Featured: That was the week that was (April 27 May 3 2019)

[tlw content]

 

Saturday Apr 27:

 

Carra is talking up Burnley’s chances tomorrow. I’ve been doing the same for weeks, but now that the moment is almost upon us I’m no longer expecting anything other than a City win. It’s just wishful thinking. We look at these teams and think “if they do this this and that they could really cause City problems”. And you know what? Fucking none of them ever do it. They just curl into a ball and hope they don’t get smashed in the face. 
 
Over in Spain, Barca rest Messi ahead of our game but still have enough to get the result they needed too clinch the title. Apparently, according to a couple of ‘news’ items I saw on LFC’s news now page, Liverpool fans are fuming about Messi being rested. What the fuck? Why would anyone be upset about that, it’s just common sense and if Man City didn’t exist then I might have even got a game for us against Huddersfield last night, as Klopp would have rested everyone.

 

I’m so sick of this lowest common denominator bullshit. Websites and papers trawling social media looking for the stupidest comments from randomers who might not even actually support the team they claim they do, and then turning them into ‘news’ items. It just depresses me. Sports journalism is completely fucked. Social media has killed it stone dead. 

 

Just have a look at the headlines on newsnow. 75% of it is this kind of shit, and the rest is made up of whatever random shite the likes of Robbie Savage, Paul Merson etc has come out with. Example? How about this from today “Martin Keown and Paul Ince in heated debate over Player of Year award”. Honestly, we’re one step away from articles based on whatever shite Alan Brazil is spouting in his local boozer. The bottom of the barrel was scraped away a long time ago and they’re halfway to the earth’s core.

 

You know what else was deemed worthy of reporting? Tony Bellew, a boxer, picking his team of the year on Twitter. It had no Liverpool players in it and apparently that makes this a story? He’s one of the bitterest blues on the planet, of course he didn’t pick any Liverpool players.

 

More to the point though, why does anybody give a flying fuck what Tony Bellew thinks about this? Do boxing fans have to be subjected to the views retired footballers have on who the top five heavyweights of all time are? No. So why is that Tony Bellew tit showing up on LFC’s newsnow page?

 

I should just stay off there, but I need it for this diary as it’s still the best place to go to find out what’s happening on any particular day. It’s just a pain in the arse sifting through all the tonnes of sloppy dog shite to find it. Most of these papers and websites will literally publish anything these days if it brings in a click or two. 

 

Sunday Apr 28:

 

Thanks for nothing Burnley. At least they didn’t roll over I suppose. They actually defended heroically (Mee and Tarkowski were sensational), but they were so focussed on keeping City out they never even bothered trying to do anything at the other end. It was soul destroying. At the very least I expected an aerial bombardment, some roughing up and for Wood and Barnes to really cause problems. We got none of that, it was shit. 

 

City won thanks to the shittest of goals, as the football Gods chose to rub our noses it a bit more. “Hey Kopites, remember when you were 11mm away from scoring against City? Well how do like these apples. Three points thanks to a ball that was 23mm over the line”. 

 

If we end up on 97 points and don’t win the league, we may as well forget about ever winning it. City lost four games this season. They won’t lose that many next year. So we’re pretty much going to have to win every fucking game more or less. Why? Because neither UEFA or the FA are prepared to do anything about the cunts thumbing their noses at them. Still, no-one is arsed because it stops us from winning the league.

 

Exhibit A: United fans at Old Trafford actually cheered when Aguero scored today. The irony is that United have been as badly hit by City’s rule breaches as anyone, and will continue to be. They aren’t even top dogs in their own city now because their neighbours are cheating like fuck, but they’re happy to accept it if it means we don’t win the title. It’s beyond fucking embarrassing that. Look at what you’ve become, United fans. Just look at it. You’re truly pathetic. 

 

So that’s pretty much it now as far as the title is concerned. There is a 0% chance of Brighton taking points off City on the final day, so that only leaves Leicester and Brendan Rodgers. I'd give them a 5% chance of getting anything at the Etihad. 

 

The league title went on the day that our destiny was no longer in our own hands and we became reliant on others to stand up to City. Virtually no-one does. They’ve won every game since that defeat at Newcastle. Every fucking game. This is unprecedented shit we’re up against here. There’s no shame in finishing second to them, but there’s plenty of injustice and bitterness. 

 

Meanwhile, the u23s had a game at Anfield today and served up an absolute shit sandwich. I’ve been saying all season how I generally can’t be arsed watching them and today showed why. They’re not usually this bad but even when they’re doing well there’s very little to get excited about. I had hoped that Brewster coming back would make them a bit more interesting but it hasn’t.

 

I used to love watching Curtis Jones when he was with the u18s, but now I generally just find it infuriating seeing him hold onto the ball for too long and run down blind alleys. Loads of ability but I’ve officialy gone from being hopeful about him to being worried. Camacho is bang average too. This is probably the least fun reserve side I can ever remember.

 

It should be better next year when some of the u18s move up, but the modern game is all about creative wide players and we no longer have any of those at reserve or youth level. We’ve had Ibe, Wilson, Kent and Ojo but now there aren’t any, which is weird considering how important those type of players are in our first team.  

 

 

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[Anubis]

To be fair to Roggo, that wasn’t even close to the next-level bollocks in the football writrr’s speech about Sterling.

[Paul]

I think football journalism is the best it’s ever been. The level of investment in great writing, analysis and opinion by the papers is unprecedented and the LFC corespondents to a man/woman are superb. What you’re dealing with on News Now isn’t journalism Dave. It’s some minimum wage kid throwing out clickbait from his phone. 

[dave u]

2 hours ago, Paul said:

I think football journalism is the best it’s ever been. The level of investment in great writing, analysis and opinion by the papers is unprecedented and the LFC corespondents to a man/woman are superb. What you’re dealing with on News Now isn’t journalism Dave. It’s some minimum wage kid throwing out clickbait from his phone. 

But it's most of the main papers putting most of the shit out there though. Granted, there are loads of shitty sites putting it out too, but the Mirror, Mail, Express, Star will quite literally run stories on anything. The local papers are even worse. The ECHO and MEN are appalling.

 

I agree there's some top end stuff out there (really enjoyed Simon Hughes' piece on last night's game for example), but there's so much absolute shit out there it's just depressing. The ECHO is one of the worst, which is probably the biggest thing influencing my opinion on this.

 

I hate what the ECHO has become. I understand why it's happened, but I still hate it.

 

And as good as some of the LFC correspondents are, let's see if they're still being given the same licence to write how they are writing now in ten years time. I hope they are, but I doubt it.

[frankie]

"How would we cope without two of our front three?"

We'll find out on Tuesday 

[dave u]

1 hour ago, frankie said:

"How would we cope without two of our front three?"

We'll find out on Tuesday 

I reckon Mo will be alright. Then again I wasn't worried about Bobby when he missed Huddersfield.

[Paul]

1 hour ago, dave u said:

But it's most of the main papers putting most of the shit out there though. Granted, there are loads of shitty sites putting it out too, but the Mirror, Mail, Express, Star will quite literally run stories on anything. The local papers are even worse. The ECHO and MEN are appalling.

 

I agree there's some top end stuff out there (really enjoyed Simon Hughes' piece on last night's game for example), but there's so much absolute shit out there it's just depressing. The ECHO is one of the worst, which is probably the biggest thing influencing my opinion on this.

 

I hate what the ECHO has become. I understand why it's happened, but I still hate it.

 

And as good as some of the LFC correspondents are, let's see if they're still being given the same licence to write how they are writing now in ten years time. I hope they are, but I doubt it.

It’s one of the main areas that drives both sales and clicks, so I reckon they will. The papers pay their main men stupid money. Henry Winter is on mega-bucks at The Times, for example. The Telegraph are constantly expanding their team with women’s sport now a growth area for them. 

 

There are basically two strategies: click bait and serious journalism. It depends on the relative financial strength of the publication for how much they intersect, but even The Echo has a dual approach. 

[index1000]

21 hours ago, Paul said:

I think football journalism is the best it’s ever been. The level of investment in great writing, analysis and opinion by the papers is unprecedented and the LFC corespondents to a man/woman are superb. What you’re dealing with on News Now isn’t journalism Dave. It’s some minimum wage kid throwing out clickbait from his phone. 

Whatever you're on mate you need to give it a fucking break. 

The only people highlighting the utter fucking corruption on FIFA, UEFA, and the English Premier league and Football league (Look at what has happened to Bolton) are none MSM writers. The silence from Journalists or more accurately the 'follow the party line and don't upset the gravy train' excuse for what passes for journalism has  never been more prevalent. 

There are very few exceptions to this and while clickbait is prevalent among newsnow it also reigns supreme on the Liverpool Echo. 

There is a reason why there is a growth in fans following 'Fan sites' like TLW, and Redmen TV, TAW etc because we get to see and read thoughtful, considered and relevant content about the team we Love. 

I am sick of bullshit 'narrative' which is all you get from MSM and TV.

Look at this young lady who is a passionate Bolton Wanderers fan describing the utter fucking disgrace that is the regulation of ownership of teams in the EFL. Tell me where you will see a better, accurate or passionate summation of what has happened at Bolton? She is 18 years old. I suppose you would class her as a minimum wage clickbait kid ? 

 

[Paul]

Not sure why you’ve adopted that weirdly aggressive tone as I don’t think I wrote anything unreasonable or did so in a way that was provocative either.

 

However, I’ll just say this: show me better coverage of Hillsborough over the last five years than that written by David Conn in The Guardian, who was in court every day of the inquest and every day of the trial; show me better investigative journalism than Daniel Taylor’s work on child sexual abuse in the game, also in The Guardian. Sam Wallace's intermittent pieces in The Telegraph on the finances of Real Madrid over the last 18 months are not being replicated anywhere else; Conn again has also written extensively on the FIFA corruption scandals and the Der Spiegel revelations on FFP abuses still have potential to trigger huge implications for Manchester City (although I won’t hold my breath on the football authorities acting). These are just five examples that come to mind of huge financial investment in long term, non-sensationalist, investigative/sports politics writing from national newspapers. 

 

I love fan media - fucking hell, I’ve been a regular contributor to it for pushing twenty years - but it’s not making those sorts of contributions because it couldn’t.  

 

I totally agree with the criticism of the clickbait shite, but to state that football journalism is at it’s all-time worst (or whatever) is just not true. 

 

There is a broader media context that makes financing journalism extremely difficult in the internet era, but after a long period of adaptation, the quality at the top end is not just clinging on now but starting to really thrive. 

 

I guess the point I’m making is that football media is hugely pluralistic with a wide range in quality. There are many examples at both ends of the scale and everywhere in between. 

[buster69]

Just reading this now, "How would we cope with 2 of our front 3 out?" Well, I reckon we got our answer on that one...