coachpotato

My mate in Northern Ireland is a big Hammers fan. He’ll be ecstatic and bricking it at the same time.

Is Rice playing?

Understand what you’re saying. We were the final straw. We were hardly the unfortunate ones though.

I think the way we spread the cunt accusations around the team is very fair and reassuring.

I’m probably being a complete amateur here, but surely when the semi finalists are known, a stadium could be selected to suit? UEFA could have two standing by, one larger than the other, and make the final choice based on a calculation of who is most likely to go through and what their average gate is? A minimum capacity of 25-30k should be standard, even UEFA should still make a bit in backhanders and black market sales with that number. What?

In comparison, Prenton Park is 16,587. So what is practically a division 2 ground selected for a UEFA Final. It’s not even the biggest stadium in Prague. It would be good to hear the rationale from UEFA on that choice, especially if there’s any problems. Not that there are any problems when UEFA organise finals. What?

It’s very unlikely VAR is going away. So what can improve the current shitshow, or the imbeciles that use it to decide issues during a game? Firstly, the rules probably need better definition. For offside, I’d make it that if there’s a clear gap between the attacking player and last defender, then it’s offside, if any part of their bodies are aligned or crossing then it’s not offside. That should give the attacker the advantage as only one line is required to determine if there’s a gap or not. For handball, the person committing the offence has to :- a) be facing the direction the ball has come from, b) has to have been deemed able to have moved their arm/hand out of the way, but hasn’t done so, c) have not moved the torso towards the path of the ball or d) to not have had their arm/hand alongside or behind their torso. Maybe they’re not definitive, but they should hopefully make the decision making for those offences quicker. For dangerous play, if the offending player has caught the affected player anywhere on their body with their studs showing, at any height, or deliberately tripped or kicked the affected player, regardless of having touched the ball then it can be deemed dangerous and a red card offence. That might reduce the incidences of stamping on a players standing foot/ankle (becoming more prevalent), “over the top” tackles where the tackling player allows the foot to contact the top of the ball before the affected player, or so called “professional” fouls as committed by players to prevent break aways or high tackles such as the Mings one on Gakpo. But the one thing that might also improve VAR would be to allow the conversation between officials to be heard so their reasoning for their decisions can be assessed.

I have been of the opinion that it’s not VAR but those using it to interpret the incidents that are causing the uproar. It should be a great tool for getting the big decisions right, however, even big decisions aren’t referred in some cases and that negates any use of VAR as an arbiter of games. The offside and handball rules have become a standing joke because they aren’t used in the same way for each game. One simpleton at Stockley Park will adjudge a handball where it hits someone’s hand without them knowing it was going to, another won’t. That’s what’s ruining the use of it. If it was removed however, would those who feel Webb and his cohorts are biased against us be any less inclined to think that?

I doubt if any club would have taken the number of fans we did, that far, at that time of the week, bearing in mind it was in the middle of a working week and was a two day trip minimum. Me and mine ended up getting sorted for travel by a Celtic supporting lad from a Blackburn travel agent, and he told me he’d been up pretty much through the night from the Saturday before the game right up to the Tuesday sorting flights and ferry bookings for people all over Europe. He said there was a general consensus from him and other people he knew in the travel game that they’d not seen anything like it before. It couldn’t have been held any further away and still been in Europe really, yet estimates were that we took certainly 50,000 minimum, but more like 70,000 over there. Taksim Square was just rammed with Reds as I recall.

Aye, brand new turnstiles that didn’t recognise the codes on the tickets. I was waved in by a “steward” who hardly looked at the ticket, it’s in a drawer somewhere still complete. No water or food available either apparently. I’m sure if it was left to UEFA they’d fuck a new cunt up.

Sabiah Gocken it was called. The missus and kids went through there as they were on charters, they said it was grim and it was just as well we won.

Likely a bloo on the wind up?

I posted that before all the shit in the stadium car park and the attack on Taylor and his family happened. There’s no excuse for the type of behaviour those fans and Mourinho showed, none at all. They should have the book thrown at them, but that won’t happen. Taylor is still a crap referee though.

I was assuming Trent and two in midfield, if playing a three there. Klopp appears happiest with a 4-3-3 I think, but I’m sure Trent is talented enough to play in whatever position Jurgen wants him to. I’m old school regarding formations, I believe primarily you don’t concede, that way you don’t lose, but obviously you need to have enough going forwards to score because equally, if you don’t score you don’t win. We we’re at our most effective under Klopp when we had a four at the back, the advantage being the midfield three protected sufficiently enough to allow the full backs to attack and supplement the front three, but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to have that setup again with the players we have or might buy. Someone said the other day, I think it was in the Bobby thread, we’ll not see a team with the abilities of Fabinho, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Mane, Firmino, Salah, Robertson and Trent combining as they did, again. It was a once in a lifetime team. So we have to rebuild and who knows what Klopp has got up his sleeve?

Aye, got a bit sidetracked there! Trent is, arguably, the one world class outfield player we currently have going forwards, that is assuming Mo might not be here in 2 years or so. Alisson is a keeper obviously not an outfield player. No doubting Trent’s attacking and creative prowess, but there’s still some doubts about his defensive qualities, where he’s looked disinterested at times, and he looked rejuvenated when placed in that midfield role. I believe you shouldn’t try to put round pegs in square holes, we’ve tried that in the past and it doesn’t work, so a decision has to be made as to which of the two positions Trent is going to play in, which I suspect would be in midfield, and another player used in the place he’s not going to be playing in. So probably a different right back, if we’re having a back four, with him in midfield, as a quarterback style player who can pick the passes out for the forwards to be got in behind defences, and where he can use his shooting abilities more.

While understanding some of the reasons why we’ve had such an “off” season, I think that it was so poor that it took most by surprise. It did me. I wouldn’t be at all surprised then if, after a decent summer in the transfer market, a good break and some time to work together, we came back strong next season and surprised a few who might think we’ll not be much improved. The sticking point will be the transfer market activity, who comes in, who goes out (which has started already) and how quickly the business gets done to maximise time together. Based on last season, a CL qualification and a cup win would likely be acceptable to most, plus an improvement in playing style and as long as the qualification doesn’t leave us 20 points behind the eventual league winners, very likely to be City. Nothing like a bit of optimism, is there!

Guy dismissed for Hamburg for a high boot on a Stuttgart players thigh, not really hard contact, but I guess, in comparison, Mings would have been given life instead of a yellow.

Getting there shouldn’t be a problem and I’ve got friends who live in the North. I usually drive and take a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin to get to theirs, but for that game it’d likely be either a ferry over from Cairnryan or Birkenhead to Belfast/Larne and then drive down for the game on the day. So, a) the team just have to get there now, and b) I have to get tickets. Piece of piss then. Getting mockered to death this final isn’t it.

I can’t feel sorry for Taylor, or many of our officials, placed in that situation. They get bullied by European teams more used to using shithouse tactics than anything they encounter in the Premier League and they put up with it, yet when they officiate in the PL, they allow the likes of Newcastle to get away with time wasting and feigning injury which actually penalises teams like ours more, who tend to get on with the game and at least try to provide something for the fans to watch. 14 yellow cards dished out and 25 minutes of added time across the entire game. Hard to imagine there wasn’t a red in there somewhere that might have made the two teams come to their senses had it been used, and while the referees are supposed to officiate on what is in front of them, I can’t help but think sometimes what they are thinking when they see skullduggery going on in front of them.

Didn’t even know that the game was on last night. Such is my apathy for this season. I do, of course, know that City are involved in two more games somewhere because the press and tv keep going on about it. Has Mac Allister signed yet?

Thatcher couldn’t ban English teams quickly enough, she made Bert Millichip the mouthpiece but she undoubtedly was the driver. UEFA made it indefinite on June 2nd but later commuted this to five years for everyone else and six years for us. Ted Croker said it was to be applauded until we got our house in order.

Microcosm of the season. Don’t agree with the Gakpo-Sterling comparison though. Sterling usually misses them. Everyone , and I mean everyone, knows we need a big summer. Owners most of all. If we don’t get a big summer, I think we can assume, safely, that FSG don’t give a fuck about winning stuff. If that’s the case they really should go. City are likely title winners again (meh) but there are other shiny things to win and we need to be in there competing. It’s what we exist for. Player of the season is Alisson, notable mention to D. Usher for reporting on the little good stuff and the myriad shit stuff with such brevity. Oh, and thanks again Bobby.

Win a few pre-season friendlies or the American Samoan Tournament Trophy more like.

The game today is much faster than it was back in the 70’s & 80’s, but then it was also allowed to be much more physical. Today’s pitches are like bowling greens in comparison to the Baseball ground or others that were more like ploughed fields. George Best slaloming his way through mud while being hacked at by yard dog defenders before slotting the ball away is testament to the different skills and tactics that there were then compared to now. That doesn’t make todays players any more or less skilled or able, they’re fitter because they aren’t kicked as badly and have better surfaces to display their skills, because their kit is more refined and because medically they are better looked after. That shouldn’t detract from the players from years ago who didn’t have the luxuries of the players of today.

All of the above is true. A mate I was with was knocked almost unconscious by a lump of concrete thrown from the running track by a Juve hoodie, yet I’ve got photo’s of us with Juve fans in the city, the same lad swapped his shirt with one of them, we had a couple of beers, shook hands and went on our merry way. The missus was at the Rome game ( I couldn’t go) and the group she was in were stoned and battered after the game and the Carabieneri watched and did fuck all about it. She was terrified and wasn’t the only one. Peter Robinson did complain to UEFA about the state of the ground, he went with a party from Liverpool that included Council Leaders and Merseyside Police, all who made a joint appeal for the game to be held elsewhere, I’m not sure but I think that fat faced fuck Graeme Kelly was also approached but, like UEFA, he did fuck all. Where we went for a drink in the city beforehand, there were NF flyers on tables outside one bar, but every hooligan was deemed to be from Liverpool in the aftermath, I remember Sir John Smith saying Chelsea fans were involved but he was shouted down and never repeated the accusation. My cousin was in the Army in Germany at the time and told me there were squaddies who got passes to go to the game, and at that time, our Rhineland forces were apparently known for having rucks with any bunch of foreigners they could cross. The security at the ground was an absolute farce, as was the supposed segregation and I’m sure there are loads of other “coincidences” that could be mentioned, but, as I said in my original post, there’s never one contributory reason for disasters to happen, it’s almost always a combination of events and the stand out one at that game was the eventual charge from our side into the neutral area that was populated mainly by Juventus fans, the result of which was 39 deaths. Had the charge not happened, despite all of the other contributory factors, it’s very likely the game would have been yet another marred by violent disorder, but again, I feel there would have been deaths eventually. Who knows, it might have even been our blue brethren who could have been at fault the very next season. There but for the grace of God etc. hey?