Thanks HBHR. Without turning this into a wank fest, I hadn't seen your post and was going to finish mine with an appeal for your take on the situation, an opinion I tend to agree with most times. Last night was one of the lowest points I've had since going to my first match in 1967, because I fear that a section of our support have had their heads turned by the media and have lost confidence in Benitez, with the stakes so high this is disastrous. In that situation I needed some sensible opinions to get me through before I click the 'In the News' button, and die a little inside. On the brightside at least a quarter of us stayed and clapped the team (and Lyon) off the pitch, their confidence looked shot but by Carraghers reaction I could tell it meant alot that some of us had stayed, he clapped back the 4 sides of the ground and meant it.
I'm glad your reading of the game tallied with mine, After some of the shit I've been hearing, I was begining to doubt my analysis of the game. Sometimes when everyone expects you to lose, like against the mancs, this can take the pressure off and the team can be freed from their burden of lack of confidence. I agree The off the pitch stuff is stiffling us and the football can only be seen with this in context. Football at this levels not played in a vacuum, as for Souness, I didn't see his comments but one of the truly great world class players Ive had the priveledge to have watched and one of the worst managers, what a contradiction
Yeah I know exactly what you mean.
In the game I watched yesterday we made more clear chances, had chances, and clear ones, to go 2-0 up, were ripping apart a good Lyon team with literally half of our first team injured, even the commentator on the Guardian minute by minute, who was bitter as lemons about us throughout his 'commentary', more accurately described as a Rafa and LFC slating fest, said on 66mins, shortly before Lyon scored, that they'd done 'nothing' up to that point in the second half. Then Kelly got injured trying to save the goal, and bam, we lose one of our main outlets on the night, the defence has to readjust totally and Carra is unfortunately limited in that position. It boggles my mind that there's people saying he should have started there last night - he simply could not have offered the pace and drive Kelly did so impressively, and to lose that was a huge blow on the night.
I thought it was an improved performance and had we won there would be a lot of love for how our young players performed. Plus we had a good and legit goal chalked off because the Lyon defender dived.
Yet to read about it that's about the worst Liverpool have ever played, with everyone bar Benayoun, Kelly and Reina a total and utter disaster. A lot of people are saying that Benayoun was the only one creating anything last night. Really? He was alright at times but apart from the goal I thought he was largely anonymous. It was Aurelio and Kelly creating most things... and the horrifically maligned Lucas drove forward with the ball more than I've seen him do in the past, and it was his turn, drive and nice lay-off that Aurelio crossed in to score from. Still too anonymous though, for whatever reason.
But anyway, suffice it to say that the match I watched bears absolutely no resemblance to the one watched but most people, it seems - one in which Liverpool were woeful, created nothing (except of course for those multiple clear chances to win the match which, seen through the funk of anger and depression apparently didn't happen at all) and were utterly destroyed by a rampant Lyon who, from what I saw, actually made fewer clear chances than we did.
It sometimes makes me doubt what I've seen as well - but then that's why a thread like this (or indeed the new Tomkins site -
http://tomkinstimes.com/ ) is so valuable - sure opinions differ, but you can at least be confident that pretty much everyone sharing their views knows a thing or two about football, and it reassures you that it is indeed the rest of the world that is insane.
Unfortunately, we live in a society, especially in this country, were people are, from the earliest days of their schooling, from all mainstream media and cultural outputs, taught not to think. Taught to receive and be spoon fed. Taught that ignorance is cool and that learning and understanding are at best geeky and at worst outright deviant. Subjects which demand critical thought, especially those which apply that critical thought to the real world and contemporary events (for example philosophy, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, media studies even) are all noticably absent from the school curriculum , which itself has for many years now been moving away from creativity and independent thought in favour of prescribed learning and teaching to meet arbitrary targets.
The media prey upon and feed this relentlessly, and are themselves in many ways victims of it - the individual journalist has little to no time for actual research and thought, and his job has been reduced to essentially editing press releases - and a huge proportion of those are nothing but PR produced propaganda for either government or corporations.
This is a massive factor in the 'want it know' and 'it's all your fault' culture so prevalent, and of course this mentality is absolutely perfect in terms of fuelling consumer based capitalism. Something wrong in your life? Buy some shit. See something you hate? Buy some shit. Rational thought is really not conducive to buying shit for no good reason, and there are few countries on Earth more tragically wedded to the creed of buying shit for no reason than this, our Albion.
Sorry to go a bit political but I really believe it very strongly. One thing I've always loved about Liverpool, and the thing that's ultimately drawn me ever further in is that this is both a socialist and thinking man's club, in many ways. It's heartbreaking to see that tradition (though it is still here, there is still a seperation, I'm convinced of it - you still see it in the quality of RAWK as opposed to the fan sites of other clubs, for example. Like, say, the Simpsons, it may not be what it used to be but it's still better than most of the rest on offer) being undermined, and it's heartbreaking to see how the media - themselves puppets in many ways - seem able to work large sections of our 'support' like bloody ventriloquists dummies.
I can give no better example of that than rotation. How often has that one been brought up this season? Hardly ever. Rafa hasn't stopped rotating - the point is that the media have been unable to ignore the spinning top at castle greyskull. Therefore, without any announcement, any journalist actually acknowledging their change of opinion and explaining why, rotation has become (and I predicted this ages ago...it's really shit when cynical predictions based on the worst of people/society come true) the orthodoxy.
Now, to a FUCKING MAN, the same journalists who spent 4 loooong years slating, piss taking, shitting all over and denying the validity of RAFA'S rotation - and it was HIS system remember - are now, to a man, slating Rafa for the paucity of our squad, because it's a squad game y'know, the best 11 that ruled all at the start of last season is no longer relevant, and Fungus is, to quote the times today 'the master of replenishment'.
You see, sadly also as I predicted - it's Fungus system now. HE invented it, and deserves all the credit. So, like bloody parrots the same fans who at the start of last season were mocking Rafa's rotation are now moaning and whining and screaming blue murder because our squad isn't strong enough.
Oh well. The beauty of the reactive nature of this culture is that a win against Man U really would change the mood overnight - it's not like it hasn't happened before.
