Weekend games 15/16th may

[augie]

Yesterday's circus reminds me once again how lucky we are that the murdering scouse scum didn't beat villa in the cup semi's - if the hype yesterday was excessive, can you imagine the *****-a-thon if his last game was in the cup final ? Again I will say that I would rather have lost to reading in the semi's than to be the sideshow in stevie me's fa cup final victory

[Bradywasking]

Yesterday's circus reminds me once again how lucky we are that the murdering scouse scum didn't beat villa in the cup semi's - if the hype yesterday was excessive, can you imagine the *****-a-thon if his last game was in the cup final ? Again I will say that I would rather have lost to reading in the semi's than to be the sideshow in stevie me's fa cup final victory

In one of his insightful interviews this week Stevie said that playing the Cup Final on his birthday and it being his final game would have been or was too much for the players. In other words the Liverpool team were overwhelmed by the thoughts of playing in the Stevie Me final and maybe that is why they choked against Villa.

[Clash]

The whole Gerrard thing has been nauseating for years now. Maybe even from when he first got into the side but it certainly went into overdrive since the ''heroics'' of Istanbul in 2005 and the so called ''Gerrard final'' of 2006

Funny that Liverpool only won both of those finals on penalties though. Gerrard didnt even have to get the winning goal to have them associated with him. And his dive for the penalty against Milan is always so conveniently overlooked. Imagine the uproar if someone like Robben had done that against an English team.

As for yesterday, it was hilarious how much of an anti-climax it all was. Sky make me want to throw up with their contrived efforts to create drama out of anything remotely out of the ordinary so I wasn't surprised how embarrassingly OTT the whole thing was yesterday.

We are often told nobody does romanticism quite like Liverpool. What that really means is nobody else is anywhere near as self-indulgent and self-pitying as them. And the media buy into it far too easily and so strongly that is makes anyone who doesnt go along with it sound jealous and bitter.

To be honest, I actually do think Liverpool FC have an interesting history and have had some of the best players ever to have played. Definitely before the PL was formed anyway and far better players than Gerrard. Some of the games and occasions they were involved in during the 60s, 70s and 80s are classic stuff. I dont see any point in denying that.

But the way these days even the most minor hint of success is blown out of all proportion. Its as though the clouds have parted and the good times are returning and that this can only be good for the game. It is forced down everyone's throats so much that it makes me want them to fail every time. And they usually do.

25 years without a title. 17 of which which Gerrard has been there for and only once has he come close to winning it ... before his miscontrol led to a slip that blew it )

Good player? Yes. World class? No. Legend? LOL

[arseofacrow]

The whole Gerrard thing has been nauseating for years now. Maybe even from when he first got into the side but it certainly went into overdrive since the ''heroics'' of Istanbul in 2005 and the so called ''Gerrard final'' of 2006

Funny that Liverpool only won both of those finals on penalties though. Gerrard didnt even have to get the winning goal to have them associated with him. And his dive for the penalty against Milan is always so conveniently overlooked. Imagine the uproar if someone like Robben had done that against an English team.

As for yesterday, it was hilarious how much of an anti-climax it all was. Sky make me want to throw up with their contrived efforts to create drama out of anything remotely out of the ordinary so I wasn't surprised how embarrassingly OTT the whole thing was yesterday.

We are often told nobody does romanticism quite like Liverpool. What that really means is nobody else is anywhere near as self-indulgent and self-pitying as them. And the media buy into it far too easily and so strongly that is makes anyone who doesnt go along with it sound jealous and bitter.

To be honest, I actually do think Liverpool FC have an interesting history and have had some of the best players ever to have played. Definitely before the PL was formed anyway and far better players than Gerrard. Some of the games and occasions they were involved in during the 60s, 70s and 80s are classic stuff. I dont see any point in denying that.

But the way these days even the most minor hint of success is blown out of all proportion. Its as though the clouds have parted and the good times are returning and that this can only be good for the game. It is forced down everyone's throats so much that it makes me want them to fail every time. And they usually do.

25 years without a title. 17 of which which Gerrard has been there for and only once has he come close to winning it ... before his miscontrol led to a slip that blew it )

Good player? Yes. World class? No. Legend? LOL

Well summed up. Legend is just one of these words that 's flung around these days. I'd say better than good, though.

Sky's over the top acclaim is just another showcase for the EPL ( ).

And if anyone paid whatever the touts were asking for that game, you shouldn't be allowed to have money.

[Bradywasking]

Did Giggs or Scholes (either time) gret that adulation from Sky when they retired ? A pair of but at least they can show the medals

[SteveO 35]

Did Giggs or Scholes (either time) gret that adulation from Sky when they retired ? A pair of but at least they can show the medals

Perhaps not but I do think the Sky boys went into one of the biggest tugathons known to man when Giggs became caretaker manager after Agent Moyes left. When he first walked out in the manager's suit I thought Martin Tyler was going to spontaneously combust in the way Rodders does when we confirm 4th place

[Bradywasking]

City 2-0 at Swansea... guess its the third place trophy final later then

[mcdowell42]

1-0 City. Toure gives visitors the lead. Fabianski howler
Typical makes no howlers against us but waits till he gets home to make 1 against city.

[augie]

1-0 City. Toure gives visitors the lead. Fabianski howler
Typical makes no howlers against us but waits till he gets home to make 1 against city.

No way - the shot was deflected in off the knee of the big lumbering centre half (Williams) - flaps didn't have a chance

[SteveO 35]

City killing off the absolute wet dream of the 2nd place trophy.....and come 6pm we will be setting up a thread to see who we'll be playing in the Be All and End All losers play off match in August

[Bradywasking]

1-2 at halftime..Don't Stop Believing " we are still there for second place ..in what was a one horse race"

[SteveO 35]

Hold on......2-2 at the Liberty.....maybe I put the todger away too soon !

[Henry Norris 1913]

thats two goals flappy has donated today. fucking useless c-unt

[Bradywasking]

From Today's Telegraph.
Steven Gerrard's farewell coverage on Sky Sports was child's play

Liverpool captain's story was gripping enough without viewers being given Sky's predetermined version, writes Alan Tyers
If it was a party, then Jones was that loud bore you cannot get away from, yelling the same anecdote at you over and over again, trailing you from kitchen to drawing room to tell you how many miles he gets to the gallon and a funny thing a chap said to him on the golf course only last week. The outpouring of Gerrard love from the Liverpool fans pre‑match spoke for itself: it did not need Jones to lay it on with a trowel in the way that he did. One appreciates that it would be good business for everyone if Gerrard had a good match and scored a goal in his last Anfield game: it’s a simple, lovely story that even a child could grasp. However, that does not mean that everyone watching on the box has a reading age of six. When Crystal Palace, thoughtlessly and selfishly, went in at the interval on level terms, Jones was getting desperate. “Liverpool fans need a hero in the second half. I wonder if they can think of anyone who can save the day?” he said.
“Football doesn’t do sentimentality, does it?” mused Jamie Redknapp. The sport may not, but boy the television coverage was giving it a Gerrardian heroic effort to make up for shortcomings elsewhere.

The bald facts of the Sky Sports broadcast showed a Liverpool side once again turned over at home by moderate opposition, with Steven Gerrard quiet and distant from the main action in a deep holding role ahead of a callow defence, and those ahead of him who must now fill his boots more anonymous yet. But, as commentator Alan Parry and host David Jones were at pains to stress, this was not so much about the result or the performance as the “farewell party” for the Liverpool captain.

That sort of presentational cadence is better suited to a children’s programme: “I wonder what Mister Tubblewump has got under his hat today? Is it a pussycat?” but proved a mere bonbon compared to the glut of sickly-sweet sugar that was to come post-match when Jones interviewed an actual child, bending down to ask one of Gerrard’s daughters. “And what do you think of Daddy?” The young Miss Gerrard – scoop alert – declared herself strongly pro-Daddy.

It was Steven’s day, and let him do as he pleases, for he has earned the right and is by all accounts not a bad fellow, as footballers go. A certain sort or generation of English person might find the parading of one’s offspring around the stadium a bit OTT, but it would take a heart of stone to begrudge Gerrard a farewell of his choosing.

And yet, while the language used to laud Gerrard often harks back to a previous era (Boy’s Own, Roy of the Rovers, from standing on the Kop to club captain and so on) Sky’s coverage of his last match was very modern, in thrall to that hackneyed vogue for “the narrative” that the marketeers yearn to impose on to the kicking of balls. Inconvenient details were either glossed over (for instance, when the stadium announcer hailed a man who “won almost everything there was to win” as if a League title would have been merely a nice bonus rather than the main point of the whole operation) or ignored entirely (no mention of his 2005 request to leave the club and instead a portrayal of blissful, untroubled union).

t was reminder that Sky Sports is not just a reporter of sporting action but also the packager of an entertainment product.

The generation who grew up in Gerrard’s time are the children of the Premier League Super Mega Turbo Sunday and of PlayStation consoles where you control Gerrard (or Messi, or whoever) on your video game and make them perform outrageous on-screen feats. These fans want individual brilliance and superheroes over competition in the traditional sense but, as sportspeople from Sir Donald Bradman getting a duck at The Oval to Gerrard shooting limply wide in front of the Kop have found out, sport rarely delivers the glorious finale that promoters crave.

But grown-ups can still enjoy a cracking yarn without a Hollywood ending: there’s no need to shove the pre-determined children’s version down our throat.

[A11M11]

Pretty much the best day for my Sky box to pack up , I missed the whole Stevie love in. Unfortunately it reinitialised just in time for the first half at Old trafford and I had to sit through that . Could have waited another hour then I could have felt much better this morning.