The stat of 64% of the possession yet only one shot on target reveals something about a soccer team that has pretensions but no ambitions to match. My son asked me to watch today's Old Trafford game where Manchester United hosted tail-chasing Liverpool, while the title-chasing blue half of Manchester was preparing for today's Carabao Cup final at Wembley, won just seconds ago by City after no small measure of controversy and theatre, occasioned by the Chelsea goalkeeper putting it right up the coach. I told my son there wasn't a chance. I had arranged to meet somebody in town and even had I not, there was no way I would be watching that scrawny lot act out the pretence of being serious title contenders. The championship was theirs for the taking but is now slipping draw by draw out of their grasp.
Manchester United must be hugely disappointed that they didn't stuff the Merseysiders. It was theirs to win as according to the post-match commentary Liverpool never posed a serious assault on goal, seeming to feel that the pitch was 18 yards shorter than it actually was. With Lovren not in the side, there was a good chance the team would manage a clean sheet but at the other end, without the help of a deflection or an own goal who was going to put one past De Gea? A draw was as good as it was going to get for the Anfield side. It was pretty much a no-brainer that Ole Gunnar Solskjær's side were never going to come second best in this afternoon's fixture. As Jamie Carragher pointed out earlier this month United are a better side.
Perhaps the men from Manchester did not feel compassionate enough to have done the Liverpool fan base a favour and put them out of their misery with a crisp clear victory. Instead they have prolonged the agony until the next draw which will certainly come, maybe as early as the upcoming games against Watford and Everton. Had Utd taken all three points today, Manchester City would have been on top courtesy of goal difference and even the most loyal of Liverpool supporters would have realised there was no way back for a side so limited in options and imagination.
Liverpool are a team who are at the top solely by default. The failings of other sides' put them where they are and now that that the tide of good fortune is on its way out, Liverpool in that memorable Warren Buffet phrase, are pretty much exposed as naked. Imagine had the Sad Sacks of Anfield even a modicum of the passion, steel and determination of the title winning Leicester side a couple of seasons back, the outcome would have been very different. As it stands, when the season ends, Blew It And Threw It, will seem an appropriate swansong for ugly ducklings.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
I have found football unwatchable for a while now, I don’t have the same interest in something whose players and managers are interchangeable to a degree that I’m firmly in the “too much money in football” camp.
ReplyDeleteI will retain a nostalgia for the Class of ‘92. Football seems a microcosm of what assails our societies , importing an unconnected , aloof, elite and thinking the people will retain the same value for the product. If the clubs are determined to ring every last penny out of fans, and pick maximum price points for everything to finance themselves, it will outpace the value of the product eventually.
Daithi - I don't find it unwatchable. I find Liverpool unwatchable because of the dung they play. I saw a bit of Newcastle the other day and the one touch football played from box to box ending in hitting the post twice in the one move is why they call it the beautiful game. I enjoyed the Chelsea City game in the Carabao Cup final yesterday. But you are right about these money grabbing ballerinas. I have this thing about the Liverpool fans because of what happened to them in 89. Any player who puts the shirt on has to at least perform to the best of their ability. This crowd don't do that. They take the money and go. From the start of the season I did not trust them to do the right thing and they haven't and won't.
ReplyDeleteWith all the dedications to Allah, Liverpool should be being richly rewarded on the pitch.
ReplyDeletetheir reward is in the next life where 72 titles await them
ReplyDeleteNo mention whether they were male or female titles though!
DeleteSteve, the number parallels the 72 gender options on Facebook . Obvz
DeleteAsexual
Female to male trans man
Female to male transgender man
Female to male transsexual man
F2M
Gender neutral
Hermaphrodite
Intersex man
Intersex person
Intersex woman
Male to female trans woman
Male to female transgender woman
Male to female transsexual woman
Man
M2F
Polygender
T* man
T* woman
Two* person
Two-spirit person
Woman
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynes
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans Female
Trans Male
Trans Man
Trans Person
Trans*Female
Trans*Male
Trans*Man
Trans*Person
Trans*Woman
Transexual
Transexual Female
Transexual Male
Transexual Man
Transexual Person
Transexual Woman
Transgender Female
Transgender Person
Transmasculine
Two-spirit
Daithi,
DeleteThank fuck I'm old fashioned and have no time for this latest pish regarding genders. There's only fucking two, male and female. The rest are a load of shite. Much like religion I suppose.
Steve R
DeleteGender dysmorphia is a recognised and psychological condition whether you choose to believe "this latest pish regarding genders". People do transition successfully and the fluidity of gender is acknowledged in UK census and equal opportunity documentation.
Steve, I’m afraid that meets the threshold to justify your removal from participating in civil society.AM is there too since he claimed to be Conor blind to race, which effectively advocates for genocidal erasure if a POC identity. There can be no place for bigots or their adjacents any longer.
DeletePs Steve, it will be our generations Everest or moon landing to be the first to smash the back doors in of all 72. (Consensually of course)
DeleteBG demonstrates that while the front of the ‘undercarriage’ so to speak, is the source of much new and disruptive thinking , arseholes remain pretty much static and predictable.
DeleteBarry,
DeletePsychological problems of a miniscule minority aside, until I see a 'trans' person give birth according to their 'preferred' gender I am not changing my stance. The Japanese have similar truck with this fucking pish.
Daithi,
Ah well, I'll just get me coat. I'm off for a pint at the kneebreakers arms if any dissidents from the mainstream zeitgeist fancy a few liquid socialbles.
DaithiD - Barry makes some very strong contributions on this blog. Those upended by his argument tend to attack his person.
DeleteHis comment contributions by volume are accusing others of some phobia or another. If he is to be believed in even 1% of his allegations, he must of stumbled onto the Irish version of Stormfront in TPQ. His arguments are not without context, don’t be confused at which bothers me.
DeleteDaithi
DeleteI do not seek to censor anyone on this blog; I merely seek to deconstruct.
I didn’t say censor, in a word you try to gaslight people , but since you never listen to replies you don’t know enough about the person to be effective. Trying to make a man with a Jewish daughter think he was anti-Semite was particularly tiring to read. It’s just lame and repetitive and you thought you could hijack this thread getting Steve to defend himself before I called you out on it.
DeleteDaithiOD
Delete"Gaslighting" is a psychological weapon used by abusive partners to make the other person question their sanity. It is not gaslighting for me who only has an unseen, cyber relationship with the party in question; I called out this person's persistent posting of Rothschild conspiracy theories and his support for the late journalist Helen Thomas' notorious for Israeli Jews to go back to :Poland and pointed out that having Jewish relatives or friends (or even being Jewish) is neither defence of or gives inoculation against having and dissemination such antisemitic sentiments.
BG : uses the rigid and wrong literal interpretation when it suits him, but mention Rothschilds and he will stretch it to mean Jews. You must understand better than anyone words evolve in meaning over time, it’s how you like to catch others out after all. You will waste no more of my time, you are a bad faith actor. (Call it a “win” if you like, you brave Nazi battler)
Deleteyou on the drink Daithi? !!!
DeleteMoi? Never. Jokes aside no, have I made a load to typos ?
DeleteWithout wanting to sound pretentious, I’m sort of like God in that I like to take Sundays off to relax, which is hard with a hangover.
Deletejust sounds garbled
DeleteThat's it, I've had enough. Today I am identifying as a woman and remaining entirely blameless all day long. Tomorrow I may feel like identifying as cross-dressing bisexual and I will complain loudly so the rest of society feels shamed enough to capitulate to my whims. Liberating, for the 0.0006% of the population who really are trapped in the wrong body and not in anyway suffering from a mental health condition instead.
DeleteIf you explore more than one gender that polygender Steve, not that I’m trying box you in like a Nazi or something.
DeleteI’m thinking of exploring the trans-abled space since transgender is so 2015. Please respect my lived experience.
And yes that means rightfully sitting in designated disabled seating. Don’t let the bigots divide us.
DeleteI woke up today feeling like an honeybadger though, which got me to thinking...why is the rest of society being so persecutorial against my she/fellow trans-speciesists? I demand equal rights for trans-speciesists now! We want the right to hunt down our food while bollock-naked through Royal Avenue in Belfast and indeed any other city! No more persecution from the State when we shit and piss anywhere we choose!
DeleteAs a neutral I recently watched Man Utd v Chelsea in the FA cup and Man City v Schalke in the Champions League and they were exciting matches to watch....really enjoyed both especially the Man City game....football is now a business first and a sport second and loyalty to club and fans suffers as a result of that...it has become a sport full of participants with self-interest as the main driving force at all times....from agent to manager to player....and in all that mix is a huge dose of over-ratededness for certain players!
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QubF5Afcuek
ReplyDeleteAN, Could you ever imagine any of the current crop in either side caring enough to display this unabashed ecstasy?
Barry, what has the pink brigade got to do with a footy thread? Unless like the question you asked 'why no black managers', you were throwing it open to include all minority groups..
ReplyDeleteWhat I know so far is it isn't only in this part of the world there is a lack of black football managers. 2018 Fifa World Cup: Why aren’t black managers invited to the party?
The Senegal national football team has attracted worldwide attention in Russia in the past few days and it wasn’t just because they've had the only win, so far, for an African nation at the World Cup - a 2-1 victory over Poland in Group H.
Their manager, Aliou Cisse, is the only black person in charge of any of the 32 nations taking part in the tournament, despite the prevalence of black players.
"I am the only black coach in this World Cup. That is true, but really these are debates that disturb me," Cisse told reporters. "I think that football is a universal sport and that the colour of your skin is of very little importance."
At France 1998, the first of the larger World Cups, there were no black coaches, despite an increase in the number of teams from countries with a majority black population - African nations, for example, went from three to five spots.
Since then, only seven black professionals have had a chance to lead a campaign.
Barry, this pink agenda that you among others keep throwing down peoples throats, knock it on the head. Re read The Year Of Trans Tyranny by Joanna Williams that appeared on TPQ a few week back or have a look at this paper published by the Arizona State University David Reimer and John Money Gender Reassignment Controversy: The John/Joan Case
Frankie
ReplyDeleteIt was Daithi and Steve R who introduced the pink/trans topic on this thread not me.
Despite the abuses that have occurred at places like the Tavistock Gender Dysmorphia Clinic and the aggression and bullying that some trans activists engage in; it is established medical and psychological fact that people feel that they exist in the wrong body. I do not seek to ram trans or any other agenda down people's throats; I just respond to the pig ignorance that Steve R and Daithi have shown towards sexual minorities.
Barry - it is a matter of who has the power to define how a person is seen. Can you not be free to see me as you do rather than deferring to my insistence on seeing me as I do?
DeleteAnthony
DeleteIf this does not sound pretentious I am with Martin Luther King in seeing people not through the prisms of skin colour, sexuality, gender, disability or the private practice of religious faith but through the content of their character, public profile and the framing narrative of their experiences. I do not have nor do I want the power to judge you any differently. Btw, I have great respect for your life's journey even though I disagree with some of your choices and your opinions which I do respectfully and never through personal attacks.
Barry - I appreciate that but it does not really address the query.
DeleteAll liverpool have to do is win by 1-0..As a Man Utd supported since 1977, I hope Liverpool and not City win the EPL this year for my good friend Malaga Murphy...
ReplyDeleteI want them to win it too Frankie but only for the fans. I think there are other teams who deserve it better in terms of soccer ability and heart.
ReplyDeleteFor sale...Pogba, Young, Smalling, Jones, De Gea, Sanchez, Martial...All offers considered...
ReplyDelete