I'll be really interested to hear how you feel the rationale of the 'tin foil hat' conspiracies which you presented in your opening post to this thread now stands up against the collective abomination of the three inexplicable decisions I outline in my own post above which could well end up [we hope and pray not] costing our beloved club the league title we so clearly deserve - or most certainly do at least at this point in time.
You'll see in my own post above that I offer no explanation for the ludicrousness of the three most likely result changing and possibly season changing decisions in question beyond the certainty that in no way, shape nor form do they owe their individual and collective absurdity to mere officialdom ineptitude. Given the circumstances of both refereeing and VAR decision making pertaining to each one, ineptitude can by definition be discounted as the the reason why fair and impartial judgement was entirely absent in respect of all three. Where that leaves us is a question which may never be answered.
I have my own view. Others have theirs. I'll be really intrigued to now hear your own Fitzy as I've always respected the insight of your takes on many topics on this board over the years but have to admit that whilst refraining from comment back then, I did baulk slightly at the time at your seeming eagerness to wade in so forcibly to deride any shouts for the 'they're out to get us' mindset.
I've observed this thread become something I never thought it would. I concede that my original post is out of step with many posters' own take on how the game is run. It's quite eye-opening to be honest. Maybe I set the tone with my original post, but I am not overly enamoured by the way some posters address others who don't believe in corruption and a sense of corruption. In some way, my motivation for writing the original post was to take on the sentiment that everything is against us, as I think that this is a very one-eyed perspective that deserves challenging at times. I also get irritated by a poster using a single incident (which might be really enraging) as 'proof'. I simply don't view the world through such a lens. I also don't take a Tomkins article as proof either - I see that as evidence of individual fallibility and a failed system in place to referee games well. Many will disagree with me on that and fair play to them.
In truth, I stand by the notion that an over-wrought system led by untalented individuals is struggling massively to operate in terms competent officiating - especially given the febrile atmosphere that surrounds every match and incident. I'm not even sure that the apparent solutions - eg 'better refs' - are feasible due to the ecosystem that exists in football. Everything is turned up to 11 to the extent that any explanation or qualification for any decision is taken in bad faith from whichever fanbase is on the wrong end of things.
I do not think there's a collective endeavour to 'get' Liverpool. That would be a commercial own goal and I am certain it would be uncovered within a heartbeat - too many actors at play to keep it quiet, not to mention the club themselves being onto it. I do think that there's an emerging cultural shift across the game - including amongst fans - that sees everything through heightened scepticism and shrouded in bad faith. This scepticism is understandable due to how we are led in the west; exposed to bad faith leaders who operate through deceit and obfuscation.
Several factors have contributed to this suspicion that haven't been present throughout the majority of the game's history. Yet within a decade, these factors have created a psychosis amongst the invested parties that has never been in play before. Such factors then conflate to confect an almighty sense of grievance and injustice as the cocktail is too much to contend with. Factors:
- Social media discourse
- Fan media growth
- State ownership
- Non-stop media coverage
- Rampant clickbait
- Immediate access to unjust incidents
- Wider cultural movement in anti-establishment sentiment (for good reason)
Coalescing these contributory factors allows us to bend the world to our will in how we perceive events and how we regard authority and its motivations. We now end up in a situation where we see Forest employ a referee to set a narrative that Forest get badly treated by referees. I regard this as unhinged but understandable in the current climate.
In short, I think a lot of the discourse in this thread has proven some of my original post as being correct. On the other hand, I do reflect that it could have been written better in how I have expressed my opposition to the prevailing sentiment of corruption.
