Morning all, Most are in bed at this point but by the time you read it will be up and about the day. My word for the day is definition. What are we as a club, what are we being described as, as club moving forward. New owners, no debt, touching distance to fourth, a shot at wembley, all must be swell right? No. Instead we constantly are fighting problems off and on the field like they are the plague. From the worry that spending the 35 mil on Carroll and 20 mil on Downing was a waste, to the ever-present and CONTINUALLY brought up problem of racism, where are we? We are ina tough spot as on the pitch we are slowly but surely moving forward and this week/weekend, I for the first time in years, felt that old spark that only Liverpool could create, that we would go on to win the tie/game and that famous atmosphere that we talk about. On the other hand, we have pundits defending our buys, others slaggin them, and the worst part..... the racism. Once again, ONE ****ING STUPID FAN makes us all look like twats and puts us in the limelight of the recent racism problem. I whole- heartedly agree that we are not a racist club, anyone saying otherwise is foolish as every club has fans that are against some other race and ethnicity. But it is getting ridiculous that we cannot shake this stigma and the shadow of racism still lingers around us. I just want to know others thoughts on what direction you might think we are heading, will we get around this racism, bad purchases, bad tactics, false hopes and can we show that this week was not a fluke and go on and get our first piece of silverware, show we are fully against racism, and kick on for fourth. I know this seems black and white but that is how it is, our club in terms of identity, definition, is in a situation that we need to ensure that we make right and continue all of the positive work that is being done on and off the field. The future is bright, the future is red, we just need to make sure we do not get caught up in all of the problems and represent our club just as our players do...... as professionals with a sense of pride and belonging to the greatest club in the world .
Hate to post twice, but if anyone is trying to read between the lines..... Can we get over this racism? Can we get the correct results like we did this week and off the field can we be a bit smarter and redefine our club to one that is like the old days and not the new "racism" that we have acquired?
As you point out in your OP it was ONE fan, even as a Utd supporter i would hardly say it makes you all look like *****. Personally i would like to think this whole racism thing will have died a death by the next time our clubs meet, BUT, the way Evra was booed and the fact Suarez will just be over his ban i can see it continuing. Let`s all hope this carp doesn`t carry on into next season.
Aren't there idiots like this at every match in Europe? Is it not true that working class people are traditionally the people that watch football, and if so does it not then make sense that a small minority will be ignoramuses like this? (as every group has a small minority) I'm sure if you set up a camera to capture the actions of every supporter in Britain you would get hundreds of moronic people like this arrested per week. However, there is a media witch-hunt against Liverpool and this means we are under great scrutiny. It's a spiral effect being pushed by the news to sell papers, while other incidents at different clubs are ignored. That's why I never bite when taunted about my club being racist, or disgraceful fans and all that. I know 99.9999 percent of our supporters represent their club in a dignified way. It's the 0.0001 percent that the media are specifically portraying as all of us. That's why it's important to focus on the football aspect of our club. In terms of play, we lack a clinical finisher. We need Suarez to come back and preferably a partner for him in attack. Cavani would be fantastic but expensive. We need that type however so the money shouldn't be rued. Carroll is a work in progress, if you ask me he had a great week, assisting against both Bolton and United. He's not a clinical finisher but he's got the best left peg shot I've seen in a while. His energy is increasing and more playing time will help us get some of the value back fro his purchase. Downing was a step back but I suppose you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette as they say. Our youngsters Henderson, Kelly, Spearing, Sterling, Flanno/Robinson and Coates are showing promise in recent times and that is very important to the well being of a football club. The ability to motivate ourselves against smaller opposition is all that I feel is stopping us from a serious title challenge and for that we need a finisher and for Kenny to realize that. Kenny has been a good choice IMO as he brings a huge amount of stability to the club, I mean no one would realistically pay attention to a meek, unskilled manager like Hodgson would they? He never brought confidence or the winning mentality and Kenny has certainly brought that. 4th is still possible and with the possibility of 2 cups very much alive I think our club has made huge steps forward in the past year. The future is red, but there is still much work to be done.
We can all agree that this season hasn't gone as smoothly as we hoped, it still pisses me off that we keep slipping up but when I think about our future I feel positive. We have now got a few very good young players and a good spine for the first 11. We don't have Roman Abramovich type owners with lots of oil money, even Mike Cashley has more money than us so we wont be the biggest spenders in the market. But we are stable enough and have the backing to challenge at the top. We get a lot of ****, not just from that one fan but for the whole stadium booing. But had any other club been in the same situation the same thing would have happened. The people who generalise and have a go are no better themselves. I said in another post, we haven't won more than 2 games in a row. If we can get a good run...we are only 6 points off 4th.
All in all, I think our performances on the pitch have been positive. It's up until recently where we have become slightly negative but I think that's due to the absence of a specialist DM. Spearing has been good but obviously not as good as Lucas. Not only this, we've also missed Suarez. I'm just disappointed with all the negative press we've been getting and perhaps that is taking its toll. Before, I was keen defender of the club and Luis Suarez. As much as I want us to stand up and defend the club, perhaps we should just keep quiet and not attract any more media attention.
its all BULL.. don't worry your head about it. some dick does something to other fans not evra and its news... when we go to old trafford there'll be more abuse directed at us. the press will make out that if some idiot does something there its our fault as well... some dick could try to do something for sure.. who knows? when next years report of arrests comes out our erstwhile rivals will have 3times the arrests we do and there'll be several clubs with more than two arrests to their name for insulting gestrues or racist comments. In case you missed it mate anton ferdinand publicly stated he'd not shake terry's hand.... to avaoid another wayne bridge non handshake they cancelled everyone shaking hands... did anyone care... nope. by this time next month terry will be in the dock and our case will be long over bar the guys in every away gorund who wil abuse suarez cos they think they can get soemthing out of it. I'm not in the elast bit worried cos there's far more to worry about than the pair of idiots involved.
It's the media trying to sensationalize things as usual. Even from 3000 miles away you must be able to pick up the smell of bullshit that comes off large sections of our press. After a while something else will happen and they'll lose interest. I just wish some of our "fans" wouldn't give them fuel for the fire.
I'm going to defend the press here: (only a tiny bit.) I personally think they're keeping the Suarez/LFC/racist story going exactly because they can't yet talk about Terry. Remember a number of media outlets were heavily criticised recently for their reporting on pending police/court investigations. I honestly believe they are wary of appearing to interfere in Terry's case BUT if they can stop the "racist" story from being old news (from their point of view) just long enough to see a conviction you just watch the media/ has been/ never was howl that heads towards the FA. We're now just collateral damage: even the large majority of rival fans on here have got bored of fake moralising. As for LFCs image; they've tried harder than this in the past to tarnish the club & it's supporters. That failed too. We've made our stance clear now heads down, work hard as players & fans & just maybe nick that 4th spot & a cup. Better response than getting stressed over people who clearly have no real interest in the sport.
The thing about JT's case is that if he gets found not guilty in a court of law the FA cant and wont charge him for fear of a libel case against them even though its clear what he said to Anton Ferdinand in the video. Maybe if Suarez had gone to court rather than the FA things would have turned out differently but he got found guilty by the FA and banned and thats it we move on.
