Hoddy

Just a point, but when Cisse miscontrols a ball (which is often) no-one in the ground says much about it. When Crouch miscontrols (not often you have to say), a large majority of Anfield - the kid's home ground by the way - start muttering and grumbling. I don't care what you say about mentality, but that can't help. I wouldn't mind this negativity on a forum, but it seems that this thinking is seeping through to matches, and is totally miscontstructive in helping a player - whose confidence remember, has been wrecked not by playing for Liverpool, but by outside influences.

On the way back from the ground the other day I had to endure an hour of utter Talksport drivel. We'd just won 3-0 with a commanding performance and all Liverpool 'fans' wanted to talk about was when we should sell Peter Crouch. And then we wonder why the lad's got no confidence. He knows the first bad touch or missed shot he hits will be ridiculed for weeks ahead. It's not fair, and the guy's not starting on a level playing field.

Cue loads of piss-funny never-heard-that-one-before Sun, Mirror, double-entendres about Crouch's size.

He's as good a ref as I've seen in years. What with the sending off for racism, Rooney's dismissal for in-your-face petulance and the way he doesn't always fall for continental diving (if memory serves me right he was the one who booked the Porto player in front of the Kop wasn't he?), he deserves a fair bit of credit.

A great read that - cheers for posting the full interview. It defies the tabloid-like title of the thread though – not to mention various other headlines cropping up all over the national media recently – as he only simply states that defence is easier to sort out and get organised than the attacking side of things. And which top manager in the world wouldn't do this anyway? Of course defence is key.

By the way, I couldn't help but smile at the first part of his answer to question eight. 'For sure'. Ha ha, you can just imagine him cocking his head back and smiling as he does it. Funny as.

Family Guy (and also American Dad) will be on BBC2 very shortly.

Crouchamaniacs are devout fans, stats and perfomances mean fuck all.

Very similar to your repeated bouts of AlcaKewellism I suppose.

… every article or commentary relating to Peter Crouch having some jibe in it about his height? Ok, we get it people, the guy's quite tall. Jesus, give it a fucking rest will you?

The other week on Five Live, the first six or seven times Crouch touched the ball, Jimmy Armfield made some reference to the lad's size, at one point even going as far to say "Well at the end of the day he's just a beanpole isn't he?" I kid you not, the nation's number one radio football team employed someone to say that.

It's getting to the stage where it's bordering on distaste now. Every headline, every piece of commentary, every interview question - I don't know why Crouchie's not ran his Mania wild yet and just stuck a forearm in someone's face. Can you imagine the outcry if Armfield had said, "Well Alan, at the end of the day he's just a little midget isn't he?" or "Hoy Moley Alan, how black is Ruel Fox?"

Why not? It's just the same - physical description. Yet because Crouch is tall and thin it's all somehow ok?

So what happens in the film? Let me guess:

 

Guy from poor background moves a long way from home.

Has a few difficulties settling in.

Comes good after a while and scores some blinding goals and shows south american skills.

Meets a girl.

Starts to have personal problems, loses focus.

Falls in love.

Regains focus, scores a last minute winner in a crucial game and dedicates it to his newly found love who's sitting in the crowd.

Uncannily close mate. Although substitute the last-minute winner dedication to his dead dad, who was 'watching him from the sky' and you've got yourself a story.

To be honest about half-way through I was thinking how it wasn't all that bad. Then the cheese started seeping through like a fondu party in Cheshire and the shit really hit the fan.

In my defence, Anna Friel was fit and, because I went to university in the Toon (and fucking hell do I hate that word), it was a nostalgic treat to see its landscape shots on film. But no-one will learn that you cannot, you should not ever simulate football on camera. It's one sport that's just too ridiculous to film. Of course it would have helped had they sought an actor who looked like he'd kicked a ball in his life, rather than Laurent Robert's midget bulldog lovechild.

It won't make it to the third film, I'm pretty sure of that. The second will peeter through the box-office and the third will just be a pipe-dream. One thing that did please me though when I walked out of the cinema - I'm so glad Liverpool stayed the fuck away (except getting beaten in the last minute by a right-footed player with a left-footed free-kick to miss out on a Champions League place, but hey, that's not our fault). There wasn't a Geordie stereotype that wasn't unturned in the whole two hours and it would have been painful to sit through 118 mins of big black curly hair and 'calm down's'. Mind you, watching Freddie Shepherd's greasy reptilian nobhead noggin on film was bad enough.

What the fuck is Rafa doing!? 2-1 up and we go and lose 3-2? Messiah? Mebollocks is what he is. For fuck's sake! Newcastle are riddled with injuries, they've got a Mexican/Argentine/Yank gimp thespian who's obviously never kicked a ball in his life, and who does Rafa pick? Pellegrino?! Guy's so slow he hasn't even realised he's been released. And Milan?! Fucking hell mate, if you'd get your head up once in a while you'd realised you were supposed to be playing in Birmingham you greedy fucker. For fuck sake, I feel like I've got bullets in my chest watching this shit! The less said about our captain the better - one minute he's Steven Gerrard, Captain Marvel, bursting through the Geordies' back line, the next he's wandering around the pitch looking like some little no mark from some film-extra studio somewhere. Get it sorted Stevie lad. And Scott Carson… fuck me how stupid can you get? It was the same fucking free-kick bell-end!!! The same free-kick! From the same corner of the box! Into the same fucking corner of the fucking god damn net! Only this time it was from the left-foot of a guy who was playing right wing, was a renowned right-winger, and who'd only used his right-foot the entire time he'd been on screen.

Progress? Fuck me it's gonna be a long season,

And sack the board.

The guy has absolutely everything you need to be a top-class striker.

Everything except a good first touch, aerial ability, positional sense, vision, tact, patience, composure…

… Cisse has manic pace and a hefty shot. Neither of which constitute paying £14million, and I would rather his love for the club be displayed on the pitch than in zany interviews and features.

Fucking hell - I completely forgot they had SWP. I was so far away when he came on that, after seeing the complete ease with which my man Djimbo handled him, I just assumed it was Geremi. Djimi Traore is the best left back we've had in fucking years - and I don't even think it'll ultimately prove to be his best position. He'll do a Carra and switch to the middle eventually, becoming twice the player he is now for his experience on the flank.

Paul, I thought Djimi was superb yesterday, and almost flawless in his marshalling of their sixty-seven hundred million billion pound wingers, but do you still think his best position is centre-back? He was beaten twice in the air by SWP in the second-half and misjudged two pretty easy headers in the first. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy and still think he's our no.1 left-back and was one of the stand-outs from a match where no Liverpool player performed badly - I just really can't see him being a dominant force at centre-half.

The worst thing about this is inconsistency. At the beginning of the article he's raising eyebrows at Benitez's 'excuse' of tiredness, then later stating…

"With Frank Lampard having to defend himself against allegations of a slow start to the season, England’s top two midfield players are betraying signs of weariness."

The thing is, I thought articles were meant to have a point. What was his?

Early Doors is quality. Most underrated comedy on TV at the moment. That monologue about the dwarfs was brilliant.

Crouch: You mean Louise said…?

Jamie: Yep. She's a Crouchamaniac.

Crouch: Oh brother. Watchya gonna do?

Apart from Rafa obviously, this guy is my favourite manager in the Premiership right now. He won my respect with his lack of bemoaning last year's robbery vs Man Utd, and now he seems to be turning a team around through youth and vibrant football.

I wish he was my friend, so that I could ring him up when I am bored and get him to say silly things in his porn-comedy dialect.

Yeah they're not bad people, but talk football and they're fuckchumps - the lot of them. They'll honestly believe they have a chance of winning the league now, I kid you not. They love their heroes, they idolise their heroes... until he has a shit game in which case shoot the fucker and throw him off the Tyne bridge.

I hate that club, and their fans, and their chairman, with a passion of a thousand bare-breasted, big-titted, saggy bitch-wip-wapped Geordies. They are the comedy club of the Premiership and will be even funnier this time next year.

He has the ability to win us European Cups.

Not good enough - Crouch and Zenden(when played on the left)

 

Not needed - Sissoko (no matter how good he was we still spent 5 million on a player that wasn't a priority while we're scratching around to sign [players for the problem positions on a shoestring)

Are we though? Is it that we can't afford the top top players or is it that they don't exist? Surely the Figo deal broke down, not because we couldn't afford him, but because we weren't into getting bummed (again) by Madrid. And apart from Wright-Phillips - whose most ardent fans will admit was massively overpriced - who else was there for us to go for?

He is going to play for one of the worst managers in the league. That's his loss.

You can stick my name down for it.

personally Hoddy, although i understand your scepticism, i think he will become a great centreforward. he needs to improve for definate, but he can definately do it. he has an awesome shot, great pace and great athleticism. he also has confidence and i think the finer points can be worked on. playing him on the wing will do neither him, nor us, any favours at all.

Yeah I see your point - I can't help but laugh at the guy. His antics at the CL final were probably the funniest I have ever seen on a football pitch and, like I said, he'll score goals because he's got bagloads of confidence and an ego the size of Frohdsham Manor (sp?). And after enduring years of the timidity of Heskey, it's good to see a centre-forward with massive balls who wants to be a part-time pimp on top of being a footballer.

Yeah maybe so, and I know that he'll score goals for us this year, but I just can't rate him as an actual footballer. His touch mings and he's just not got the intricate skill of Baros to get past people. I'm not denying his enthusiasm or pleasure in playing for us, just that I've not seen anything from him that suggests he's a top-class centreforward. What do you think about him?

Like it Rob - and I can sympathise myself being a work-only viewer on here. Thought a lot of what you said was true, but something that I've not seen many people talk about is the fact that our last half of the 2nd half tactics (i.e. Cissé crossing in for Baros) were totally wrong. If that was the plan of attack, surely Morientes should have been kept on the pitch. I find it hard to rate Cissé as a footballer at all, so I don't agree with the opinion that he should have played in the centre. He is just a 100m runner with a first-touch more devastating than Peter Sutcliffe's. However, he did zip a couple of gorgeous crosses into the box that would have been buried had Morientes still been on the pitch.

Wasn't blown away by it to be honest, but no doubt it'll get better. Agree with Joey that the characterisation is goddamn awful lazy, but there's so many of them there that it'll rarely get boring. The guy behind it is the same guy who created 'Alias' so I'm expecting the coming months to be packed to the hill full of twists and turns.

I agree. Give this guy a year, in which time Hamann will be probably just about done with us and Benitez can sort Sissoko's tactical awareness, I reckon he'll be an awesome addition. He's got all the right attributes and seems to be able to get everywhere.

Its on ITV1 and blueshite are on ITV2 I think - this is still tbc but it will happen

 

Luke

No it won't. There's no game on ITV1. Everton are on ITV2. Man Utd are on BBC1 and Sky will announce in the next day or so.