paulinho Fowler) Day
Stats life
Great stats article by Peter Goldstein this morning. Football is still in its infancy with regard to metrics, so we need more articles like these to try to understand the intangibles in football I would like to point out of a few corrolaries to his thoughts on Total Shots Ratio and Shots on Target Ratios.
Of course, first, it is dangerous and reductionistic to think that you can capture a team’s performance based off a few numbers. Several important factors that the TSR and SoTR do not account for are tactics and timing of goals scored. He brings up the example of Tony Pulis. Peter does go too far to say that Pulis “gets more out of his team” than any other manager. It’s simply that Pulis’s tactics are to shoot less and defend more. His explanation that the “better” teams are at the top of these stats is one explanation, but the other is that they generally play the most attractive football (i.e., with lots of shooting compared to other teams).
Another factor that is not accounted for is the timing of goals scored. Every goal in football is sacred, and tactics change drastically after a goal is scored sometimes. It is not uncommon for a team to “park the bus” after an early goal (whether or not they should). If this occurs, then their shots will inevitably go down, but they will get a result. It would be interesting to see some sort of hybrid statistic taking this into account (SoTR of opponent after leading, for example, to see if a team is defending well). Lastly, I still believe the table never lies. Results are king, regardless of how the stats describe you got there.
Kevin, MUFC, USA
The greatest cynical foul ever
Forgot to mention in my last mail my favourite ever cynical foul, step forward one Ole Gunnar, playing at home against Newcastle and chasing the game Newcastle break away from their own box with a long ball out to Gary Speed out on his own and through on goal, Ole chases him down and boots him up in the air then walks down the tunnel thus giving United a slim chance of getting back into the game. Perversely I hated the foul by Willie Young of Arsenal in the FA Cup final, ruining a young boys chance at Cup glory.
Paul Murphy
Manchester
I noted your piece on cynical fouls and there was one player in my mind who was the king of this. Mr John Moncur.
West Ham fans loved Moncur for his shirt out style, his random little cruyff turns on the half way line and the fact he was an absolute nutcase on the pitch.
I struggle to remember a time where he didn’t get booked or sent off when playing against Spurs. Even when he was used as a late substitute he would always find time to kick someone up in the air. The cynical foul was a good way to get the crowd fired up even more.
I remember meeting him and Dicksy in the players lounge after a game against Bolton about 20 years back , I was so excited, we had beaten them 1-0 so I was really looking forward to meeting my heros, Dicksy in particular. I don’t know if it was so overwhelmed at the time but looking back at the photos I failed to notice Moncs and Dicksy both with a pint and fag on the go. True athletes those boys.
Normally it would have shattered my illusions of these heros of mine, but if anything it made me respect them even more for putting in those sorts of performances on 20 a day and penchant for a few stellas.
Ross (Not sure those fellas would last 10 mins now mind you) Jenkins WHUFC