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The Ultimate FOOTBALL Thread (04/05)


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Looks like they/he reckon(s) all is happy at Liverpool now. That would be good.

 

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has reiterated his desire to stay at Anfield and win trophies with the club.

The 24-year-old England midfielder is determined to see out his contract, despite reported interest from Chelsea.

 

He said: "I'm signed here for this season and another two so there is no situation. There's a lot of speculation but that's not down to me.

 

"As club captain all I want to do is help us get back up the table and into the Champions League again."

 

Gerrard looked set to move to Chelsea during the summer and speculation of a switch to Stamford Bridge has again arisen, with the January transfer window approaching.

 

He raised doubts about his Reds future when he said he wanted the club to prove they were title challengers in the very near future or he might leave.

 

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez has insisted that Gerrard has promised him he wants to stay at Anfield.

 

Benitez said: "I said to Steven that I was sure he wanted to stay here and he said 'I do'.

 

If we are able to get hold of him, we'd be getting ourselves a great player

 

Gerrard on Fernando Morientes

"I then said to him 'Look, if you want to win titles, you want medals and you want Liverpool to have these things then I am going to need your help'.

 

"I really think he wants to stay so now what we must do is make the squad stronger for him."

 

 

Meanwhile, Gerrard has urged the Anfield board to sign Real Madrid striker Fernando Morientes in the January transfer window.

 

Morientes, 28, has already expressed a willingness to come to England.

 

Gerrard added: "He's a great player. He scores goals in the league, in cup competitions and also in the Champions League.

 

"I don't think he'd be able to play for us in Europe this season but if we are able to get hold of him, we'd be getting ourselves a great player.

 

"He'd have Spanish coaches, a Spanish manager and we have got three or four Spanish players here now so they'll help him settle in.

 

"Rafael Benitez knows what he wants and he knows how to strengthen the squad he's got and if the right players become available at the right price I am sure we will strengthen.

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Bugger. Having to listen to the "highlights" of the Liverpool Chelsea game on the radio and Five Live aren't broadcasting outside of the UK. mad.gif Good that it's 0-0 at half time. A 2nd half rush to a 4-0 win in the 2nd would be boss.

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Liverpool deserved a point in that game, definitely. It was definitely a penalty.

 

It looks like things really are going chelseas way this season.... but here's hoping still a long way to go

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I've been thinking that for ages now, they need to trip up soon. No real sign of it yet, though I think they were lucky at Anfield.

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Hey I thought the games were tonight not last night!!! eek.gif So I was a bit peeved to check out BBC just now and learn all the scores (not happy ones at that). I must study the schedule a bit better from now on. \:\(

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yeah, we beat Aston Villa and are now out of the drop zone.

 

Lots of people are today complaining about the Spurs goal robbing. You'd never hear a Palace fan complain.

 

The Totts couldn't beat Palace with a 1-1 result. And ManUPoofters couldn't beat the Totts, they couldn't even get a goal in!! init.

 

_39947678_crystal_palace_203.gif

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It was a ridiculous call, I couldn't believe it. But they're not going to be able to start going round with point fines.... there are too many crappy decisions made, where is the line drawn? Admittedly this one was way over the line, I think Carroll should have been honest and called it.

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Football the sport that draws a line at honesty

By Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer

 

ROY CARROLL is a cheat. He will not like the word, but we all have to face the consequences of our actions. Carroll, the Manchester United goalkeeper, dropped the ball. Goal. If Carroll failed to see that the ball had crossed the line, then he is even blinder than he seemed at the time.

Therefore, he should have signalled “goal” to the referee, explained the situation, allowed his side to lose the match and the point they gained for the draw, and allowed Tottenham Hotspur to gain the additional two points they would have got for the win. But it didn’t happen. Carroll got away with it.

 

Now the debate is about whether or not the linesman and referee were at fault and whether or not we should use video technology. Absolutely no part of the debate is concerned with the question of morality. Carroll’s cheating is wholly acceptable to football.

 

There are moments of conspicuous moral generosity in football, very rare and always treasured. Robbie Fowler attempted to refuse a penalty; Paolo Di Canio caught the ball rather than take a pot at goal when an opponent was injured. These incidents are treasured precisely because they are exceptional.

 

No one expected Carroll to admit that the ball had crossed the line. Such an idea has not even been considered. The answer to man’s faults, football tells us, is not by applying morality but technology. That seems to me a rum state of affairs. But then, of course, we have to ask the question: what would you do?

 

I remember an ancient cartoon in which a man buys himself a pint while agreeing with the barman: “Sporting of Barrington to give himself out.” He then realises that, having proffered a fiver, he had been given change for £10. “Bloody fool, Barrington.”

 

In every profession there are accepted — even enforced — dishonesties. When I was on local papers, I was given a rollicking by an Editor because my expenses were honest. He told me to send in fraudulent expenses in future: it wasn’t fair to everyone else. (Thus encouraged, I was soon fiddling like Yehudi Menuhin.)

 

In Test-match cricket, it has long been accepted that no batsman walks. But now the Australians, who invented the whole concept of non-walking, have started to walk. No one likes it: not only are Australia the best side in the world, they can now — justly — claim moral superiority as well. Nobody is following suit. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.

 

Cheating is now a part of football. You could blow a whistle at every corner and award a free kick or penalty, depending on choice. (Referees, being timid by nature, invariably opt for the former.) There is no moral censure for most forms of cheating in football: pinching a few yards at a free kick, delaying a free kick, tugging, pushing, blocking, obstructing. Players constantly seek to con the referee and praise those who succeed: “He used his experience and went down under the challenge.”

 

If referees blew the whistle for every offence, we wouldn’t get a game. Football is not played according to the rules, but to a vague consensus of what is and is not acceptable. Only deliberate, career-threatening violence is considered seriously immoral.

 

Carroll would have needed the courage of a martyr to call “goal”. We do not know what was in his mind at the time, but it is not as if his position as Manchester United’s No 1 goalkeeper is all that secure. Owning up would have threatened his standing in the team and his place in the professional game. Hardly surprising if this was too much for him.

 

Football is a game of institutionalised cheating, a game in which cheating is considered not only acceptable but moral. Carroll did the right thing for his team, therefore he did the right thing. The professionalising of sport makes such a moral viewpoint inevitable. We must accept that this is the way of things and, having done so, work out if we want football to continue or not.

 

Most of us, if we are reading these pages, probably do. Football is part of us. So we have a choice: do we seek to make football more moral, or do we seek to make football more workable? And no one has given a moment’s thought to making football more moral. It is a non-option.

 

The technology is there — use it. Moral: players only cheat when they think they can get away with it. Which is most of the time. And it’s a better game if we can stop them.

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I find diving and acting far more offensive than what Carroll did - even though I think he should have admitted to the ref it went over.

 

They should bring in the tech, and card divers and cheats. Nothing worse than getting a decision against you when some pancy boys been blatently overacting and getting away with it. mad.gif

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i think that decision shows the value of fergusons decision to always use mental mind tricks and generally 'being a bastard'. i mean the ref was too scared to give a very important 50/50 against man utd.

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Sorry bobby12, but I think that's just rubbish - yet another myth created by Man United haters.

 

That incident had absolutely nothing to do with Fergie or Old Trafford or anything. It was just shite refs and officials. It was a goal, keeper didn't admit it. End of story.

 

Tell me - if the ref was too scared of Fergie, why didn't United get the blatant penalty they should have got a minute later??????

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