I’d like to thank everyone for their warm congratulations and presents, which will set us off to a fine start in our semi-detached, suburban, life-of-mediocrity-hell . . . I’d like to thank the bridesmaids, who look wonderfully fuckable, and I should know . . SentientMeat – You’d be 4th now had you won on Saturday. I wonder if that’s half the problem, the size of Houllier’s mismanagement is disguised by the mediocrity of the Prem (outside the top three). Fwiw, I think he’s lost at least half the dressing room, probably much more.
Worse still, you haven’t got a ‘hard’ game now until January. This could go on all season, by which time you may have ‘lost’ Owen.
From here, I say sack him if he loses against Wolves or Bolton and give it to Phil Thompson until the end of the season when Martin O’Neill can sort it out - but does Moores have the bollocks ? He hasn’t shown it so far (didn’t he inherit the business/the money ?)
Well, herein lies the difference between us. I would offer Spurs as the quintessential sacking club, and look where it has left them for the past decades.
Houllier has made progress year on year, and I feel patience will eventually be rewarded especially since so many key playes have been injured this season. Loyalty to the point of stupidity is, I find, a curiously charming scouse trait.
I would offer West Ham as the quintessential non-sacking club. Perhaps, instead, it’s a complicated set of issues that can’t be compressed into “sacking clubs” and non-sacking clubs ?
Someone made the point over the weekend that, if you take away the two key strikers from ManU, you’d also have the problems Liverpool have. The difference is, imho, those strikers - when they come back from injury - want to play for the manager.
I guess my other point is that I suspect my Gran could make progress “year on year” with, what is it, £50 million of new players in the five years ?
Fwiw, I think he has some very important and valuable strengths, but taking Liverpool to the next level isn’t one of them - wrong ‘skill set’ components imho.
I keep running across the term ‘kop’. What does it mean?
Am I the only one who is getting increasingly annoyed by the practice of defensemen throwing their arm up and looking oer at the linesman whenver a ball is played through? AS a corrollary to that is the continual attempts to claim the ball off an opponent out of bounds even in the most obvious cases.
The Kop is the name of one of the stands at Anfield. Actually, I think there may be a couple Kops in England (it’s a reference to the Boer War, someone else can explain it in greater detail) but the Anfield Kop is the famous one.
And yeah, I never understand why defenders do that either. Do linesmen ever say “Oh, they all have their arms up, it must be offside?”
Full name Spion Kop, named after a mountain which was the site of a battle in the Boer War. There are or were quite a few of them. Another famous one is Leeds United’s, but Liverpool’s is the Kop.
Re the ‘defensemen’ (:D) and their arm-raising, you should have seen Arsenal in the late 80s / early 90s. They had spring-loaded arms, that lot. Are you saying that in US sports the teams don’t employ a bit of gamesmanship every now and then?
I guess the next natural question would be what is the connection between the Spion Kop and naming the stands at Anfield (and elswhere) by this term?
Certainly, US Sports teams do similar things, doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying, especially the way it is such a reflex for so many defencemen. If anything, offside is called too much (i.e. too often when it isn’t offside) then the opposite.
If i remember correctly the stands were named in the spirit of rememberence - kind of a memorial to the lost men. Obviously the battle is long since forgotten, so its only really the older grounds that still have “kops” - these days a football club is more likely to name a stand after a corporate sponsor than some meaningful event.
Someone a while back (owl?) posted a link to a guy (dutch i think) who was taking photo’s of England’s old and dying football grounds. There was more info about this practice on that site.
Interestingly, it was one of the Battles were Churchill was personnally present as a Journalist.
It seems that a great deal of the fighting/losses involved Regiments from the North of England - particularly Lancashire. That probably explains way you get a few “Kops” up north.
Actually it is - it was. It happened during the 3rd Afgan War (1880) when an Oldham regiment routed the enemy whilst armed only with dodgy Chicken & Mushroom Pies.
Hartlepool United’s stand was zeppelined in WW1, and it has still not been rebuilt. ( I went to a wine bar in Hartlepool that didn’t serve wine, as it was a “poof’s drink”)
Question - Given that:
[ul]
[li]It would have to be Restraint of Trade if the FA/UEFA/FIFA tried to prevent referees from Europe plying their trade in the Premiership. [/li][li]The dire consequences of relegation (possibly by a point lost to a dodgy penalty decision)[/li][li]The amount of money washing through Premiership clubs (as witnessed by the wage bills)[/li][li]The frequency with which managers criticise referees[/li][li]The number of European players, managers and coaches and, now, the start of foreign ownership of Premiership clubs[/li][/ul]
Why don’t the FA contract people like Colina and that Danish bloke Neilson (assuming the Ref’s want to) to fly over once/twice a week, give ‘em £80,000 a year and the option of a monthly romp with Ulrika ?
I suppose there are reasons, I just don’t know what they are . . .
btw, has this debate been had in the media and I missed it ?
There ARE moves afoot to get the likes of Collina reffing here, and some of our boys going to foreign countries. I don’t think it’s a done deal yet though.
I’d like to see Collina vs Robbie Savage.
A bloke I used to sit next to at WHL ran a chain of chemists. At that time Graham Poll was a salesman for a toothbrush company. Every time Poll reffed THFC and had a howler (ie EVERY BLOODY TIME) the bloke would make an enquiry about stocking the toothbrushes, and mention that he was a football fan. The company would send Poll and the bloke would berate him at great length about his forthcomings.
Not that refs are bised or anything but it is more than ten years since the away team scored a penalty at Man Utd (it was Ruel fox - for norwich).