Tomkins at it again......

[aws]

There is no way in hell you read all of that!

 

Excellent it was too.

[Whelan]

Again; does he save his edgy stuff for The Tomkins Times?

 

Blaming the offal is a bit much.

 

I don't know anything about the Tomkins Times! Is that his own website?

 

A good example is Lawrenson, you used to get different slanted articles in the Mirror and the Echo, you would like a bit of honesty, but there is no chance on this earth that he is going to say 'Lucas is a bit one paced and really just a defensive player, but since we are shite at the moment and the manager is reverting to type we will just have to hope he gets injured or something'. It would be nice if he offered balance, but like everything to do with the club website it is anodyne convenient shite!

 

I bet they will be saying we have 2000 tickets for Reading next week!

[Flying Pig]

Going against the grain, but I like Tomkins.

[ZonkoVille77]

Going against the grain, but I like Tomkins.

 

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but come on mate. Some of the crap he writes is utter shite. it's hard not to realise he's just a spin doctor for Rafa.

[goatboy59]

I don't think he is.

 

Spin would involve some sort of understanding that just saying Rafa is right all the time isn't going to play terribly well with Liverpool fans at present. Even the most dedicated advocates on the forums are being politically sussed and conceding the odd bit of ground here and there.

 

But not Paul, oh no. He is absolutely unbending in his devotion to the manager, even as the team gets into deeper and more troubled waters.

 

The feeling he actually believes all this is troubling, frankly.

[Antynwa]

Going against the grain, but I like Tomkins.

 

I find my conscience screaming throughout all of his articles in a Tony Soprano sort of fashion.

[Liverpool lad]

If he wasn't linked to the club, you would think he was a wind up

[Original202]

I can't believe so many people have bought his books.

 

Got to give him credit for making a living out of his writing, but he really is boring, pompous, vomit inducing, know it all, rose tinted glasses wearing, badger baiting cunt.

[Paul]

I read it all the way through. I feel slightly dirty now. It's cringeworthy, really. He is almost dismissing Alonso's departure because he didn't create enough direct chances. He said he would never have done what Lucas did; i.e. stumble to the byline and put a ball into the penalty area.

 

He forgot to mention that there are other things Alonso wouldn't do that Lucas does; lose possession, make rash challenges, play balls to people who are not in the position to accept it, lose any coherence through the middle of the team, cause panic where none existed etc etc.

 

Tomkins is the worst kind of apologista; suggesting anybody who doesn't buy into his warped world view is somehow stupid or mildly insane, while refusing determinedly to acknowledge the herd of elephants in the room.

 

Cringeworthy is the word. I'd be embarrassed to even think anything that was so fundamentally one-eyed, never mind go so far as to write it. It's so ridiculously pro the status quo that it's reached the point of being propaganda, in my view.

[George Costanza]

propaganda,

 

There's no better word for it.

[Flying Pig]

Going against the grain, but I like Tomkins.

 

Going against the grain, but I like Tomato soup.

 

This is want I meant.

[RolandRat]

The guy can put spin on anything, the bloke is a knob.

[paddyberger15]

Tune in next week when, with the use of Mathematical Formulae, Tomkins explains how Alonso didn't really play for Liverpool at all.

[Jack the Sipper]

This article mysteriously appeared in my inbox. It appears to be from the future…..

‘We’re s**t, allegedly, but who says we are?’

By Tall ‘Story’ Pomkins

18th May 2011

Well, nobody can say that wasn’t interesting! We were in with a chance until the very last game of the season but, alas, it was not to be; we miss out on Premiership survival by the narrowest of margins, but hey, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

No doubt the nay-sayers in Fleet Street (or wherever they are nowadays) will be having a field day and we shall again hear tale of Rafa Benitez’s overly cautious approach to the game, mindless criticisms of zonal marking, and the ceaseless drone of his preference for quantity over quality.

Let’s slay some of those mythical dragons right here and now. First, whilst your fair weather ‘fan’ may howl in indignation at their team playing a 4-6-0 formation at home to Wolves in our last game of the season when we need a win to stay up, your more knowledgeable Kopites (modesty prevents me form naming names) were nodding in appreciation at the manager’s tactical acumen.

‘But we needed a win to avoid relegation!’ they shriek, somewhat hysterically. And whilst it is true that Wolves came to Anfield on the back of an unprecedented 18 game run of defeats, conceding 112 goals in the process, Rafa knows that all runs have to come to an end at some point.

You can imagine Mick McCarthy’s surprise when, at 2.45pm, the team sheet from the opposition dressing room was handed to him. ‘No striker?’ But who are my defenders going to mark?? We’ve been working on marking strikers all week! The wiley Spaniard, playing the ace card again, just when least expected.

So we didn’t score. But let’s look at that in detail. If you review the stats (i.e. the actual ‘facts’), we can see that the team had failed to score in each of its last 12 home games. So, to point the blame at Rafa’s tactics against Wolves is just plain daft – what about the tactics in the other 11 games where we failed to score? Not feeling so clever now, are you, eh?

It is so easy to go for the easy knee-jerk explanation when a moment or two of quiet contemplation and reflection (see photograph – cap optional) will reveal the inner truth – the tactics were not to blame at all. Wolves’ late winner (their first goal in 27 games - who says Anfield isn’t an entertaining place to go these days?) was disappointing, of course it was, but to blame zonal marking is simply ludicrous.

Yes, it did appear as though Kygriakos were marking Skrtel, who appeared to be marking the subs bench, but that’s just it – ‘appearances’. Who knows better, you and I, with our boring little day jobs, or The Manager, with his years of experience, some of it in foreign countries? I know who I’m with on that one!

So, what is the explanation? Well, for one, our expectations are probably a little too high. Yes, a challenge for Premiership survival was something we all wanted to see (probably me more than anybody), but you have to consider the context. If Rafa Benitez had better players, we would likely have stayed up. It’s as simple as that.

Too many of our so called ‘supporters’ these days don’t seem to grasp that this is a very different day and age to that of Shanks and Paisley. They had lots of good players to choose from.. Tons of them in fact. Rafa Benitez doesn’t enjoy that same luxury and to think that he does is to put a collective heads in the sand, like so many ostriches.

This could be the wake up call that so many of you (sorry, ‘us’) need – perhaps next season we’ll all be a bit wiser and realize that our players just aren’t very good? Benitez knows this, but what can he do? He loves the club, the city, the Mersey, the view across to Birkenhead, and so forth – is he just meant to walk away? And let’s face it, he could have. On numerous occasions - just ask him.

 

But no, Rafa Benitez has a job to do, a mission, a plan, and he will not be diverted from it. Nothing nor nobody nor Knotty Ash will deter him. Ask him whether he’s happy to work with such bad players and see what he says: the enigmatic shrug, the hint of a smile playing around his lovely Spanish lips, and an authoritative ‘we shall see, we have to work harder’ (that work ethic again, you London journalists, in case you’re wondering what it looks like!) is all that you will get. Modesty and hard work personified.

So, why all the doom and gloom, kiddies? Why the cries for the manager’s head, the short-sighted derision of our many achievements under his regime? Get a grip and smell the napalm – are things really that bad?

We have the ground-share at Prenton Park to look forward to (and when the Anfield L4 luxury apartments start bringing in the cash, we’ll perhaps see that it’s not just the manager who we should be cutting a bit of slack to!) No prawn sandwiches for us, we’re back to grass roots, where we belong. Liverpool FC, leading the way, yet again. Prenton Park is going to be rocking come August.

And I will leave you with this final thought for your edification. When Shanks took over this great club, which division were we in? And now think of where we ‘ll be next season.. See, a little creative thinking and even you plebs can access truth.

Have you ever seen them in the same room together? Well, have you?

Me neither!

See you in Scunthorpe.

 

Great work. I'd rep you, if only I knew how.

[TSC]

There's so much not said about the current predicament within that Tomkins article that it's embarrassing. In fact his articles are now becoming laughable. There is never ever any negativity (nay reality) in them.

 

I think our relative position in terms of success (I.e. challenging for the league/CL etc) is totally irrelevant to Tomkins. In fact if we'd somehow managed to succumb to relegaton on the last day of the season he'd make it sound like we'd just failed at the Alamo by the tiniest of margins.

[ngogswilly]

I think the fact that Rafa has embraced him as his favourite journalist means that any

objectivity has gone straight out the window.

[piscinin]

I like him he's about the only person who writes about liverpool who doesn't try and hoodwink / lie to you about having an agenda. He has one and at least he has the integrity to stick to it.

[Paul]

I like him he's about the only person who writes about liverpool who doesn't try and hoodwink / lie to you about having an agenda. He has one and at least he has the integrity to stick to it.

 

Most people who write regularly about Liverpool have a shared agenda - they want us to win the league. They might have differences of opinion about what is required to do so, but they're mostly all Reds.

[Little Sammy]

That bit about Lucas was the last straw for me. How the fuck could one suggest Alonso could "never" do what Lucas did at Blackburn? It's not like Lucas scored 5, created 7 and dashed across the byline for fun like a world-class winger. And what about his record going forward? The only goal he's scored this year was a peach of an own goal that cost us the game at home to Villa.

[Ted]

Alonso opened the socring at Blackburn in a similairly turgid game last season.

 

Shove that up your Lucas shaped pipe.