Following on from another thread about Charlie Adam and how he seems to be the new scapegoat, I got to wondering do fans always need a scapegoat when things are not perfect? As well as supporting Liverpool, I support my home town team Halifax(who) and you guys will probably not know but they were arguably the team with the worst record in the league, we were also the first team to be relegated from the football league twice! Not suprisingly we had all manner of reasons as to why we were so crap; curses, chairmen, geographical location etc....as well as a number of scapegoats on the pitch, which changed season to season! Even when we are winning there are those that shout abuse. We went bust four years ago and reformed in the lower leagues and have now been champions twice in the last three years and currently lie in the play-offs just below the conference, yet even now I hear there are still those shouting abuse and scapegoating certain players! Last season Liverpool had Hodgson, Poulsen, Konchesky etc... and before that Lucas was a scapegoat along with others, even Skrtel came in for stick last season. This season we have gone from Carrol at the start to Adam and now Dalglish. When you consider that Lucas was a scapegoat and is now considered one of the most important players and Skrtel was considered the weakest link in defence to now being the rock on which our fine defensive record has been built, is there a case for saying that 'fans' are often blinded by prejudice? In any case does it help those players or the team in general by having a scapegoat or fans booing some members of the team; Lucas and Skrtel seem to have risen to it but are they the exception rather than the norm and is it more likely that it damages a players confidence, in which case they are likely to go into their shell and give the ball away as quickly as possible. Is it more a continuation of the wider social community? Rather just a representation of any group with 10 or 11 people; some will be the scapegoats, others the outsider and yet others the golden boy despite equally messing up or equally excelling, with most people just blindly following the collective consesus! Is it that in order to make sense of the bad results or form that we need to find someone to blame or someone to project our anger towards, an outlet that lets us get things off our chest? So do we need scapegoats and if so why?
Its always happened mate,when players are getting towards the end of their careers or aren't good enough they become whipping boys. Cally,Heighway and Whelan went through it although those lads had brought us success throughout their time with us and had become weak links due to age,but players like Poulson and Konchesky join the ranks of Dundee,Cheyrou,Dicks and many others that should never have had the chance to wear the shirt in the first place.
Some fans and media muppets need a copy of Freakonomics to learn how to make the distinction between a correlation and a causation. Media muppets love to point to one thing as the cause of a season or a result. Life in rarely that simple. Fans used to complain that Lucas always passed sideways or backwards. Notwithstanding that was just nonsense, (take Ngog's one-on-one against VDS in 2009 which was the result of two Lucas forward passes) let's look at that simple correlation. Sideways and backward passes are rubbish? Part of Lucas' job is to break up opposition play. When you do that you win possession back. In that case passing to a teammate to retain possession, either sideways or backwards, is A Good Thing. Stats don't tell you everything but it's how you interpret them that matters and simply eschewing stats, like some Adrian Durham wannabe, is like throwing the spanner out of your toolkit.
Just look at Joey Barton at QPR. I think it is basic science, like lightning, it always looks for the easiest root to ground, and that is usually through the lightning rod. Sometimes one player sticks out more than the others. However at the moment with Liverpool, there is no obvious lightning rod, we have several very high ones and it is hard to pick an obvious one, be that Kenny, Kevin Keen, Adam, Downing, Carroll,,, etc,,,etc,,,,
If you want a scapegoat, it's got to be the King. Sorry, but the buck stops with him. If you blame the likes of Adam, Carroll, Downing, Henderson, and even Suarez now, ask yourselves, "who bought those players?" Exactly!
But you'll never blame him. There'll always be some reason why it wasn't his fault. At least, not entirely his fault. Why does it have to be anyone's fault? It's only someone's fault if there ever was any chance that you'd be a top 4 side, and (as far as I am aware) it's only 'Pool fans who believed that. Most sensible footy fans always knew that 'Pool wouldn't be in a position to mount a creditable challenge for top 4 for at least a decade. You 'Pool fans really don't seem to appreciate just how close you came to going under. To expect to be challenging the big boys is utterly unrealistic and arrogant.
Have you not read the 7 other threads and people's opinions? We didn't realise how close we were to going under? Jesus. We know more than anyone since we followed the whole saga. You're not quite as clever as you think.
Sorry, but what you are saying simply does not match up to the comments that have been made on this board, during the course of this season. The way most of your talk, it's clear that you were expecting Kenny to magically turn you into a top 4 side, when everything that we have seen up to that point would suggest that you are far from being in the top 6. Even pundits like Lawro and Hansen have given up on making themselves look like clowns by predicting a 'Pool revival. You can all twitter on here as much as you like about "this is why we're crap" or "that is why we're crap" but the fact is that as soon as anyone puts forward a coherent critique, all your former arrogance and puff comes to the fore.
Your full of **** lad,we Liverpool supporters suffered through the Hicks and Gillett era and hated it,and we know how close we came to 'going under'. But what the **** has that got to do with this season under new owners and the money spent on players that have arrived since H&G got ****ed off? If you want to be taken seriously stay on topic,Kenny has made mistakes in the transfer market?,Kenny puts to much trust in his signings to justify their purchase?,Kenny chops and changes his starting line-ups to often?,should the players accept their part in this seasons downfall?,should Kenny be given a chance next season to put things right?....Etc Etc. These are things that are relevant to what happened.
