2011

[fatlever]

just finished the chelsea game, had to watch on dvr. what little faith i had left for AVB has vanished. i honestly have no clue what he is trying to do. i dont understand his lineups. i dont understand his formation. i dont understand his tactics and i dont understand his subs. i feel like i am watching soccer for the first time and i dont understand the rules or something. he just baffles me.

as for torres, he had his run of games. he had all the chances in the world to make his case and he failed miserably. at this point i'd probably rather start lukaku over torres. meireles as usual offered nothing. bosingwa as usual was weak in defense and awful crossing the ball.

when cole got hurt at the 75 mark, we wasted 5 minutes seeing if he could continue and then replaced him with bertrand. 10 minutes to go and down 2 goals, why bring on another defender? who gives a crap if we go down 3-0. why bring on lukaku to play on the right of the front 3? makes no sense.

something drastic needs to happen this summer. either AVB is gone for a competent manager. or AVB gets his players and brings in at least 5 new guys to fit his system (whatever it is).

and we better hope our current players we want to keep and any we want to bring in are OK with playing in the europa league at least for a season.

i dont know what is worse, being a bobcats fan this year or a chelsea fan. i would probably say chelsea. at least i expected the bobcats to be awful. watching chelsea play like crap is way more upsetting.

[Eoghan]

Evra is a complete piece of ****.

[jim todd]

just finished the chelsea game, had to watch on dvr. what little faith i had left for AVB has vanished. i honestly have no clue what he is trying to do. i dont understand his lineups. i dont understand his formation. i dont understand his tactics and i dont understand his subs. i feel like i am watching soccer for the first time and i dont understand the rules or something. he just baffles me.

Thanks for posting this.
I wanted to like AVB, but he's done nothing with this group. To make matters worse, he's been very stubborn with his insistence on who is in the lineup. As others have said, there has been way too much Torres, Meireles, and Bosingwa this season. None of them have shown themselves worthy of a starting spot, and yet he continues to trot them out there each and every week. It doesn't matter what these guys do or how the team as a whole responds, they're fixtures in this underperforming squad and it doesn't make sense.

[Slava]

Suarez Apology

"I have spoken with the manager since the game at Old Trafford and I realise I got things wrong.

"I've not only let him down, but also the club and what it stands for and I'm sorry. I made a mistake and I regret what happened.

"I should have shaken Patrice Evra's hand before the game and I want to apologise for my actions.

"I would like to put this whole issue behind me and concentrate on playing football."

Liverpool FC Statement

"We are extremely disappointed Luis Suarez did not shake hands with Patrice Evra before yesterday's game. The player had told us beforehand that he would, but then chose not to do so.

"He was wrong to mislead us and wrong not to offer his hand to Patrice Evra. He has not only let himself down, but also Kenny Dalglish, his teammates and the club. It has been made absolutely clear to Luis Suarez that his behaviour was not acceptable.

"Luis Suarez has now apologised for his actions which was the right thing to do. However, all of us have a duty to behave in a responsible manner and we hope that he now understands what is expected of anyone representing Liverpool Football Club."

[Slava]

Albion just tore Wolves a new one. Odemwingie got a hat trick

[Ted Lasso]

Three apologies in one morning from Liverpool.

[fudgie]

Three apologies in one morning from Liverpool.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeP6CpUnfc0[/youtube]

[LittleOzzy]

Luis Suarez making it really hard to be a Liverpool fan...

The moron needs to be black listed from the top flight leagues in Europe. I don't care how good he can be.

[Eoghan]

Luis Suarez making it really hard to be a Liverpool fan...

The moron needs to be black listed from the top flight leagues in Europe. I don't care how good he can be.

I love how not shaking someone's hand in soccer is considered as bad as the malice in the palace Pacers-Pistons brawl.

English Premier League: Where overreacting over boorish incivility happens, oh bugger.

[Ong_dynasty]

Luis Suarez making it really hard to be a Liverpool fan...

The moron needs to be black listed from the top flight leagues in Europe. I don't care how good he can be.

I love how not shaking someone's hand in soccer is considered as bad as the malice in the palace Pacers-Pistons brawl.

English Premier League: Where overreacting over boorish incivility happens, oh bugger.

+1.
I am really in Luis Suarez side, I really do believe he was treated unfairly.
But at the end of the day, i hope all this just dies down.
I still hope he does not apologise to evra.

(does this make me a typical euro racist that throws bananas into the field?)

[Ted Lasso]

http://podcasts.skysports.com/podcasts/ ... 120212.mp3

[treiz]

Sepp Blatter said a few months ago that any racist actions should be dealt with a handshake and was ridiculed massively for it. So why does it matter so greatly if Suarez didn't shake Evra's hand? If the handshake according to guys like Rio doesn't justify or make up for the abuse then why is Suarez in the wrong? If Suarez and Evra did shake hands then why would that have been the end of it since Blatter was pretty much crucified for saying the exact same thing not that long ago?

Serious hypocrisy by everyone involved. Blatter was right all along i guess

[Slava]

Mick McCarthy gets sacked at Wolves after the weekend's drubbing. Would be pretty comical if Roy Keane gets that job.

[IronChef]

Evra is a complete piece of ****.

I'm not a fan of Evra in any way, but, how exactly is he in the wrong in this situation?

At least he tried to move on and shake hands, unlike Suarez who acts like a petulant child. Good on Liverpool for finally denouncing his actions, should have done it much sooner. He'll be gone in the summer.

[IronChef]

Something needs to be done to raise the standards of pitches in the EPL. Pitches like the one in Sunderland on saturday shouldn't be played on. I know teams use them as advantage to slow the game down, but they're also dangerous. Now Mertesacker is injured indefinitely from playing on it.

[MitchellUK]

Sepp Blatter said a few months ago that any racist actions should be dealt with a handshake and was ridiculed massively for it. So why does it matter so greatly if Suarez didn't shake Evra's hand? If the handshake according to guys like Rio doesn't justify or make up for the abuse then why is Suarez in the wrong? If Suarez and Evra did shake hands then why would that have been the end of it since Blatter was pretty much crucified for saying the exact same thing not that long ago?

Serious hypocrisy by everyone involved. Blatter was right all along i guess

Because this situation wasn't just about the handshake. The Suarez/Evra incident was investigated, and Suarez was found to be guilty and subsequently banned, which Blatter's "settle it with a handshake argument" seemed to suggest wasn't necessary.

It's what happened after that which made this whole thing worse. Despite accepting the ban, Suarez and Liverpool continued to claim they had been hard done by, seemingly on account of cultural differences. If cultural differences was really the case, then they should have recognised that culturally they understood why Evra took offence to Suarez making several references to his skin colour during their argument, and why culturally referring to a black person as "negro" - particularly in an acrimonious situation - is not acceptable in England, where the incident took place, and apologised. Instead, they tried to play the victim, right up until Suarez' return from his ban a couple of weeks ago where Dalglish ignited the whole situation again by saying "he should never have been banned in the first place".

Neither Liverpool nor Luis Suarez ever apologised to Patrice Evra for the original incident at Anfield. Several months later, there was an opportunity to bury the hatchet (as best as it could be) during the lineup before the game on Saturday, and Suarez (after allegedly telling Dalglish and Ayre that he would shake Evra's hand) found a way to make it worse again.

The lack of handshake wasn't the be-all and end-all, it just kept the wound open. We'll never know for sure, but you'd like to think that if Suarez had just taken Evra's hand on Saturday, Ferdinand would have taken Suarez' and there wouldn't have been the silliness we saw at half-time and full-time.

Thankfully, common sense has finally prevailed, Liverpool, Dalglish and Suarez have issued apologies, and perhaps now everyone can move on. Had they not, this whole thing would have carried on until the first fixture between the two clubs next season.

[MitchellUK]

Something needs to be done to raise the standards of pitches in the EPL. Pitches like the one in Sunderland on saturday shouldn't be played on. I know teams use them as advantage to slow the game down, but they're also dangerous. Now Mertesacker is injured indefinitely from playing on it.

Was it Villa Park earlier this season where two or three players picked up fairly serious injuries from the pitch? Reckon it was the Villa/Man Utd game. Jermaine Jenas stumbled and ruptured his achilles with no-one near him, and a couple of other players got hurt in innocuous situations, too.

[MaliBrah]

rumours is eden hazard has agreed to join tottenham and the two clubs just have to agree on a fee, if true that is just shocking. Best midfield in the EPL if that happens.

[IronChef]

I'd estimate the possibility of that happening at roughly zero.

[MitchellUK]

rumours is eden hazard has agreed to join tottenham and the two clubs just have to agree on a fee, if true that is just shocking. Best midfield in the EPL if that happens.

Could/should cement their place as a regular top-four team if they pull that off.