Nice opening post and i agree with alot of it. I do disagree with your opinion on Keane but thats another matter altogether.
The thing i hate about so many football fans is that players are made villains in an instant even in the most ridiculous of circumstances. Any bad points are so often brushed under the carpet and excuses are made to paper over the excuses before them. Any little thing is used as some kind of defensive mechanism against any questionable decision made by the club or the manager any whoever disagrees is labelled a bad fan or told to go support someone else.
Its funny how whenever people mention Rauls contribution in his time with us and how that could have made a difference to us this season its met with how he is doing at chelsea. I never understand this way of thinking because we are not, never have been and never will be chelsea football club, how he is doing for them has zero impact on how well he would have performed for us. Its a different team, different surroundings, a different manager as well as so many other things. Torres was lethal for us and yet he's the polar opposite for chelsea, would this have been the same had he remained at liverpool ? Highly unlikely.
I was annoyed by the Meireles situation but found it hard to be mad at him, seeing it from his perspective rather than sitting with my rose tinted glasses firmly planted upon the bridge of my nose, he was promised a payrise which he didn't get, was out of the team after an impressive first season then was named constantly as one of those we were willing to let go. I dont think i'll ever understand how when a player is reportedly (truthfully or not) offered around to other clubs its completely fine and when he opts to go after this he's a c*nt/traitor. I say truthfully or not because this is what people are going from, the reports as opposed to actually knowing whats happening behind the scenes. He did very little wrong for me, he seemed unwanted here and left, i wasnt happy he went to a rival team atall, that got to me but i didn't blame him alone for him leaving.
He was a good player, not as good as some talk asif he is but he wasn't anywhere near as poor as some like to make out. Its incredible one of his main attributes is something we are crying out for this season and yet people continue to claim he would make zero difference. I do wonder if people genuinly believe this kind of thing or if they are just going with whatever decision is made by the club. In my opinion he would have been good to have in the team/squad this season, i've lost count of the amount of times the ball has dropped into an area where we needed a runner at the edge of the box and not a single player has made a run into that position.
I feel we made a mistake with Meireles, he's the kind of player we need in the side or there to come off the bench. Say what you will about him at chelsea but as i said before thats chelsea...not liverpool. Looking at some of the options we have to come on and change the game and thinking about the attacking approach raul makes, i know who i feel would make a bigger impact.
