#TAWMAG7 Daniel Sturridge Interview
NEIL is joined by Mike Girling, Steve Graves and John Gibbons as they try to pick the bones out of possibly the worst refereeing display in history.
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DIRECT LINK TO PODCAST: CHEATED
Good podcast.
You guys got there in the end: Webb is a homer. We’re just unlucky that we normally get him when we’re away. It’s no more complicated than that. After one ‘foul’ near the end given against us, you saw Suarez motion with his hand to indicate Webb was being influenced by the crowd. Just that. I’m not wasting any more keystrokes on Webb, the shitwad. Btw, refs are allowed to talk. They choose not to. There is no directive or edict that prevents them from talking.
We were (mostly) great today. We’ve played 180 minutes against Arsenal in the last 8 days and we’ve been the better team for 150 of them. Our most dejected player at the end was our C-F who realised he could have had a hat-trick, and their man of the match was their ‘keeper. Enough said.
Actually, it’s more like 160mins.
I genuinely think the reason referees (and The FA too) don’t come out and speak about incidents can be summed up by Abraham Lincoln in his quote: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Would I be right in thinking the 12th man had delivered a tray of cold drinks before this podcast was recorded? A number of times.
I think the lads got it right — we’re going away to teams like City, Chelski & Arsenal and playing better than them. We lost these games but only because of glaring refereeing decisions. I love the fact that we show up planning to play them at football and have invariably given these teams a real run for their money. It’s a very promising development.
As for Webb, no one likes conspiracy theories but how many games in a row in which he is the ref do we need to lose before it becomes obvious there’s a pattern? Reminds me of the Man U game last year when Shelvey and Evans both jumped in feet first and only Shelvey was shown the red. Everyone was outraged that we questioned the referee’s integrity and it was only a few months later when Halsey’s autobiography came out that we realised he’d be exchanging lovey-dovey texts with Ferguson. Sometimes you have to call it as it is.
Guys, can we stop the after game analysis; if I want to listen to drunken guys bell on about the game, I’ll head down the pub. Can we get back to a bigger group of reflective clear head analysis – not ‘Howard Webb is sh*t’ comments… Where has everyone gone, a bigger group meant more interesting listening. Starting to not listen as much anymore.
It works both ways for me John. On the one hand I’ve been buzzin when I’ve come on the site on a Sunday night and found the podcast up already. It’s a fantastic achievement by TAW. On the other hand I like to have something to look forward to each day of the week and on Mondays I come home from work and put the podcast on. I feel a bit disappointed that I’ve already heard it. All things considered though, I like it up on a Sunday. I like the choice. I don’t think this was a drunken podcast to be fair and it’s impossible to not mention Webb in the context of things. We’ve been able to lose the game yet feel like it was a moral victory of sorts. That context is important for our momentum and belief. I also think the Webb issue is something that needs addressing. For example, If I ran LFC i’d be writing to the league asking them to consider not having Webb ref our games. I strongly believe there’s a conflict of interest.
I totally agree Robin.
Oops, now it looks like me who is drunk, I meant to say: “I totally agree John.” I’m not a fan of drunken podcasts and I much preferred the old format. Still an ace podcast though. But yeah, please cut out the drinking to excess!
I have never understood Webb’s reputation. He seldom has a game without controversial decisions, and the blatant penalty decision was in no way balanced by his obvious copping out with Gerrard clearly meriting a red card. It is ado possible that the second penalty would also have warranted a red card.
On the latter point, I do not see why a penalty and red card both applied. The offending team is punished three times, because they also lose a player for a match.
Eyes on the prize boys. 12 super tough games coming up against far better sides than Fulham who had no offensive outlook.
It’s these games like Swansea, Southampton, Crystal Palace, West Ham where the team gets in your face that we struggle, and of course the big teams aren’t bankers in anyway either.
We MUST get 7 wins at least to protect our position if not 8 or 9 so it’s a huge fight in every game. We don’t want to end up with 4 wins and wonder what happened to our challenge. That’s the problem with 12 games left. It’s enough to look at stats and say we are getting 2 out of every 3 points and that’s great, but sooooo much can happen. The season still has 1/3 to run. That’s a LOT of football to come and we don’t want 4 pt gap to become 6, 8 and 10.
We have to keep our heads, our composure and not let the heads drop whatever happens. It’s a marathon run like a 400m runner and there’s going to be screaming muscles and lactic acid burn out but we have to stick in there no matter what.
This is a season amongst seasons. It’s weird and wacky. Point spreads are just bizarre with big teams losing all over the place.
No second chances. We just have to win our games.