By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 08 Feb 2006

The answer to our prayers are coming on February 18th: our chance to savour the sweet joy of revenge. Yes boys and girls, Man Ure are coming to town for the 5th round of the F.A. Cup. And yes, boys and girls, the match will be shown live via satellite at LSPH. Doors open at 04:00am; kick off at 04:30am, usual cover charge of $10 in effect. That’s really early for a Saturday morning match (or should I be saying late for a Friday night?).

Now is the time for all true Reds to show that neither lack of sleep nor absence of public transit shall stand in the way of seeing this one. Car pooling is recommended; we’ll try to have some more information on that by next week. I’ll be there, so will Kevin “this is nothing compared to a trip to Istanbul” Parnell, and Paul “webmaster” Gill, as well as lots of other dedicated, if slightly crazy, Reds. So no excuses please, just be there with us to cheer our lads onward to victory and let’s make it an event to remember.

But first, let’s get in the proper mood for this one with a few appropriate thoughts about our opposition:

“A bully who thinks he is bigger than the game, an erratic old man who has lost his way in the transfer market, selling gold and buying dross … Sir Alex is becoming more and more of a music-hall turn.”
David Mellor in the Evening Standard, 12 March, 2004.

“A strange bloke, irritated by everyone, I think.”
Gary Lineker gives his impression of SAF in 1996.

And finally:

Q. What’s the difference between Alex Ferguson and God?
A. God doesn’t think he’s Alex Ferguson.

Keep watching this space; I’ll be back with more next week.

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 09 Feb 2006

By this time we should be sitting comfortably in second place, chasing Chel$ki above us and putting some point between us and the lower places. We should have taken all three points against Birmingham; we should have taken the points at Man Ure. We might have taken at least a point against Chel$ki, and we should have taken all three against Charlton. We might be forgiven for a slip up here and there, including only the one point at Bolton, but not the run of poor form that we find ourselves in now. We have only picked up five points out of a possible eighteen since the beginning of the year. With that we now find ourselves firmly in third place, only one point ahead of Tottenham in fourth. We still have one game in hand, but that’s not much consolation if we don’t win it. This has to turn around quickly, we have FA Cup and Champions League matches coming up in the next couple of weeks, as well as a crowded schedule of Premier League matches. If we don’t get back to winning ways, and if we continue to leak goals like we have recently, I’m not sure we’ll even finish in the top four.

What can I say about last Sunday’s match at Stamford Bridge? A lot, of course, but I won’t bother repeating everything that’s already been said. I’ll try to give it my own unique perspective and then we’ll see if you agree or disagree with my point of view.

A couple of unrelated memories surfaced last Sunday night as I was thinking back on the match that I had just witnessed. The first one comes from many years ago, during one of those family visits to Liverpool and the joy of a trip to Anfield. I don’t remember the players involved, the final score, or anything else from this one. The incident that will never leave me happened late in the match when the ball was passed forward down the right wing toward the corner flag. One player from each side went after it and collided heavily, both of them going down in a heap, with the ball getting away from them. As each player tried to be the first to get up and get moving, the other was equally determined to hold him back. A wrestling match ensued between the two of them while the play went on, now some distance away from them. Other players started to get involved and it looked like it could turn ugly. A loud chorus of boos rose up from the Kop, followed by a chant of “we want football, we want football” I didn’t understand that at the time but later came to realise that the supporters were simply saying that they wanted to see fair play football, not players wrestling with each other. That’s something that persists to this day.

The other memory is that my first exposure to NHL hockey was a shock to say the least. Players were blatantly using their sticks to poke, spear and trip skaters of the other team as much as possible without the referee seeing them. Players would grab opposing players’ sticks, or hold them back by hooking their sticks around the other players’ bodies, away from the referee’s line of sight of course. The odd time that the referee did see something, he would usually ignore it unless it was clearly impeding the player, or bringing him down on the ice completely, or if it was clearly dangerous (helmets and face shields were not as common back then). The practice of “clutching and grabbing” was typically used by the lesser talented teams as a way to even things up against the more skilled opposition. Another part of the game was “intimidation.” Players would push and shove, rub a glove or elbow in the face, and generally harass the opposing player with a few threats and offers to “drop the gloves” any time. The problem was that it usually worked, but it ruined the flow of the game. Eventually, the League commissioners said “enough is enough.” Fans were starting to complain, and I think rightly so, that if you paid a day’s wages to see Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Pavel Bure, etc. then you should be able to see them play without some bunch of goons stopping them by illegally holding, poking, tripping and so on. The referees were instructed to crack down on all such practices, and were to no longer let it go unpunished. Of course, the physical intimidation remains; the league doesn’t want to take the “toughness” out of the game, which might make some people think that these guys are wimps. Anyway, the game has benefited from the attempted removal of holding, clutching, grabbing, and assorted cheap shots. The whole purpose of these and other changes is that the League governors are trying to speed up the game and make it more entertaining. What a concept!

Sunday’s Premier League match of the week was between two of the best teams in Europe. On the one hand, you have a club that has been a dominant force in England and in Europe for over one hundred years, with more trophies than any other English club, especially over the last forty years. A club that has built itself up by achieving one success at a time, and then building on that to go on to further success. On the other hand, we have a team that has only had moderate success with a few trophies spread over their hundred year history. This is a club that has suddenly become rich beyond the wildest dreams of any other English club. A billionaire owner goes on a spending spree bringing in the best talent that can be found, with price being no object. With this amount of money available, a team can be put together that should be capable of beating anybody and winning anything and everything. The amount of talent that such money can buy is staggering, if not frightening. So why is it then that these guys resort to all the cheap crap like holding, shoving, elbowing, or just generally cheating? I don’t believe that this is what the fans want to see. Or is it? If it can be taken out of hockey then surely we can take it out of football. We, as true fans of the game, don’t want to see it spoil a good match, but maybe there are some who do. I don’t know, it could be a north-south difference or something, or maybe just a Merseyside thing.

I lost count of the number of incidents on Sunday. There was the blatant Carvalho elbow in Kewell’s face, the forearm to Crouch when he went up for the corner, holding Crouch to prevent him from jumping up for the ball, as well as the pushing, shirt pulling, grabbing and so on at every set piece. Then we had the ultimate circus event less than ten minutes from time. Eidur Gudjohnsen was chasing the ball toward the corner, all alone. Reina was the only one capable of reaching him and off he went in chase. Was I the only one to see Gudjohnsen use his hand to control the ball? Why didn’t the linesman see it? Then, when Reina crashed into him to get the ball away, I thought for a moment that the linesman was simply giving a throw-in. But of course, any tackle from behind is going to result in a foul and may even result in a yellow card to the offending player (Reina in this case). Chel$ki are 2-0 up with less than ten minutes to go. Why not relax, knowing that this one is over, and rest up before the next match in a couple of days? But no, Robben has to jump in and antagonise Reina, receiving a light tap for his cheek. Down he goes as if he just took one to the jaw from Todd Bertuzzi. Red card to Reina, game over for us and a three match ban for Pepe. Are you proud of yourself Arjen?

That Oscar worthy performance ranks up there with Rivaldo’s collapse in the 2002 World Cup Semi Final. Rivaldo was waiting to take a corner kick, taking his time with Brasil winning against Turkey. Hakan Unsal tries to speed things up and kicks the ball firmly over to Rivaldo with the ball striking him on the shins. Rivaldo collapses in a heap, clutching his face and rolling in feigned agony. It worked, the referee bought the performance, Unsal was sent off. We saw this players “talent” during last year’s match against Olympiakos at Anfield. When they went ahead, with a superbly taken free kick from Rivaldo, he spent the rest of the match trying to get another free kick by collapsing as soon as a red shirt came near him, and taking his time to recover from fake injuries. But then after Stevie G. scored the vital goal to put us through, no more of that was seen. Suddenly he was able to stay on his feet. One of the best players in the world and he resorts to this kind of garbage display.

Liverpool recently had a player who quickly tarnished his own image by cheating. That was El Hadji Diouf of course. He came to Liverpool with great promise as a fast, skilful player, who could carve up opposition defences and make precision passes to create goals. His two greatest skills turned out to be precise accuracy in spitting at players, and diving to the ground in hopes of getting a free kick or a penalty. It was no surprise when he was sent out on loan to Bolton; and then no surprise when he was released permanently. This was not a player that fit with the Liverpool way. We simply don’t want these types of players in a red shirt; they’ll have to find somewhere else to play. It’s a shame (for everyone) that Chel$ki don’t have the same attitude toward a habitual diver like Robben.

One last thing about Chel$ki: If you had the money that Roman Abramovich has, and if you thought nothing of spending a hundred or so million pounds to buy players in the past year, and if you paid those players so much money that your club showed an operating loss of some hundred and forty million pounds, and if you had so much money that even those huge sums of money were just petty cash, then wouldn’t you be willing to spend a few pounds on installing a decent pitch? One of the best stadiums in Europe, with some of the highest priced and highest paid players and they are expected to play in mud?

Yes, I was literally seeing red toward the end of that match and then feeling blue for the rest of the evening. It didn’t improve much after the Charlton disaster today but somehow I’m still optimistic. We have suffered mid-season slumps before; in fact it’s been quite common for us in the past. We’ve yet to see some of the new players like Kromkamp, Agger and of course Fowler for a full ninety minutes yet; I’m sure Rafa has it in the plans to bring them into the squad now that they are needed. We still have a long way to go in the Premier League, fourteen matches to be precise with seven of those at home. Garcia is coming back into the line-up, and as long as we don’t suffer any serious injuries we should be able to finish strongly by the end of April / beginning of May. Maybe not as strongly as last year, but you just never know.

As of next season we've got a new sponsor -- or should I say we're going back to Adidas. Adidas has bought out current sponsors Reebok in Europe and here's a picture of what the new kit'll look like.

Personally, I remember some of those kits as being pretty bad (My 'Fowler 23' shirt with big itchy collar still sits in my closet, along with other Adidas anomalies for us) but their quality was sturdier than Reebok's as all my Reebok stuff starts to pill pretty quick. I do think the newer Reebok stuff is ace but Adidas could top it with the right kit. Hard to tell in photos but the collar looks dodgy.

More pros than cons for us Reds out on this side of the water, Adidas will have better availability and probably a bit cheaper, better marketed product (couldn't be worse than Reebok's CL shirt fiasco) and hopefully other perks will be available as well...especially for us Canadian supporters...

P Gill send us an email if you have anything to announce, sell, or would just like a rant/rave.