It annoys me so much when managers and players try to defend actions that their team has carried out. Yesterday it was Martinez saying that the tackle on Suarez was not a red card challenge. WTF? It was as bad a tackle as you will see and yet he doesn't have the balls to admit it. Can you imagine fergie's reaction or wenger if that tackle had been on one of their players? Then today we have gollum saying that the Cardiff player ran across rooneys path and that Rooney didn't lash out. There is none so blind as cannot see. On another topic...weren't united ****e today, deserved to loose but as usual scraped a result.
Man Utd genuinely have no creativity. They really are a set piece team now. The number of fouls to break up opposition attacks also seems to be increasing. Moyes is anti-football.
As for fellaini what the hell is he doing on a football pitch. His performance today was an inept as any I have ever seen. And to think Lucas used to get panned and he was never as bad as that today. He make Henderson look like the bargain of the century.
Defending the indefensible is the manager's job. You'll almost never see a manager publicly condemn their player unless it's something blatant like Young or Suarez's diving and even then they'll carefully consider every word. Sadly it's the manager's job to get the best out of the players, which often means massaging their egos and ignoring their sins. Do you reckon Suarez would still be at Liverpool and banging in goals for fun if Rodgers hadn't supported him all the way over the biting thing? Or if Dalglish hadn't defended him to the hilt over Evragate? Same with SAF and now Moyes defending Rooney, and pretty much any manager with pretty much every single one of their players. The better the player and the more important they are to the team, the less likely a manager will ever dare to condemn them, even when their behaviour is indefensible. Sadly, managers know that all they have to do is make one press conference where they tell the truth about their players and condemn all their bs and the agent will be in the players' ear and hawking them around every club they can find within minutes.
Which is why it's vitally important that the officials either at the time or retroactively mete out the correct punishment for the offence. Someone needs to make the player see what they did was wrong. Although saying that, I'd prefer a Wenger "I didn't see it so can't comment" than making up some insane exuse for the player. Say nothing rather than actually condone the player.
But Rodgers never came out and defended Suarez over the biting incident. They just dealt with it 'in house' The point I am trying to make is that when you get two incidents of such blatant thuggery then managers would get far more respect to at least admit they should have been sent off. I am not saying they should condemn their player but just admit what is so stark staring obvious to every one else.
Shrek called what he did a "bad tackle" then he whines about skys commentary lol Errr... No Wayne kicking a player in anger off the ball is not a tackle, it's violent conduct. Bit stupid.
He did support him tho'. In his first press conference after the incident he was waxing lyrical about how Suarez had been harshly treated with a long ban, and how he still trusted him, was valuable to the team, and how the bite was just a symbol of Suarez being willing to do everything to win. That was basically defending him as much as he could have, given that it was such a high profile one off incident, whereas red card tackles and players kicking out are pretty much weekly occurrences in the PL.
He had been harshly treated with a long ban at the side of other incidents. But that's a different argument. We didn't defend the bite at all, in fact the club said it wasn't acceptable!
Only cos he'd been caught bang to rights and the incident was all over the public eye with no chance of even attempting to put a positive spin on it. Credit to Liverpool, you did learn the lessons from Evragate. But at no point did you condemn the player. All the statements were along the lines of "Luis has let himself down, he has such high standards, such a professional, just a passionate player" etc etc. Rodgers did the same as any manager would do in the same situation - if it was Rooney who'd bitten another player and Suarez who'd just gotten away with a bad tackle then their respective managers' approaches would be exactly the same. It's their job to try and get the best out of their players and win matches, not to try and enforce some unwritten moral code.
Haven't seen it. Was out drinking on Saturday night and home hungover on Sunday morning so missed both runs of MOTD. I still remember you admitting over the phone that it looked like a dive
Reasons or not, we didn't defend him like you claimed. We also said he'd let the club, his teammates and manager down too, not just his self.
I really think you are missing my point. It's one thing to protect a player, put an arm round his shoulder and keep him happy but to appear on tv and say that the tackle on Suarez was nothing malicious and not worthy of a red card is enormously hypocritical . The world and his wife could see that it was a career threatening tackle( thankfully it wasn't his standing leg) wait and see the next time something like this happens against Everton and see what Martinez reaction is. It's not defending the player as such I have a problem with, it's the defending of an action that is indefensible. As far as the biting incident is concerned, as others have said, at no point did Rodgers come out and say " oh it's nothing, just a scratch! " or " well that's Louis for you" He was rightly sanctioned for what he did but can you say the bite which produced a 10 game ban was worse in terms of serious injury then the tackle on Suarez? We all know what would have happened if it had been the other way round. Defending the indefensible...Martinez did it and so did Moyes... I would hope that if it happens to Rodgers he would have the balls to hold a hand up and say that"(whoever) deserved a red card"
Fair enough with the Suarez bite incident - guess it's one people will view in their own ways, and like I said it's hard to compare an obvious high profile one-off like a bite with something like a tackle which happens every week. You're hopes have already been dashed then: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20116793 "Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers defended his striker - who scored one of Liverpool's goals, was instrumental in the other, and had one ruled out for offside in stoppage time - claiming the tackle was mistimed rather than malicious. "I didn't think it was a red card," he said. "Sometimes you get that with a striker, when they are just a fraction late. They are trying to time it just as they pass it." The reference to a striker not being malicious and just beng a bit late is almost uncannily similar to Martinez's comments about Mirallas. In fact, if it wasn't for Everton having changed their manager since last season, I'd wonder if it wasn't a mischievous attempt by Martinez to parrot Rodgers' denial from last season!
I was going to mention the single worst example of this in recent years but decided against it. As stated though, its a managers job. What the public sees will be very different to what happens behind closed doors.
