The Mail Bag
Enough navel-gazing
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OK, so we were crap. Howard flapped when he should have flattened Kuyt. We were brainless when we had the extra man and generally stuffed up a big chance. And if you watched MotD, we looked like the biggest criminals ever to take to a football pitch. (How do they always come up smelling of roses when they have been flinging turds?)
But enough navel-gazing. We simply got done by a cynical team and manager. They had a plan and we fell right into it. The plan — reduce the match to a scrap and win it with the help of some the Premier League's most expert divers, ref-baiters and con-men.
They obviously took a leaf out of the All Blacks book when they targeted Brian O'Driscoll in 2005, picking him up after about 30 seconds and spearing him into the ground, breaking his collar-bone and putting him out of the series. No, they didn't go for anything quite as drastic but Carragher's first-minute assault on Pienaar was from the same book — smash the most dangerous player in the opposition, the only creative player in the first game, put him out or at least put him off his game. Sadly, the ref gave them the green light for such tactics and we were too stupid to avoid getting drawn in.
Yes, Fellaini should have gone at the same time as the Greek, Pienaar could have gone later too, although just look at Mascherano, coming in like a train and taking a wild hack. Pienaar, foot up, looks away in an act of self-protection. Then just enjoy the spectacle of Mascherano, flat on his back squirming, lifting his leg up in the air in a ridiculous attempt to show the ref what a bad boy Pienaar is. This, remember from the team whose players regularly run after the ref, sometimes the length of the pitch, waving imaginary red cards to get opponents sent off. (If we had players who did that, I wouldn't bother going.)
While we are on the subject of red cards, Gerrard, the new England vice-captain, should have got one for two dives and a lunge at the unfortunate Pienaar. The first dive, after a minor touch from Cahill and down he goes, legs wide apart, well that looks natural doesn't it? Then clutching his head after a shoulder barge from Pienaar.
Their Argentinian players must have thought they were the masters of the dark arts of football till they met him. They seemed more scared of defeat than we are, fans and players, maybe because they know they are on a financial knife-edge and have no idea how deep it might be if they do fall off. So they set about reducing this to a scrap, judging that as their best chance to win it and they've won both matches playing hardly any football.
Let's hope we are older and wiser after this. We have actually got better ball players than they have in Arteta, Pienaar, Fellaini, Rodwell and Donovan so leave them to the scrapping and start playing football on the ground again. They are the heirs of Don Revie's Leeds in the dirty tricks department and soon, if they keep it up, surely the rose-tinted spectacles will fall off and they will be exposed.
So come on DM, they don't matter, get the ball down, play two strikers (by the way - where is Vaughan?) and get playing passing football again. There's plenty still to play for this season and next with everyone fully fit again.
Peter Carpenter, Posted 09/02/2010 at 16:47:01
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The most depressing thing about Saturday is we lost to an average side. Moyes got outdone by a manager we all think is shit.
On our day we can play well so there’s always some hope but we really aren’t heading anywhere with this chairman, this manager and this group of players.
There will be NO hiding place tonight at Goodison, let's hope we have a decent ref.
However, let’s hope DM will instill some fight (not dirty tactics) into the Blues tonight because we are going to need it. If Portsmouth and Bolton (last night) can give the likes of City and Sunderland a good run for their money, surely we can?
As regards the derby game, I despise them. I watch out of morbid fascination, I know what is going to happen but hope against hope that it won't... but it always does.
Everton's two strongest players targetted from the first few seconds and becaues they try to defend themselves they are vilified in the media. The Fellaini incident, just who ended up on crutches?
The outrageous antics of Gerrard week-in, week-out, never highlighted the way Drogba's are. The odiuos Carragher clearly taking out Pienaar in the first few seconds, the lad then getting no protection for the rest of the game, the biter bit (the truly horrible Maschareno) when Pienaar fought back.
Nothing has changed regarding Liverpool, there they sit in 4th place... I only hope we don't come up against them in the Europa League, I couldn't take another 3 hours of hope and inevitable failure. (Or will it not be failure — oh don't be stupid,of course it will!)
to be Alan (unfit) Wiley, who was down to have our game at Wigan the week before last.
So the idea of a good referee has gone out of the window.
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1 Posted 10/02/2010 at 06:30:29
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But they do matter, and results like this matter very much. Why? Because at such moments, the result exposes our deepest fear: that the Kopites are right. That well be forever in their shadow, that our club is small, and that if they sent out half a dozen performing dwarfs on unicycles they would still beat us.
Maybe that’s why a performance like Saturday’s gets under our skin so much, reducing otherwise sane, good people to screaming antagonists, ready to thump each other, let alone the gobshites.
For the rest of the year, we can talk about steady development, staying true to our roots, the inevitable collapse of the current financing climate & etc. Some of us can take refuge in our memories. But there is a very cold 90 minutes twice each season when, perhaps secretly, we think... but what if they’re right.
That’s how it seems to me anyway.