I thought I'd give RAWK another go after the other week, actually come back on and see where everyone was in their thinking towards this club, and I don't know why I bothered really.
After coming back in, it just gets progressively worse and worse each week with regard to the fans in here.
There are a fair few people who, I thought, were quite intelligent fans, know what they are talking about. Actually looked for their posts. There's a fair few who are acting like clueless, classless gobshites. Never thought I'd say this about our support, it's not even the one game a season whoppers, the fans who might call phone in's, it's actually fans who I thought had some common sense that seem to have lost all perspective and all rational thought in favour of dogs abuse towards the manager.
bollocks - the owners dont pick the team and they dont set up the team in such a shithouse manner like that twat does
Quotes like this. 10 games into a season, about OUR manager. Did anyone think it would ever come to this as a Liverpool supporter?
I've been a fan for around 28 years now, started watching Liverpool when I was 7. I've never experienced anything like this. Obviously, none of us have. Where a manager, who's just joined the club, gets this kind of shit flung at him 11 games into his managership.
What I don't understand and never will, is why some of you are hell bent and get FAR more vitriolic about the manager at the moment, than you've ever done about the owners, other than the obvious soundbites of 'fuck the yanks' and so forth. And yet, no matter how people want to look at it, we've been on a downward spiral (2nd place not withstanding) ever since the owners arrived.
I posted so many times in the summer about wanting to talk about the football without being met with 'you're not getting the bigger picture' about the ownership situation. And I still believe that, because if we lose the football, what do we have left? Fuck all. So I'm not saying it's wrong to question the manager, ANY Liverpool manager, about his tactics. Or question what he's doing. As Rafa found out, even with ownership issues, people don't give a fuck, they'll still slaughter the man in charge even if he's working with one hand tied behind his back.
But this systematic dogs abuse to OUR manager, given the situation at the club, is getting fucking appalling. I don't give two shits whether people think I'm a prick for defending the man, I don't give a fuck whether you counter with bollocks about the football we are playing at the moment, or the position we are in. It doesn't excuse the kind of shit that we'd be pissing ourselves laughing about if Everton or Utd fans were doing the same.
What I do give a fuck about is where people want to be as a Liverpool fan, because watching the new manager in charge get the shit he's getting, to me, isn't what being a fan is. In fact, I'm fucking embarrassed to read it. Other clubs fans will be laughing their cocks off at us, more so when they read fans calling the manager a 'twat' after 11 games. It's not even about being a 'super fan' or telling people what to do and how to support the team, it's about not forgetting there was a time we didn't pull this shit as Liverpool fans. We NEVER did.
While football has changed, and the modern day fan wants it all and wants it now, there is still a level we didn't stoop to, but now we do, and we do it worse than other fans we like to label 'small time' but which we are no better than at the moment.
Going by RAWK as an example, we've long since stopped being the 'best fans in the world'™. Oh but we must be, we don't stand for the owners doing what they are doing, we defend our own, we are the 12th man. Are we fuck, we are just turning into gobshites no better than the ones who eventually boo their team off the pitch or start singing the manager doesn't know what he's doing.
To me it comes from a few things. The way Rafa was treated, which was appalling, is being taken out on Hodgson, for no good reason. It's a crying fucking shame Rafa had to leave, and if he'd had owners who, as he said himself this week, KNEW football, he could have took on us on to great things, but he didn't. Sadly for him, sadly for us.
Kenny himself said it was the right time for Rafa to go, even if the fans in here still worship the ground he walked on, there was no working around the fact he hated them, they didn't like him. Liverpool couldn't carry on like that.
And yet, because he eventually was forced out, the new man is getting the brunt of the anger at the previous manager being so highly thought of. So he loses a game, he's a 'twat'.
Also, the guilty by association. Hodgson was appointed by men we hate. We ALL hate. So therefore, he's a 'twat'. Hodgson is a yes man, lackey, nice man, uncle Roy, and he was appointed by a board who want someone who won't rock the boat like Rafa did. ALL points that might actually be partly true, but again, are hardly the reason to slaughter the man after only 11 games of a managerial career at Liverpool FC.
I've read ridiculous conspiracy after conspiracy on RAWK, how he's here to do the boards dirty work, how he's only here because he won't stand up to anyone. etc etc. His every word is crucified, his every comment is over analysed, everything he says is pulled apart. And then you expect him to go and send a team out, under that kind of fan scrutiny and sweep all before him and get us back into the champions league?
I was totally underwhelmed by his appointment. Completely underwhelmed. I also thought he should be given a chance. If you dare even say that now, the 'ahhh, but RAFA didn't get a chance, so why should he? If Rafa was sacked for finishing out of the CL places, then Roy HAS to get us back there'. Again, the new man gets it in the neck for the achievements of the previous manager.
Post after post compares the two managers. Including this one. But the failings and ability of Hodgson doesn't deserve the kind of abuse he's getting from some of our 'support' this early in his career with us.
As Gareth said in a post the other day, people in here, however much they try and deny it, are waiting and hoping he fails. Every time he gets something wrong, the above comes out. The stock abuse. The 'shithouse' and 'twat' posts. Desperate for the man to fail. No matter how many times people say 'I don't want him to fail, I just hate where we are as a club' or something to that effect, it's utter bollocks.
If you hate were we are as a club, see the owners and the board. Although then that will be met with 'ah yes, but by proxy, he was appointed by them, so he's liable too!'. Again, bollocks. Every time I come into RAWK now I just see people revelling in the shit we are in. Revelling in being able to have a dig at the manager.
If you think Hodgson is a shit manager, is a terrible tactician, fair enough. But surely the anger some of you are showing towards him as a manager, and I don't mean just questioning his tactics, I mean the abuse, the name calling, the general shit that's getting flung his way after only 11 games, would be better directed at the owners? Or the anger you are feeling as to where we are as a club is being directed at a man trying to drag us out of that, who's walked into an impossible job, who's walked into a job where he's on a hiding to nothing from day one but decided to come here because of who we are, not because of 'one last pay day' (another ridiculous myth).
Whether you think it should still be Rafa trying to drag us out of the mess we are in or not, it was either him, Hodgson or no-one, so why is Hodgson now getting a fair brunt of it?
Most of the fans slaughtering Hodgson now are the same ones who derided the fans who slaughtered Rafa when he was here, trying to educate them that he was operating under extreme and difficult condictions. So why is the new man fair game when the previous wasn't?
In game threads were stopped because they'd be swamped with fans with one line posts saying 'RAFA OUT!' and such. And yet the fans who
rightly slammed that kind of shit post are now the ones calling Hodgson a 'twat'. After 11 games. And only 2 defeats.
I genuinely don't give a toss if this post is slammed, feel free. Have a pop. I'm not happy with the way we are playing, the way we are set-up by Hodgson at the moment. I'm not happy with where we are as a club. But that's not the new managers fault, it's the board and the fact that we've been hamstrung by them for three seasons.
I actually read a post today saying 'what's it got to do with the owners?'. Something which popped up regularly, and at times fairly, when Rafa was in charge. 'They don't pick the side'. Yes, correct, But they do make the managers in charge have to settle for second best, they do make them manage with one hand tied behind their back and they do make them have to operate on a budget that is at odds with where we, as Liverpool fans, think we are as a club.
As much as it's not ALL down to the owners, they didn't pick the side under Rafa and they don't pick the team under Hodgson. BOTH managers should rightly have tactics questioned. But to see the amount of vitriol and abuse that Hodgson is getting now, when he's only been in charge for 11 matches, is shocking to me purely because I've never seen it before as a Liverpool fan. Even people in here I thought were decent and level headed have just gone off on gobshite rants.
It's such a shame that Liverpool fans, on RAWK at least, now feel that this is what we do. We have a poor result, and the man in charge, the lackey, the yes man, gets abuse and people lining up to watch him fail and revel in it.
I hope we do get new owners, because I long for the day when it gets back to being about football at Anfield and the main passion for a fan isn't about slaughtering the manager on the touchline (who's lost 3 games in 11) because he was appointed by c*nts.