The Mailbox suggests that Liverpool’s rivals are paying for not getting behind Liverpool’s pursuit of justice. Also: Sir Bobby Charlton on Merseyside; and support for Sanchez and Raya; and more…
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Sir Bobby and why we should have backed Liverpool
Even though I’m a Liverpool fan, I was saddened by the passing of Sir Bobby Charlton. I grew up as an LFC fan but also a fan of football and the Best, Law, Charlton team were a joy to watch, I cheered when they won the European Cup (I wouldn’t now) and educated by my father, I was happiest for Bobby Charlton, he was one of my mates favourite players and I walked past him in Liverpool city centre, a double take confirmed it was him and rather than chase after him, I ran around the block so I could approach him head on!
I asked him for an autograph and he duly obliged without a seconds hesitation. “Make it out to Jimmy please”, I asked and he responded with “are you a United fan Jimmy?”, I explained that not only was I not Jimmy but wasn’t a Utd fan either, he then spent a few minutes chatting and laughing and trying to convert me to the Dark Side and left me with a handshake and a smile, I was a bigger fan than before.
A true gentleman in every sense of the word, I’m sure he’ll be sadly missed by everyone around him.
Now back to the football! Yes Everton were unlucky in that yet again a Premier League referee fails to be consistent and the only consistent thing about him and his colleagues is how awful they are. Perhaps if supporters and managers etc of other teams had shown more support to LFC after the biggest f&*k up ever, rather than the “stop crying, just get on with it” reaction, we may now be moving forward and trying to somehow stop them ruining games on a weekly basis. I trust there’ll be no e-mails moaning about officials in Mondays mailbox, but I doubt it.
Howard (it’s not Karma, it’s incompetence) Jones
…The refs just make a rod for their own back and continue to lurch from one terrible error to the next. On the opening weekend we saw Onana completely smash a Wolves player in the box nowhere near the ball, the ref bottled it and var bottled it. Howard Webb came out with the apology and told everyone this was a clear penalty. Ok, so all refs and VAR know if anything else happens exactly like this a penalty must be given as clear precedent has been set from the top. But yet Sanchez yesterday did exactly the same to Jesus, you’d struggle to find two incidents as similar and once again the ref bottles it and var bottled it. Even if you think the decision is debatable refs can give it and hide behind precedent and consistency – fans cry out for consistency so the fan arguments for it not being a penalty would be hard to swallow.
Overall Chelsea v Arsenal was a very low quality game, neutrals will say it was more exciting than Arsenal v City which may be true but it was exciting because of the mistakes. Arsenal aren’t firing quiet yet, a bit of lack of balance, a bit of players out of form and a bit of an unsettled team due to injuries – 6 wins and 3 draws is about right, 4 big 6 teams played already so plenty of opportunity to kick on over the next few weeks. Perhaps Arsenal need to kick up as much of a fuss as Liverpool did, you’ll get laughed at but then you might get such favourable decisions like Konate somehow escaping a clear second yellow with refs too scared to give anything against Liverpool after the Dias offside
Rich,AFC
Read more: Premier League winners and losers: O’Neil, Emery, Nunez thriving as Kompany, West Ham struggle
Everton got what they deserved
So, the counter narrative has started.
Two games ago one Liverpool player was red carded for a yellow card offence, a second was yellow carded for an obvious dive and ended up red carded later on, and a perfectly good goal was disallowed due to shocking failures in the VAR system.
But yesterday, an Everton player was yellow carded for a trip in a dangerous position and a Liverpool player wasn’t yellow carded for a shoulder barge in an innocuous position so that proves refereeing is fair after all.
I understand why, in the emotional atmosphere of a derby game, Sean Dyche would scream for a yellow card to even things out, though I thought Referees giving out cards to “even things up” was a scourge on the game that we’d got rid of. Emotions aside, there is no way that second Konate challenge would have been a yellow card for any other player in any other game. In comparison, Young’s second yellow was 100% a yellow card. His first, due to the fact that he tripped a player who had passed him at speed and was heading into a dangerous position, I think 80% of referees would have given that yellow card. Of course, a few weeks ago, the narrative was that even though Jota hadn’t deserved his first yellow, it was his own fault that he didn’t reign himself in to avoid a second. I wonder where that idea disappeared to yesterday.
Lost in the collective moaning about Konate is the foul on Diaz by Patterson. At about 70 minutes, with the score at 0-0, with Diaz a few yards from goal, Patterson dived in and missed the ball, colliding with Diaz’s standing leg and leaving him on the floor. Had the referee judged that a foul, a penalty and a red card for denying a goalscoring opportunity would have been the only choice. Instead, the referee decided that Diaz, while only a few yards from goal and with the nearest defender helpless on the floor decided that instead of running in with the goal at his mercy, he would choose to fall over. What a silly man Luis Diaz must be.
Just to be clear, I don’t believe the ref tried to help Everton, but the idea that he helped Liverpool is laughable and if he made debatable calls they tilted slightly more blue than red. The frustrating thing about the narrative on this situation is that we can expect to see much more of it over the coming season, as the authorities try to muddy the waters over the fact that the title might well end up being decided by their systemic failures.
Barry, LFC, Chippenham
…Yet another ‘head injury’ break up play tactic, this time from Alvarez in the claret and blue derby. Just implement a rule that if play is stopped for a suspected head injury the player has to have a 10 minute medical assessment with a temporary sub in their place like they do in rugby with a blood substitution. I’m not the first to suggest this but something needs doing to address the blatant piss taking that’s going on.
While I’m here, the Konate incident was never a foul in the first place (Alan Shearer saying he ‘wiped him out’ is gaslighting to the highest degree) but once the foul was given the referee should’ve issued a yellow as it was preventing a counter attack. That said, Rodri, and Fernandinho before him, avoids being booked for that kind of challenge 5-10 times a season with seemingly little fanfare.
Also, for my blue brethren, already carded Ashley Young booted the ball into the crowd after the whistle had gone. The referee should have issued a second for what is a blatant yellow card offence (refer to TAA’s yellow vs Newcastle for an example). That he didn’t might give you some pause for reflection about how he dealt with Konate.
James Outram, Wirral
Raya overreaction
This narrative around Raya is so weird to me. I actually don’t think he played bad at all yesterday other than that straight pass to Palmer. He’s been solid since he’s joined. I feel like people are nitpicking everything he does because of the circumstances he’s joined. Ramsdale this season and at the end of last season was making plenty of mistakes too. The idea that Raya is somehow nervous in these recent big games is absolute nonsense. Hes continuing to play it short and with his feet the way Arteta wants him to. If he was shaky or nervous he would be launching it up the pitch. He is definitely better at catching it and coming out to collect it than Ramsdale. I have no issue with Ramsdale starting either but I do feel Raya is a little better than him and it’s definitely worth playing the better player.
DB
Read more: Chelsea keeper takes the gloves with Raya nowhere near Prem weekend’s worst XI…
Sanchez support
Chris LFC is spot on about Sanchez being scapegoated for a mistake. As far as I could see he pinged in a perfect ball to the feet of Gallagher who instead of moving towards it stood waiting for it and Rice jumped out in front of him. It was exactly what Sanchez was supposed to do, play that quick ball straight through the middle into the defence. It’s the way he’s been asked to play since the start of the season and he did nothing wrong, listening to everyone say he tried to pass it to Enzo but missed baffled me, it’s literally heading inch perfect to Gallagher, even if he didn’t mean it Gallagher should have anticipated it. But he didn’t everyone’s entitled to a mistake or lapse in concentration now and then no problems but its harsh to blame Sanchez for Gallaghers lapse of concentration. I did think he could have scuttled back towards his goal a bit quicker though, still it was quick thinking and good tackling by Rice to take the ball which should have been Gallaghers and Rice punished us with a superb goal so to paint it as being majorly anyone’s fault is a bit harsh more of a case of Rice showing his quality.
Aaron CFC Ireland.
Boring, boring United
Playing Rashford, Antony and Fernandes makes us the most boring, ponderous, slow and predictable team in the league.
But but but, Rashford scored for England and Bruno was assisting for fun with Portugal. International football sucks ok, let’s not pretend that the EPL isn’t many levels higher and we shouldn’t judge players on International performances.
Well done Maguire and Scotty boy again. The pen was unfortunate, it was a kind of instinctive action and that happens. He’s still our best midfielder, if only he wasn’t played as a defensive one. Maguire is our best defender, you’ll disagree, but stats speak for themselves, we concede less and win more when he starts.
Our Defense did ok and even the keeper managed to stop a shot. It’s the rest of them that are the problem. And again, it all stems from the same 3 positions.
How man times does Rashford get the ball and just stop? The man just stops and stands there as if to say, how dare the defender stand in my way. He doesn’t assist, he doesn’t score, he doesn’t even do something that enables anyone else to assist. What does he do?
The ball was being meaninglessly passed from Evans to Maguire and back so many times as there are no options for them. Maguire channelled his inner Pirlo to ping 60 yard cross field passes to Rashford who then, ya know, just feckin stands there hoping the defender will fall over, or we know it’s being passed straight back again or given away. Rinse and repeat.
Fernandes useless, Antony a one trick pony that’s gone lame. Hojlund, I did say he’s a faster Weghorst. He still gets a bit of leeway because having Rashford, Antony and Fernandes giving you zero service makes his job impossible. You could put Haaland in that team and he’d struggle to score 10 a year.
We get past the half way and we have no idea what to do. Lindelof did better in the final 3rd than Rashford, bloody Lindelof!
It was rock bottom Sheffield United who are a cert to go down and we didn’t create anything, even though they were hardly parking the bus. Having a pop from distance is not creating anything. I feel sorry for anyone who is paying to watch that week in week out. It’s shocking.
Can’t wait for the champions league, hopefully we get put out of our misery, last thing we need is false hope of qualifying.
Then City next sunday, although City are not exactly playing as well as they can, they’re gonna batter us.
Let’s add in Newcastle in the other cup and I’m not even sure we can get anything at Fulham.
All we get from the usual Utd fanfare on here is the same excuses. Hag needs time, players need time or the classic, it’s the Glazers fault. It stops with the manager, 18 months and we are playing worse than under Ole. Anyone who sees progress doesn’t know what they are on about. Sooner Hag goes the better. We can easily lose our next 3, still wanna give him more time more money?
Hugo
Roll up, roll up[
Michael the Bert, who doesn’t want to watch man city’s “scintillating” football?
Manchester City fans. It’s a poor look when your manager has to beg you to come to games and fill the 30,000 empty seats in the etihad.
Simon M
Dreamy sleepy nighty snoozy snooze
#Last night I dreamed I was watching the FA Cup final and Blackpool were beating Bristol City 3-0 (you heard it here first). I was annoyed because both were playing in change strips of black with a splash of green or blue below the right shoulder and I didn’t see why they couldn’t both have played in their normal colours. The thought that you couldn’t tell them apart at all didn’t occur to me, but then dreams are mostly bollocks, after all.
Andrew Warmington (I don’t support either of them, FWIW)
