Send your mails to [email protected]…

 

Selfish Salah
75 mins in to the game against Genk, I was looking forward to writing in and making a simple statement; Mo Salah can’t pass a ball to a teammate.

76 minutes in and he plays a lovely weighted ball to Mane (of all people) to finish with aplomb. Talk about ruining the narrative.

Irrespective, against Spurs on the w/e I won’t be waiting to see if he assists Sadio but if he passes to a teammate at all. I’m not sure what the problem is but it’s almost like he’s hardwired to score himself or mess up a pass, and it’s starting to p*ss me off.
Barry, LFC

 

Puskas Award winner
I thought I saw everything in football and then Oxlade-Chamberlain scored his second goal… chapeau monsieur! I just stood up and lost interest in whatever was happening afterwards; your Champions League goal of the year.
Raúl H. García (we are so getting to the UCL final again!) LFC-YNWA1892

 

Racial stereotypes
Liverpool have done so much brilliantly recently, whether it’s on the pitch or within the community. The fans who brought that Origi banner into the ground tonight brought shame upon themselves and the club.

I do appreciate it’s a bit like Bernado Silva in that I’m sure it was meant as a good humoured joke but again it plays on a racial stereotype that was used to belittle and berate black men for years during slavery and after. I also imagine that like Silva, maybe the fans involved weren’t aware of the history of racial stereotyping and how it set black people back in majority white communities across the west (and probably still does) but I don’t think that’s an excuse either. We wouldn’t depict Salah naked holding the champions league trophy, even though he was far more instrumental than Origi, so that means it’s not right to do it about Divock either.

This is made worse because on Sunday a Liverpool fan tweeted his disappointment that half the away end “looked like Ghandi”. If you can only be a “true” supporter of Liverpool, deserving of a seat in the away end at Old Trafford, by having white skin and a scouse accent then the club would disappear into obscurity very quickly and virtually nobody would care either.

These fans need to have a serious think about themselves. I hope it’s a case of genuine ignorance; where they see the fact that (most of the) fan base, media and club are all sickened by their actions, and then take the time to learn and understand what it all means and why it’s wrong.

For a city that has spent more than 30 years trying to pride itself on knowing better and rising about stereotypes, those people brought disgrace to it last night. If a scouser can’t see an analogy between how they were depicted post Hillsborough and things like the Silva tweet and Divock banner tonight then there’s probably no helping them.

Anyway, to the game…

Click Here: liverpool mens jersey

I can’t help but think that VAR has inspired the new Liverpool high defensive line. Because our full backs are so far forward it means we can play a ridiculously high lined offside trap and only our two central defenders need to coordinate to hold the line. People will play balls into the channels to transition quickly but some goals will be disallowed (because VAR will always take the time to get it right) and when they’re onside they’ll still need to find a route to goal which isn’t easy and gives others time to recover. In possession the benefits are massive; we compress the pitch so much and basically dominate the ball far further up the pitch than any Liverpool I’ve ever watched before.

Roberto Firmino was a Harlem globetrotter in a previous life. It’s ridiculous that AOC can score an absolute worldie and yet Firmino’s little flick to put Salah through was the best touch of the game. If you missed it then have a look on the interweb.

Also, when Lovren fell on his face and Genk scored I felt like I was watching my Liverpool that I grew up with again. I was probably more nostalgically happy than anything as it all unfolded.
Minty, LFC

 

…First things first, I was really shocked to see that the banner was unfurled at the away end. When I clicked on the article, I automatically assumed that it was the home fans targetting a former player. I am saddened to see that it was a group of people who made the effort to put that together, fly to Belgium with that garbage in tow and unfurl it and think that it was in some way helping their team. Is it just sheer stupidity or are we so de-sensitized to all this kind of nonsense that they just thought it was a great bit of banter and they were paying him a compliment? I am not sure about the context and at this point am not entirely interested. It is just really disheartening and I cannot even find an iota of sympathy for the traveling fans – who otherwise are pretty good, from whatever else I have gathered from watching football over the years.

On a personal level, the main issue I feel is that this kind of stuff will obviously dominate headlines and in a way that sort of positively reinforces this negative behavior. Whether it is deragtory chants, these kind of banners or any number of things which have no place in sport or this world – the fact that it is news that gets so much play – just sort of throws fuel on the fire. I am a recovering addict and one of the things that has helped me and most other people I know is trying to replace our focus with positive things, rather than trying to say we will not focus on the negative things that dragged us down in the first place. Example – I will not spend my day saying – ” I should not Drink”, because in doing so – I am indirectly thinking about drinking. However, if I replace it with positive things like working on myself and working in my community – then not only am I not thinking about drinking but I am focusing on something positive which is a huge difference. You can lead the conversation and focus away.

Football does so much good and brings so much joy to so many people – I would love for that same space that we devote to all this kind of vulgar abuse to spread stories about how it is bringing communities closer together. I hope I am not being insenstive to the deep rooted issue at hand but I really feel that the more we talk about incidents like this (and there have been quite a few – just in this calendar year), the harder it is to combat. Like with addiction, you have to focus on other positive aspects of the sport and give those more prominent play rather than the negatives.

Look at what is happening in America. The more people try to rip on Trump, the more you are actually talking about him and bringing him to the forefront of everyone’s minds. I wish it could reap positive benefits but even though it is the ignorant minority of the world’s population who behave like this, the amplification by the media just plays into their hands.

Lets really stand up and fight this but do it in an effective way. I am a Chelsea fan but before anything I stand with any man or woman who stands with their fellow man, regardless of their race, religion, creed, gender, sex or sexual orientation. Just remember that you can be whoever you want from this moment – the past is the past. Be the change you want to see.

For the higher ups – Kick it Out – but be smart and do not just say it for the sound bytes.

One Love
Anand, Chelsea FC

 

I love Lamps
Well what an incredible performance from Chelsea last night, to go to Amsterdam and take on arguably one of the best young teams in Europe and beat them 1-0 is something that has to be praised, was lovely to see Pulisic set up Batshuayi like they used to during their days at Dortmund, a huge three points and this young Chelsea side could develop into a true force in the years to come, excited about the future and about the youth? Chelsea fans love this new feeling, I know I certainly do.
Mikey, CFC

 

Embarrassing Emery
Congrats to Sheffield United – they turned us over in typical Arsenal away up north fashion – we were crap! The reason why we were crap is Emery – confusing the sh*t out of the players – each game a different formation (several in this one) – creates problems for the players – he changes mid game – confusion – next game – same thing – confusion – Edu, Raul and Vin – you’ve got to get rid of him now – he is flapping around and will ruin our chances of CL football again next year, please get rid of him and save us a long season of pain – we just had years of it with Wenger, we are now back in the same position.

He plays small club, underdog football with a squad that should be playing as favorites in 80% of the games – it’s embarrassing! And why keep playing Xhaka – he is not working in this league or for this team – yet stubborn, intransigent Emery continues – who does that remind you of (at least Wenger gave us many years of happiness before it went bad)? Emery has done nothing and is getting worse (my eyes are still burning with the dross he is getting a really good squad to serve up to us and each game is getting worse – that Europa league final was the stuff of nightmares – BTW F*ck you Giroud, Fat Frank has your number mate!)

Emery is a bottle job, doesn’t get what Arsenal are and does not understand the strengths of his squad. Why leave Lucas and Tierney on the bench while playing Kolasinac and Xhaka – two players who have been a liability for many months (going back to last year) – he just does not get it and has to go before the players start leaving – this is really starting to p*ss me off and from what i can hear from others – we are already in the apathy stage – we as supporters knew we would lose that game and as soon as i saw the lineup i thought s*it we are fuc*ed.

Why play Willock as a number 10 again away – does Emery not remember the Newcastle game (Willock had 9 passes in this game), Emery is going to break him. Same with Saka – why play Kola when he cant do the running Tierney can which is what Saka needs to do his thing in the last third. Is Emery taking the p*ss – please sack him now!
Joe (not happy with Emery – did you spot that!)

 

What the NF-ell
I’d like to add a sort of ‘Mediawatch exclusive’ response to Mikey’s, CFC response this afternoon to Miguel’s, LFC mail about VAR this morning. You know, as in this is not all my own material.

I am also a huge fan of the NFL (the rival Rams if you wondered) but I’m just not sure VAR could work the same way. There are many reasons the 2 challenges per half aren’t frivolously used including;

1  The currency of a goal in football is way more than that of a TD or even field goal in NFL. This is in part why challenge flags are not thrown as recklessly as they otherwise may be. Plenty of other chances to score in the NFL so wait for the right time.
2. Challenges aren’t replenished if you’re correct – you only get two per game (with a bonus third if your first two were correct).
3. There is also the deterrent of losing a timeout if you challenge incorrectly – arguably maybe even more detrimental than the decision that you feel just went against you.
4. Not everything can be challenged.
5. You can’t challenge in the last two minutes of each half – but anything you could have challenged is automatically reviewed.
6. If a challenge flag is in thrown ‘the referee must see “incontrovertible visual evidence” that the original call was incorrect for a call to be overturned’.

The last point is the most salient there – i.e. the problems with the way VAR is currently being used will not go away until the PGMOL alter their interpretation and use of the replays available. The calls being made in the NFL are often a lot more black and white than those being made in football too (pass completion/catch rule aside). Fumble or not. Player down by contact or out of bounds or not etc… Point 3 is also important as well – I don’t know what kind of deterrent could be used in football to stop frivolous challenges? Maybe you just say one per half?

Time wasting can of course be avoided by stopping the clock (yep, no idea why they don’t do that for various things already either, especially substitutions) or adopting something akin to point 5 above. Only very rarely does a bad decision in the NFL truly alter the game (sorry New Orleans Saints fans). Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case in football as goals (or anything leading to them) are so important.

Two ways the PL could learn from the NFL imo are;

You need 1 person/group of people making the decisions across all the games for consistency’s sake.
After every weekend the head of officiating in the NFL will come out and explain decisions or occasionally admit that they have got things wrong.
All this being said, until refs or VARs are willing (allowed) to actually overrule any decisions made on the pitch then all of the above is irrelevant anyways.

rooouusse, AVFC

 

Tictacs
The mailbox is a great place for discussions etc, but some of the tactical stuff I’m like do you not think the team of football professionals at your club haven’t thought about that, I blame Champ Manager, I mean as soon as I see an email containing low block I quickly move onto the next email, mind you I’m probably just an old man ranting at the clouds, and at least its they are not about VAR.

Best wishes
David

Listen to episode one of Planet Football’s new 2000s football podcast, The Broken Metatarsal, featuring Alex Brooker and Graham Stack on the Arsenal Invincibles.