I get the feeling Pep is engineering excuses ready for his departure at end of season.
Probably. That or knowing that heâs in a fight against 2 teams for the league this year.
I would think nothing of it. It is just a manager making excuses. It is normal. Everybody does it. I would certainly not read anything into it beyond that.
Donât be so rational
Anyway, it is good they dropped points. We need every advantage we can get if the Premiership title is our ultimate goal. Manchester City still have a very excellent team and we will continue to hope they drop points until the title is mathematically secured. So far, all is well though !
Thats if you take this comment on its own. Remember this week he mentioned fans too then offered to step down.
Yeah, but hasnât Pep always been fairly moody ? He is usually not a happy smiling man when they donât win or play as well as he likes. To be honest, I donât think any manager of note needs to make up excuses prior to leaving, if that should be the reason. If he wants to leave for different pastures, they canât stop him anyway and he is still one of the worldâs biggest names in management. But maybe he is a bit unhappy, if so then that is very good for us since that often infects player groups.
Lest we forget; They assembled that excellent team via FINANCIAL CHEATING. So f#ck 'em.
Pep is only drawing attention to the fact the club is not a big club, silly plonker.
Just wanted to point out that Walker clearly didnât foul Adams.
He fouled Armstrong.
Carry on.
Haha, Johnny Walker fouled Neil Armstrong.
Long distance fouled small step. No giant leap.
I rather be dumb than be hollow, ala Cheaty ⊠on reflection
âItâs finding excuses [to moan],â he said. âWhen I complain to my players or when you complain, you find an excuse and when you have excuses you cannot move forward. Excuses are the worst in the world in football, in sport. So Iâm not judging what the other managers said but the comment, what JĂŒrgen said â âtwo weeks offâ â the purpose I donât know. You have to ask him. Or I will ask him on Sunday the reason why he is saying that.
âSometimes we do it [say something strange] when it can be difficult for managers right after a game. Five minutes later you are so excited for a good thing or bad thing â itâs not easy for us. But when we are relaxed in [a pre-match] press conference and say something to [provoke]: I never did it.
âWell, I did it maybe once or twice for an exceptional reason but to [provoke]. Only I am concerned about the game, what we have to do to beat the opponents. From my lessons in football â finding an excuse: you cannot move forward, and sometimes I did it, I have to admit it, but it was a mistake for sure.â
Is it never or is it
@Sweeting like many a time a really good post, you almost come across as a closet Man City fan .
It is a strange one, a post earlier shows they donât have a history of having selling out games, yet I remember when they got relegated and spent a few years in the lower leagues they still attracted large crowds.
Referring to your post and the points you have raised its strange that we (LFC) share numerous parallels. Thankfully - although not always straightforward - we have had some big decisions work in our favour, admittedly some through luck.
Club ownership;
Moores and Parry selling the club. if my memory serves me right the first serious proposed buy out of the club was by the DIC consortium headed by some oil rich Sheik. In the end H&G brought the club via leverage and were soon quick to back track on their promises and almost seen the club become dissolved. Fortunately, we have a massive history/fanbase/commercial which meant we were heard and appealing to prospective buyers like FSG.
My view, is that at the time of the proposed DIC takeover, a high percentage of fans were in favour (including me) and additionally when H&G started screwing us, lambasted Moores decision to sell the club to them instead of DIC.
Looking back at this period of our clubs history, however bleak, I am glad it has happened. I believe as a club and fanbase we are stronger for this, we have not sold our soul and have maintained our dignity/respect whilst growing in the modern game.
Staying at Anfield;
During recent stewardship, there were serious discussions and at times a strong prospect of us relocating/building a new ground elsewhere. Like you touched upon, moving from your spiritual home has an affect, whether it be the fear of change, the acoustics, access, etc.
There are many clubs, Arsenal (bad example), West Ham, City, Southampton and others where the atmosphere/hostility has diminished due to the new stadium.
The underdog mentality;
History, especially recently will show trophies are won by a handful of clubs. So a lot of football fans are used to losing, having little expectations for their club and I respect that. I see this with City, they have for the majority of their history played second fiddle to UTD. And so the expectation of their fanbase was to beat Utd. rather than win trophies.
Transfers;
One of the most important aspects of a football clubs fortune, whether it be for trophies or financial stability.
In an ideal world, most fans would like to see their club bring through home grown players and sign players that are successful. They want to build a rapport with that player. If you look at us recently we have had players that split the fanbase, Wijnaldum, Lucas, Lovren to name but a few. When your club can afford to buy anyone you lose that relationship/affection with your unsung heroes, you are already looking at their replacement.
The clubs history/current management;
I will be honest in that my assessment here may come across as rose tinted and maybe naive as Im not a scouser, also I hope i dont say anything out of term.
LFC and Liverpool as a city has a great history but at the same time has had moments of incident, whether it be football tragedies or economic issues and injustice.
I mentioned it earlier, in that LFC is a big institution and with that comes great pressure, Liverpool fans want someone who identifies with them, which is why people like Shankly, Paisley, Dalglish, Benitez and Klopp are legends/immortalised where as Mancini, the old Guy, Guardiola, etc are just a part of their history.
Pep referenced the low attendance midweek, but likewise Klopp - early on his management - referred (I believe) that fans were leaving early.
This is where Klopp is miles ahead of Pep, for Klopp its not about him, its about everyone and thats why people love him. For Pep its about him, people will respect him and his achievements and rightly so but there is a grace to being successful.
Them moments;
As you say City have a couple of âthemâ moments. The Aguero and Kompany incidents, something by Franny Lee and a Dennis Law back heel.
I do think moments like these build a folklore, create a generation of fans. Like the Aguero goal, the Gerrard Olympiacos goal would have inspired just as many new fans, however, as you allude to the history of both clubs is different.
Conclusion:
We âmayâ have been/were fortunate that DIC did not purchase the club because we could have ended up with the same spiritless type of ownership seen at MC and just a pawn in their portfolio.
Rather than moving we decided to stay and renovate Anfield. This was a massive decision and I am glad we decided to do this, there have been a lot of memories created here and thankfully there is the opportunity to create more. However, if we had relocated how much of the atmosphere would have been lost.
Having a manager who gets us, understands how much of a community is Liverpool. Whether he is going bowls, or going to the local pub. Klopp has a way with words, he addresses the public in a way that people can relate to and believe in. He is a reluctant hero in that he likes to praise his staff/players/board, he is a humble human being.
Iv may have strayed away from my initial points, but i think what I was trying to allude to is that both clubs had a similar transition but fortunately the decisions we made, although not favoured by many fans have actually kept us in keeping with tradition and integrity.
They were shit the first half of last season, if we hadnât of lost our entire back line come Christmas we were walking the league.
Looking at it on MOTD I suspect they felt that the attacker was starting to go down before the contact albeit only fractionally. We have a poster who occasionally produces these graphics from our games that move the frames on mm by mm to prove a decision wrong. To use that type of freeze frame analysis to try to prove a referee in real time made the wrong decision is ridiculous. I particularly remember an incident in the home game against West Ham last season when a goal was disallowed after Mane and their keeper collided. His mm x mm graphics sparked maybe a hundred posts analysing the incident and still it was no clearer.
I passed Marineâs ground yesterday when there was a game in progress and I though oh for the days when you just went to the game and ok sometimes had a beef about the ref but by and large the decisions were accepted and you moved on. It isnât chessâŠthere isnât a right or wrong decision, only shades.
Anyway I would say in real time 99 times out of 100 in all levels of football that penalty yesterday would be given. Only in the Premier League could that possibly be reversed by analysing nanoseconds âŠand that is because we demand perfection and it actually doesnât exist.
MOTD said it was a penalty but not a red card, which I agree with.
After watching the incident this morning, for me itâs a foul, Walker made no contact with the ball. Also, I thought VAR is only supposed to get involved when thereâs a clear and obvious error.? That certainly wasnât a clear and obvious error by Moss.
Klopp did that a good few times actually. Not literally word by word, but appealing our fans to come and create an atmosphere (especially if itâs an early kick off).