Featured: That was the week that was (Feb 9-12 2021)

[tlw content 12,235]

 

Tuesday Feb 9:

 

I wasn’t going to do the diary this week. After the weekend I just wanted to forget all about footy until the next game, which thankfully is a week away. The window is shut so there’s not really much going on anyway, so I figured it was best to skip it this week rather than dwell on the misery.

 

But I accidentally stumbled across something on youtube today and I can’t let it pass without comment. I watch a lot of golf stuff on youtube so my plan was to just dive into that this week and forget all about the footy. The problem is, I also watch stuff on the Reds quite a bit and as I’ve mentioned before I also watch a LOT of Roy Keane.

 

So I’m watching a golf video but I leave the room. The video finishes and youtube’s algorithm understandably thinks “oh here’s a clip of Keano talking about the Reds. I’ll play this for him as he loves this shit”. I come back in the room and Keane is talking about what “bad champions” we’ve been. I should have turned it off but it piqued my interest.

 

He’s right, we have been bad champions if you remove all context from the season. Conceding seven at Villa, dropping points to pretty much all of the bottom six clubs, shitting the bed against City… none of it befitting of the defending Champions. But fuck me, you can’t disregard all of the factors that have contributed to this. 

 

Other teams have made a worse fist of defending the title than we have, and you don't have to go back far to find them. City last season. They lost nine games and were a million points behind us by this stage of the season. But they lost Laporte so they had no chance, right?

 

Funny how the likes of Keane don't seem to be arsed about all the things we've had to contend with.

 

Firstly, we’re in a fucking global pandemic. Secondly there are no fans in stadiums which has dramatically reduced the adrenaline of the players which leads to less intense games. Thirdly, there was no pre-season so players (right across the whole league) are not performing to their normal level of fitness. Fourthly we’ve got half a team either missing or playing out of position. We’ve been playing with no centre halves and a back up midfield.

 

I could go on but you all know this. Everyone knows it. Keane knows it too, but for whatever reason he decided to “go into character” and played the angry, disgusted old pro who would never have let this happen “in my day”. Some of the shite he was coming out with was just embarrassing and insulting.

 

“I never heard any of these players talking about wanting to win the title again” he says. Apparently they were happy with what they’d won and started “believing their own hype”. What hype would that be Roy? Maybe the hype from you, when only a couple of months ago you were eulogising about the drive and hunger those very same players were showing when they went top of the league despite the loss of Van Dijk.

 

All the talk about how it’s harder to retain the title than win it carries some weight, but it’s a lot fucking harder to retain it when you’re dealing with everything that we’ve had to deal with this season. I’m not happy about what’s happened and some degree of criticism is warranted. But “believing their own hype” is not the reason for what we’ve seen. It isn’t even a contributing factor. Not now, maybe it was when we went to Villa and had our pants pulled down, but every team has that kind of an off day occasionally.

 

Even Keane’s Manchester United, who he seems to view with this glossy eyed nostalgia that causes him to ignore the facts. Facts that he himself admitted to in his own autobiography. What facts am I talking about? How about the way they went from top spot in January to finishing miles behind Arsenal just because they lost Rio Ferdinand to a drug ban.

 

Keane himself cited that as the reason their season fell apart, yet he’s not prepared to cut the Reds some slack for losing not only Van Dijk, but also Matip and Gomez. They lost Ferdinand, they still had the rest of their defenders. But they couldn’t cope. Gary Neville also said the same thing. Losing Ferdinand had a massive impact on them both on the field and in terms of the morale of the players. Keane said it too. In his fucking book!!

 

Yet this tit is ripping on our lads, questioning their attitude and telling them they need to just get on with it despite losing Van Dijk. I like watching Keane, he’s entertaining and a lot of what he says is actually spot on, but it’s when you see him sounding off like this with nothing to back it up and leaving himself wide open to calls of hypocrisy that you know why he can never be any good as a manager.

 

Also today, the u18s had a game live on LFCTV. They won 2-1 at Stoke. I thought about watching it but when I saw the team and there was no Layton Stewart and none of the new signings were playing (we’ve signed four in this window, believe it or not) I swerved it. One of the goals was scored by Oakley Cannonier, the ball boy from the Barca game. He’s a good little player him. I’d love him to make it as it’d be a great story.

 

 

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[RedKnight 5,659]

Only thing going for us today is Brendan nearly always shits the bed against former teams he's managed.

[dave u 6,019]

Lucky for him this time he had the officials to bail him out.

[johnsusername 2,217]

Dave, God bless you for carrying on.

 

 

[rb14 1,101]

Thanks Dave. 

[Dave D 1,488]

Keane playing to the galleries. Lets face it, the off pitch stuff with pundits and VAR is eclipsing the actual football entertainment itself across the board.    

[DaveT 431]

Juergen - what a guy. Great to hear his responses in today's presser about the suggestion of him leaving.

Roy Keane - he's actually a bit dim, really.

The u18s and u23s is about the only footy I'm watching at the moment - disappointingly they're only shown live once every few games. Those teams have been hit by the injury crisis and lots of players are being promoted right through the ranks a bit faster than they ought to be. U23s are really struggling, not just because the likes of Neco, Rhys, Cain, Clarkson etc are warming the bench for the first team, but they've also had long term injuries to Glatzel and Hardy. THis has led to Stewart and Morton moving up a level..... althouugh I think Stewart also has a knock now! The (depleted) u18s did really well against a typical Stoke side - a load of 18 year orld grocks who mosty looked about thirty! The quality football won out over the physicality.

[sir roger 6,001]

1 hour ago, DaveT said:

Juergen - what a guy. Great to hear his responses in today's presser about the suggestion of him leaving.

Roy Keane - he's actually a bit dim, really.

The u18s and u23s is about the only footy I'm watching at the moment - disappointingly they're only shown live once every few games. Those teams have been hit by the injury crisis and lots of players are being promoted right through the ranks a bit faster than they ought to be. U23s are really struggling, not just because the likes of Neco, Rhys, Cain, Clarkson etc are warming the bench for the first team, but they've also had long term injuries to Glatzel and Hardy. THis has led to Stewart and Morton moving up a level..... althouugh I think Stewart also has a knock now! The (depleted) u18s did really well against a typical Stoke side - a load of 18 year orld grocks who mosty looked about thirty! The quality football won out over the physicality.

Ha ha , bet Stoke have three full beards in their under -13's