Petty behaviour and yet more refereeing errors blighted the Manchester Derby. Is this really what fans want to watch in the Premier League?…
LIVERPOOL drew with Fulham at the weekend. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.
We started a game and then finished it. The Reds weren’t bad but were also nowhere near good enough. Three draws from four games. Unbeaten but far from impressive. Could be worse and, my God, it could be better. Should be, in fact, but it’s early days and you can make out what the manager is trying to do as well as work out what the issues are.
Liverpool are a bit of a bland night out at the moment. Forgettable, but at least we’ve had a night out.
The main stories of the weekend came at Old Trafford. Firstly, in the shape of Bruno Fernandes and Phil Foden and then the latest PGMOL (or whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays) display of ‘Yes, obviously it’s offside but we’ve got the whistle so tough.’
It’s not always to look at these things objectively as, part of being a Liverpool fan of unspeakable decades and from the city where a snarl eastwards comes with the DNA, I’m biologically governed by a wish to see them both fair poorly. The best result in any Manchester derby is a pre-match locust infestation centralised around the centre circle.
That said, I’ve always enjoyed the fixture, mostly because despite not being able to have a satisfying result inasmuch as one of them tends to win, I also can’t lose. True, City won an away game which is a shame, but United lost at home and that always buoys a flagging spirit.
But the red card. Jesus.
This stuff is gold for the content seeker. We can debate whether Foden deserved it for limply kicking his man in the guts, but most of the discussion focused on the Portuguese poking his toes into Foden’s arse before the retaliation. Where were you on the crucial details?
I found a third way. Just get up and play the game.
I know. It’s a bit prehistoric, isn’t it? A bit back to basics, but when I saw it, I wondered if the only action needed was to tell them both to get up and give a free-kick for the initial foul. Or none at all, depending on your view of it. I’m of the ‘just get up and get on with it’ approach.
Not everything has to be ‘an incident.’ Tell them to stop being stupid and book the pair of them or neither. No one’s arsed.
This stuff affects us too. When Forest came to Anfield, I was praying we wouldn’t shoot wildly simply because it gave the Forest keeper Matz Sels free licence to hold onto the ball for another 90 seconds for the hell of it. ‘Just book him!’ I shouted at the irritated ref who didn’t.
It was further galling to me then when the latest footage of RefCam or whatever it’s called came out and the referee, Sam Barrott, told the keeper that he can see what he’s doing and reminded him that ‘this isn’t a water break.’
And the result. Sels kept holding onto the ball and remained unbooked throughout.
I ended up just reading my phone whenever the ball went out, safe in the knowledge that I was missing nothing.
I get it, of course. The dark arts are in play to gain a small advantage when a team is in the lead. Bruno Fernandes loves a bit of this and if he’s got to morph into a dying swan to get a fellow professional sent off then that’s what he’s going to do. We do it too, though not as spectacularly – or spectacularly poorly – as him.
I just want to watch the ball move. I think the football should be the main act, not the war of attrition that runs alongside it. The drama should be from the game itself, not through ‘incidents.’
This is different from the Dietmar Hamann school of winning free-kicks. It’s the Pickfordification of ‘taking time out of the game’ I can’t stand. We’ve paid for this!
Just get up and get on with the game, Bruno, Phil.
In any case, City won the game through a goal that wasn’t a goal, so we all win. Obviously the PGMOL (or, again, whoever they are now) have since apologised for their absolutely obvious error that the world could see and have promised to not do it again so that’s alright. The disappointed United fans will take some comfort in having their Sunday ruined by ‘the noisy neighbours.’
Erm. ‘We may have lost but we sort of didn’t even though we did,’ they’ll mutter the next morning.
Just play the game. That’s what we’re here for. Not the support act.
